391–400 of 497 posts
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Credit cards don't require a PIN. Just get a credit card and pay it off every month. Free points!
America has much higher "rewards" than anywhere else. The reward money comes straight out of merchant fees.
The question isn't why germans pay cash. the question is, why would you do it any other way?? I'll tell you why. In other countries we allow credit card companies to tax the masses. By creating regulations that prevent merchants from charging a different price for cash vs credit, you effectively force everyone to pay 2.5% extra for every purchase. That 2.5% goes straight to the credit card companies, even if you pay…
Additionally cash increase the potential for tax evasion, which means that increases the price of government for those who are legitimate.
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But why would they care? Stripe does payments every 3 days or so and you can easily create more accounts. I never ever checked my credit card history, and I assume many people who only use it as secondary payment system don't. It's easy as fuck therefore IMO a valid scenario.
Without the CVC code, Stripe isn't going to accept the payment. Even if it did, the bank is likely to block the transaction, or call/text for verification.
I heard that those are very easy to crack. It might have been this article from 2011 where I read about this (German, sorry): http://www.zeit.de/2011/21/Kreditkarten-Sicherheit
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As a German a.) I mostly pay cash because it's faster b.) some shops that can afford it only have cash payments to save on CC costs Not because of inflation or because something happend 100y ago.
I recently moved from the Netherlands, where card is overwhelmingly favoured (at least in Amsterdam and Den Haag, I've never been somewhere that doesn't take card and some places refuse cash) to Berlin, which I think is even more pro-cash than most of Germany. Cash is way slower, and I've now got a couple euros' worth of coppers that are utterly worthless because no-one's going to bother counting them out. In the Net…
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I was on holiday in Germany. In The Netherlands I pay everything with my contactless debit card, where you hold it near the reader, wait 1 second and then you've paid. Every cashier in Germany (provided they accepted cards in the first place) insisted on "taking" my card, sticking it in the machine for a non-contactless payment, then hand me the machine so I can enter the PIN, then take back the machine, wait for the…
But ... what if you lose your card?? I guess Germans are generally very precautious and wouldn't trust contactless debit cards.
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> Germany doesn’t use the MasterCard or the VISA network Well, it is used (almost all major stores and large grocery chains support both Visa and MasterCard), but Girocard is far more widespread.
Only since the EU limited the fees. Until 2016, neither ALDI nor LIDL nor REWE nor PENNY nor Edeka nor Coop supported it.
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Not German, but I simply don't want to leave my trail of what I am spending and where.
I also think/thought like that. But if banks wanted, they could actually track the serial codes on the bills around. And since often cash is used in only 1 hop (so ATM -> you -> shop -> bank) they could know pretty well where you spent your money. A quick reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948081 E.g. about China: "According to schedule, by late 2015, the serial number of every Rmb100 note withdrawn fro…
That doesn't include how much you spend exactly. And it only works most of the time (what if my money gets used as change for another customer?).
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As an american, I find it strange that cash is faster. Most people who pay cash need to wait to get the change back unless they know the total beforehand and happen to have exact change. In the US, credit card machines are very fast even the chip enabled ones. Cash workflow: - Cashier tells you the total amount - You look in your wallet/purse - You spend time counting exact change if you do have it - If not, you take…
Cash workflow: - Cashier tells you the total amount - I get a 10 EUR note from my trouser pocket - Cashier gives back money - I put money in trouser pocket - Done - Home: I put all spare money in a large glass jar Credit card workflow: - Cashier tells you the total amount - You look in your wallet/purse - You swipe card/insert in chip reader - You insert PIN number - You shield your PIN entrie from the people next to…
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Without the CVC code, Stripe isn't going to accept the payment. Even if it did, the bank is likely to block the transaction, or call/text for verification.
> CVC code I heard that those are very easy to crack. It might have been this article from 2011 where I read about this (German, sorry): http://www.zeit.de/2011/21/Kreditkarten-Sicherheit
The question isn't why germans pay cash. the question is, why would you do it any other way?? I'll tell you why. In other countries we allow credit card companies to tax the masses. By creating regulations that prevent merchants from charging a different price for cash vs credit, you effectively force everyone to pay 2.5% extra for every purchase. That 2.5% goes straight to the credit card companies, even if you pay…
The credit card fee overhead might be too high, but every form of payment system has overhead to operate & maintain, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that.