Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card • Hacker News Board

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#11

Post by TylerE » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

tinus_hn wrote: post #10

kstrauser wrote: post #5

I don't like retailers storing my credit card info in dodgy databases that end up on the dark web. I understand that stores don't want to lose all their profit to interchange fees. That's reasonable. At the same time, I personally wouldn't be so dogmatic about using Apple Pay or an Apple Card if I hadn't had my debit card ganked five times in the last seven years. In other words, they've brought this on themselves, a…

Ultimately the problem is with the banks/issuers who refuse to support and require more secure solutions like chip cards, instead of clinging on to the hopelessly outdated standard of authenticating payments with knowledge of a number printed on a card.

Chip cards aren't without their problems, also. I've yet to have one last more than 9-10 months before the chip stops working reliably.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#12

Post by slg » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #4

So do retailers like paying the fees for other cards, or is the headline just apple bait?

The article states that the fees are higher because it is designated an "elite" card. American Express cards also have a higher fee than the standard Visa or Mastercard and plenty of retailers complain about that or refuse to accept Amex.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#13

Post by freehunter » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #11

tinus_hn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately the problem is with the banks/issuers who refuse to support and require more secure solutions like chip cards, instead of clinging on to the hopelessly outdated standard of authenticating payments with knowledge of a number printed on a card.

Chip cards aren't without their problems, also. I've yet to have one last more than 9-10 months before the chip stops working reliably.

I've been running into that a lot... I'm replacing my card once a year because the chip stops working. It's one of the most embarrassing things when your card is declined repeatedly and there are people in line behind you. Or worse you're on a date and your date thinks you're overdrafted.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#14

Post by Dirlewanger » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #8

> “It’s almost like an arms race of who can offer the most rewards,” says Chris Ligan, vice president for acquisitions at Auric, which has seen use of premium cards climb 7% this year. “The person stuck with the bill is the merchant.” And they pass it on to us.

Maybe smaller places that can't absorb the merchant fees as easily, but big retail places don't usually charge more for using certain credit cards. It'd probably cost them a chunk of business if they did.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#15

Post by kstrauser » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #3

Note that back in November, @DHH from Basecamp had strong words about the Apple Card with regards to sexism. I know there's active investigations going on with it, but I know of no results. Then again, it's just been 1 month, which is pretty much 'yesterday' in bank time. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1192540900393705474

I have no opinions about DHH in general, but he's just wrong here. He tweets:

> Hilarious how much mansplaining is flowing in this thread. Every single poster questioning my wife’s credit score, a man. Every single defense of Apple blaming GS, a man. Almost like men are over represented in the defense/justification of discrimination that doesn’t affect them?

which immediately costs him all credibility in this specific case. Factually, it is GS making the decision. It's Apple's problem to address because they're contracting to GS, but it was GS's algorithms (oh no, he calls that out too!) that rendered the credit decision. And he glosses over that credit score pretty issue quickly, which is kind of sexist and bullshitty in itself. Without saying whether her score is decent, he says she should get the same credit he does because she's married to him, as though her creditworthiness derives from their relationship. What the...? Does the have income of her own? A credit history of her own? If DHH isn't co-signing, his existence even involved in the decision.

There are plenty of things to protest in the credit score game. You can fairly criticize it in many, many ways. But I saw nothing in his complaint that was unique to Apple or GS, and DHH's complaint seems to come down a non sequitur complaint against Apple and GS for their use of industry-standard credit ratings.

Edit: he does say her credit score was higher than his. My bad. He still doesn't mention their relative income.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#16

Post by freehunter » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #3

Note that back in November, @DHH from Basecamp had strong words about the Apple Card with regards to sexism. I know there's active investigations going on with it, but I know of no results. Then again, it's just been 1 month, which is pretty much 'yesterday' in bank time. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1192540900393705474

This seems pretty off-topic considering it's just rumors and hearsay at this point and the topic isn't about who can get an Apple Card.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#17

Post by snypox » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #5

I don't like retailers storing my credit card info in dodgy databases that end up on the dark web. I understand that stores don't want to lose all their profit to interchange fees. That's reasonable. At the same time, I personally wouldn't be so dogmatic about using Apple Pay or an Apple Card if I hadn't had my debit card ganked five times in the last seven years. In other words, they've brought this on themselves, a…

When I was in the US (Nevada and Cali) I was so surprised how many places don’t accept contactless payment. Here in Hungary, even the smallest convenience stores accept it.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#18

Post by supernova87a » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

This system is completely convoluted, with the incentives all over the place between merchant, bank, CC processor, consumer. It's the kind of thing that will never change until you go to a different country or start an alternative payment system that is 10x better, because no one has the power or will to displace the existing infrastructure.

Consumers don't care because they don't (directly) pay the bill for these benefits, and only see the kickback rewards as a positive.

Banks don't care, actually they like it, because rewards help them attract customers who don't care who pays.

Merchants can't put up too big a fight because they can't leave unless they're big enough to stomach the loss in revenue, or can make customers shift payment method (like Costco, say).

CC processors love it because regardless, they get payment traffic and commissions.

Whereas in other countries, this system would be crazy.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#19

Post by OatMilkLatte » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #14

ceejayoz wrote: post #8

> “It’s almost like an arms race of who can offer the most rewards,” says Chris Ligan, vice president for acquisitions at Auric, which has seen use of premium cards climb 7% this year. “The person stuck with the bill is the merchant.” And they pass it on to us.

Maybe smaller places that can't absorb the merchant fees as easily, but big retail places don't usually charge more for using certain credit cards. It'd probably cost them a chunk of business if they did.

Or their merchant account. I think they disallow charging different prices based on the card type - there was a big blowup a few years back because retailers didn't want to pay the higher fees to accept debit cards, but had to because the debit cards had VISA or MasterCard logos and therefore had to be treated the same way as VISA or MasterCard credit cards.

Re: Retailers Don’t Like Paying the Fees for Apple Card

#20

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #14

ceejayoz wrote: post #8

> “It’s almost like an arms race of who can offer the most rewards,” says Chris Ligan, vice president for acquisitions at Auric, which has seen use of premium cards climb 7% this year. “The person stuck with the bill is the merchant.” And they pass it on to us.

Maybe smaller places that can't absorb the merchant fees as easily, but big retail places don't usually charge more for using certain credit cards. It'd probably cost them a chunk of business if they did.

Their prices will be set to absorb the average mix of rewards and non-rewards card that retailer sees. They're certainly not going to consider it a charitable donation to high credit-score folks.

It'd be much fairer if they surcharged rewards cards, or if we went the European approach and capped interchange fees at something reasonable. The current system is basically a regressive tax on people with lower credit scores.