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Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

theguardian.com

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Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#141

Post by anoncoward111 »

merinowool wrote: post #80
anoncoward111 wrote: post #71

Ironically my credit card info literally got stolen at a restaurant last night and most of the purchases they tried to make were declined hahahahah Honestly, I really enjoy using my credit card. I can buy anything, anytime, online, the customer service department always resolves fraud quickly, and they even pay me to use the damn thing

That works fine until people sleepwalk into cashless society and then someone from the government will think you are undesirable and delete your assets.

Look, I really despise the government too, but...

... FDR confiscated the gold lol. If they want something of yours, they will take it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#142

Post by paulie_a »

Woofles wrote: post #132
jayd16 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time there's no explicit CC charge so you'd still be paying for it whether you paid cash or not.

In fact I'm pretty sure Visa and Mastercard forbid charging a different price if customers pay in cash.

In the US, that is no longer true. They can at least have a minimum, not sure if they can charge differently, but for small purchases it is effectively the same

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#143

Post by blensor »

gargravarr wrote: post #108
ams6110 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some cards don't even have the raised, embossed printing anymore, so the imprint method wouldn't work.

And you can bet that even if they did, the staff wouldn't be trained in using it. Particularly true for large stores with high turnovers of young workers. Card machines going down is a one-in-a-million event.

It's not only the card network but also the infrastructure connecting the store to the card network. And the card readers themselves as well. I would say I am at least once a month in a store where, due to some incident, they can't accept electronic payments and have a sign 'card payments not working' on at least one checkout counter

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#144

Post by toast0 »

Woofles wrote: post #132
jayd16 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time there's no explicit CC charge so you'd still be paying for it whether you paid cash or not.

In fact I'm pretty sure Visa and Mastercard forbid charging a different price if customers pay in cash.

They don't forbid charging a different price, or even advertising a different price; they only forbid advertising a surcharge for using a card. An advertised cash discount is acceptable. States may have further requirements, for example, California requires gas stations report credit prices in at least the same size numbers as cash prices, but enforcement is light.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#145

Post by distances »

thesimon wrote: post #120
distances wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I think Amex is very rarely accepted -- I don't own one, but judging by the "we accept these cards" labels outside stores.

I guess it depends what you are optimizing for. Groceries is a quite big expense part for me, so REWE, Aldi and tegut in Germany are quite good for earning. Other expenses are traveling, where basically everyone accepts Amex. Starbucks accepts is as well, quite a lot of McDonalds and most fashion retailers as well. You probably can't survive on Amex alone, but at least in Germany there is a quite big chunk that you c…

Interesting, sounds like it is more widely accepted than I thought after all.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#146

Post by mmagin »

gargravarr wrote: post #24

What's the betting someone pushed something to production on a Friday afternoon and has now gone to the pub?

One would expect that this is some kind of very hard to anticipate cascading failure in a distributed system. I find it hard to believe that it would be possible for something affecting all Visa transactions in a region would be deployable by a individual or without extensive integration testing.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#147

Post by zubairq »

Not all VISA transactions are protected. I had a scammer steal my credit card while watching my pin entered at a restaurant and then withdraw cash. The bank (Lloyds Bank in the UK) recfused to refund the money, even though there was video of the thief withdrawing the money

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#148

Post by daledavies »

makomk wrote: post #137
falcon620 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's not helpful, I'm afraid. Also demonstrably incorrect. Amex is still operating in the UK, for example.

There is precisely one issuer of non-Mastercard/Visa credit cards in the UK - Amex - and they're not accepted nearly as widely. There are exactly five banks which issue Mastercard debit cards rather than Visa - Virgin Money, Citibank, Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank, and Metro Bank - and none of them are particularly major players. (I think it was down to three or less at one point; Virgin and Citibank only switched…

Yeah I've banked with 4 different people now in the UK and had visa debit cards every time.

Anyway I got declined with my visa debit card earlier, tried another payment terminal in the supermarket and it worked fine.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#149

Post by fauigerzigerk »

falcon620 wrote: post #125
makomk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all Mastercard/Visa now in the UK, for both debit and credit cards - and I think Visa is probably the more common of the two these days. Debit cards are pretty much always Visa here and have been for about a decade now.

Yeah, that's not helpful, I'm afraid. Also demonstrably incorrect. Amex is still operating in the UK, for example.

95% of debit cards in the UK are Visa according to the FT.

Re: Visa card network crashes, causing increased decline rates across UK and Europe

#150

Post by imustbeevil »

stanleydrew wrote: post #114
mseebach wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen an estimate that credit cards are actually slightly cheaper overall for the economy than cash, when you factor in everything. The physical infrastructure to deal with cash is not cheap.

Even without the physical infrastructure it might be cheaper to use credit cards. How much cash is lost in loose change after small transactions every year? I'd bet more than 2%

This is actually a benefit because it subtly counteracts inflation.
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