381–390 of 541 posts
America is so stuck in legacy tech. Nobody checks signatures. Strong Factor Authentication requires min 2 of 3. India is leapfrogging to biometrics using Aadhar. Europe is current with chip and pin. America is in quill pen stage
It turns out that a signature on a bank check means nothing. Neither does the payer name on the check. Not the amount in cursive. Nor does the check paper. The only things that are checked are the digits of the amount, and the account number. The rest of the check can be complete garbage, and the check will go through and the bank will pay it. Then the banks will blame you, the account holder. I learned this the hard…
It amazes me that cheques are still used. I'm 36 and I've never issued a cheque, I think I was issued a cheque book with my first account but never used it.
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Australia, pretty much everyone accepts BPay which is an online direct payment system or direct bank to bank transfers. These both take < 3 business days
Even waiting one day is pretty poor when it comes to funds transfer times, let alone three! It's a significant burden on commerce, businesses, and individuals to be without their funds for that long. And a big win for greedy banks who boost their balance sheets and profits by holding all those "in transit" funds. In the UK, the "Faster" payment system, introduced about 10 years ago, means that the vast majority of ba…
BPay is only for bills and stuff - I'm sure my power company don't care that much that if I pay my bill on Friday night it doesn't clear until 9am on Monday morning... (it still counts as the bill being paid on Friday). It usually clears next day on business days anyway.
Also, the bank's balance sheets don't get a "boost" from holding payments. Deposits and other customer funds are strictly a liability to the bank (they owe them back to you), and they don't automatically get interest on them. So they don't have as much incentive as say a company does to pay invoices late to collect more interest.
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And what am I supposed to do about it? My point is - in US not tipping felt like being an absolute asshole, to a point where people would be upset - they grew up in a culture that values money above all else and not being tipped is I don't know, an equivalent of being spat in the face? In UK I've never felt that way. I've had perfectly good meals that I didn't tip on, just like I did in France, Spain or Germany and i…
So its not up to you to enter a restaurant prepared to pay for the meal? You can do lots about it; in fact nobody else but you can do anything about it. I'd rant about "this generation is so entitled" but hey that post says it all.
I have paid for the meal. At the end of my visit I was given a receipt and paid the indicated price - what else do you want? If the server is disappointed they didn't get a tip, then I think I know who is entitled in this relationship, and I have a very strong suspicion it's not me.
>> in fact nobody else but you can do anything about it
I pay my employees a good wage - so why can't the restaurant owner do the same? It's not up to me to make sure that a waiter is satisfied with their job - it's their employers problem, just like I have to take care of my own employees.
It turns out that a signature on a bank check means nothing. Neither does the payer name on the check. Not the amount in cursive. Nor does the check paper. The only things that are checked are the digits of the amount, and the account number. The rest of the check can be complete garbage, and the check will go through and the bank will pay it. Then the banks will blame you, the account holder. I learned this the hard…
Yeah, I once wrote my landlord a check and totally forgot to sign it. The bank cashed it just fine, I was surprised. It also depends on the teller, how much of a hardass they are going to be about cashing it. I guess I don't know what the protocol is for for mobile deposit, they may or may not have manual review.
We Australians are two steps ahead - I barely even use a pin now! I use PayWave (NFC) nearly all the time and often businesses find it strange when you want to insert or swipe your card.
But in general you can't actually sign anymore, you have to either use PayWave or chip and pin.
In the UK cards moved to 'chip and pin' in 2006! Fraud in a 'customer present' scenario is very low at our stores. The last fraud in fact was a foreign card that didn't support chip and pin. I can't believe Visa and MasterCard have not made it mandatory world wide... ...except card fraud lossed are recharged to the merchant so perhaps they don't care? Out of interest there is a special exception for disabled people w…
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Tipping still happens in Europe and SE Asia it's just not silly like North America. In the UK we'd leave a few pounds typically, let's say table bill was 47gbp, you have be a shameless mingebag to collect the 3gbp change if you were happy with the meal and service. But we don't subscribe to the non sense of 10% tip if unhappy, 15-20% if happy, if crap you don't leave a tip or pay service charge.
Most importantly, you don't have to tip in the UK. It's appreciated but literally no one minds if you don't.
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Credit cards in general are not too popular in Europe, they're either not accepted at all or only Visa and Mastercard are accepted. A Maestro debit card is your best bet and will work in almost all terminals in Europe.
This is not at all true of London. Last time I was there I didn’t even get local currency as I used credit for everything.
Paying by card is very common in some countries (Northern Europe, France), paying by credit card is common in some (UK, Ireland), paying by cash is common in others (Germany).
It's not possible to generalize all of Europe for any of these, except to say that all EU/EEA countries have modern systems.
(For example, there are restaurants in Sweden that don't take cash, and restaurants in Germany that don't take any cards, restaurants in Denmark that charge an extra 2% if you use a credit card rather than a debit card, and restaurants in Britain that happily accept the 5% it costs them to accept AmEx.)
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I'm visiting London this summer (I'm from Texas). Normally, I pay for everything with American Express. Would you recommend I get a different card for London? I wonder if there's a US card that support chip and pin?
All stores still accept signature payments. Although not everywhere accepts AMEX due to the higher merchant fees.
(It may be possible, but require the manager's discretion or authorization.)