I just lost my wallet on the way home from work • Hacker News Board

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#41

Post by noneeeed » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #7

debt wrote: post #5

What's a "reference"? You can enter arbitrary info during a transaction? Genuinely curious. Is this a UK thing or available everywhere?

In the Netherlands, for at least the last 35 years, transaction forms have a field "Description" where you can enter arbitrary text. Originally on paper, now electronically. Is that in any way remarkable?!

American banking infrastructure is weirdly antiquated.

For a long time I was confused by Americans raving about things like venmo or bitcoin talking about it making it cheap and easy to transfer money. Then I learnt more about the US banking system and it all made a lot more sense.

Planet Money did an episode all about it, featuring someone from the UK talking about our Faster Payments system, who is basically instant.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#42

Post by chrisseaton » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

debt wrote: post #5

What's a "reference"? You can enter arbitrary info during a transaction? Genuinely curious. Is this a UK thing or available everywhere?

When you pay someone, how do you let them know what it's for without adding a customer number, or a note saying 'thanks for dinner' or something? That's a reference.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#43

Post by markdown » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

debt wrote: post #5

What's a "reference"? You can enter arbitrary info during a transaction? Genuinely curious. Is this a UK thing or available everywhere?

It's always been a thing in the countries I've banked at: Fiji, New Zealand, Australia.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#44

Post by epx » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

kart23 wrote: post #33

epx wrote: post #11

If social media posts cost 0.01, things would be way better.

this might actually be a decent idea for an instagram competitor. Sounds dystopian, but I'm sure a good marketing department could make it seem normal.

If I had deep pockets I'd actually work on this idea. One issue I find is the processing cost of such nanopayments. Cryptocoins didn't live up to the promise of enabling this use case :(

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#45

Post by journalctl » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

Nition wrote: post #30

umvi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do a picture search on Facebook?

They would have looked up the name and then found the matching profile pic to narrow it down.

Yup. It’s admittedly a bit unsettling, but people make their info public and I was trying to be helpful. Might as well try to use social media for some good, ya know?

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#46

Post by degenerate » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

isp wrote: post #2

See also ancient bash.org lore: http://bash.org/?814243

Would be amazing if that's where this guy got the idea, from a Bash.org post in 2000

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#47

Post by journalctl » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:16 PM UTC

tobr wrote: post #22

My bank only seems to allow 12 characters. Why is that? What am I even supposed to do with 12 characters?

It’s enough for a phone number, at least!

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#48

Post by simonebrunozzi » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #18

Life lesson: Keep a note with your email address in your wallet - clearly marked "wallet owner's email". Paranoid version of the life lesson: Keep a note with an anonymized email address, with forwarding set up for the message to go to your actual mailbox, in your wallet.

> Advanced/paranoid version of the life lesson:

This! You never know.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#49

Post by calebegg » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

Nition wrote: post #26

vincentmarle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, you pay $16 to send a wire and $16 to receive a wire. So, wires are not as common as in Europe. On the other hand, ordering your bank to print a paper check, and send it through postal mail is free of charge.

$16 to pay someone? How do you do something like transfer your friend some money? Or pay someone who did some work for you? Here in New Zealand you'd tend to get their bank account number and send them a (free) direct deposit through your bank's Internet banking service. Until very recently that was also the main payment method for our eBay auction site equivalent TradeMe (they've now started a sort of PayPal clone c…

>How do you do something like transfer your friend some money? Or pay someone who did some work for you?

Venmo mostly.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#50

Post by samfriedman » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

Nition wrote: post #26

vincentmarle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, you pay $16 to send a wire and $16 to receive a wire. So, wires are not as common as in Europe. On the other hand, ordering your bank to print a paper check, and send it through postal mail is free of charge.

$16 to pay someone? How do you do something like transfer your friend some money? Or pay someone who did some work for you? Here in New Zealand you'd tend to get their bank account number and send them a (free) direct deposit through your bank's Internet banking service. Until very recently that was also the main payment method for our eBay auction site equivalent TradeMe (they've now started a sort of PayPal clone c…

in practice, no one uses the banks directly to send money like that: we use apps like Venmo / CashApp that take your debit card/bank info and act as an intermediary for sending/receiving money.