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Great work Visa, now I hate you

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Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#161

Post by barrkel »

corin_ wrote: post #2

This reads like the sort of post that so often goes on bad logic riding on emotion, but it's a completely valid point. I'm a Visa user, plus I don't plan on going anywhere near the Olympics despite living fairly close to London, but when I heard about this marketing plan I literally thought it had to be one of those hilarious fake news stories. But it wasn't. Stuff like the McDonalds sponsorship he mentioned (banning…

I live just beside Victoria Park, about 0.5 miles away from the Olympic park. You would scarcely even know the Olympics are on by what I see in east London. If anything, it's much quieter than usual. Staying away on account of it isn't necessary. At worst, there's a little bit of delay on the A12 as it goes past one of the park entrances and narrows down to a single lane for 200m or so, but that's about it.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#162

Post by icegreentea »

HEYGRANDMA wrote: post #150
icegreentea wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you guys are doing that by giving cash discount, instead of charging extra on credit (yeah, I know). That is against both visa's and mastercard's terms of service, and they will go after you for that.

A surcharge for using credit cards is fairly common here; as far as I'm aware it's not against their ToS within Australia. Here's a relevant article which discusses attempts to limit the surcharges: http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/351577/20120613/rba-seeks-lim...

Hm. In North America, the surcharge is against VISA terms of service (linky Canadian government resource below - the terms of services are largely the same within North America). In addition, surcharges are illegal in 10 US states.

http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/resources/faq/qaview-eng.asp?...

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#163

Post by brianbreslin »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #144
cs702 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers learn something crucial from this marketing campaign: that American Express and certain other credit cards are NOT accepted by some merchants, so it's a good idea to get and always carry a Visa card -- by implication, the only card accepted everywhere.

The problem is that everyone know that other cards are accepted everywhere apart from the olympics, or at least Mastercard is. This is more like BMW deciding to sponsor the construction of a road and only allowing their cars to pass.

I've seen Lexus sponsor parking lots or garages at sporting events, and lexus owners get to park for free. everyone else pays full price

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#164

Post by pyre »

jellicle wrote: post #147
dangrossman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I simply can't understand how it could be viewed positively by any consumer Visa's market research suggests a significant increase in Visa usage and Visa brand value among consumers aware of their Olympic sponsorship (which has been ongoing since 1986, and already committed through the next 4 Olympics games): > According to the U.S. Sponsorship Tracker, a Visa commissioned study following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic…

>According to the U.S. Sponsorship Tracker, a Visa commissioned study following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games conducted by Performance Research When a company is paying for research about its own decisions, the research always comes back that the decision was wonderful, or that research firm doesn't get hired again.

Just depends on whether or not the results are meant to public consumption. I find it hard that no one at Visa would want an honest study from time to time, but I can also easily believe that sometimes studies are commissioned with the end-goal being to justify an already set-in-store decision.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#165

Post by thebigshane »

jellicle wrote: post #147
dangrossman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I simply can't understand how it could be viewed positively by any consumer Visa's market research suggests a significant increase in Visa usage and Visa brand value among consumers aware of their Olympic sponsorship (which has been ongoing since 1986, and already committed through the next 4 Olympics games): > According to the U.S. Sponsorship Tracker, a Visa commissioned study following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic…

>According to the U.S. Sponsorship Tracker, a Visa commissioned study following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games conducted by Performance Research When a company is paying for research about its own decisions, the research always comes back that the decision was wonderful, or that research firm doesn't get hired again.

Wouldn't they just be able to look at their own records to see any trends (or lack thereof)? Presumably Visa is investing multi-millions of dollars of into this, surely they expect to see a return on that investment. If the fail to see that return, surely they would stop. They haven't stopped. I'm thinking that the research firm was probably right.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#166

Post by polshaw »

christoph wrote: post #59
bencoder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to some European countries, the UK is far behind. Many of the smaller retailers and pubs/bars still don't accept card or require minimum spends (£5 or £10) to be able to use cards. In Finland it seems that absolutely everywhere accepts card and cash is very rare. I'd guess at least 95% of the in-person transactions that I see are made with card. Even for the smallest amounts.

This is very true. The merchant fees in the UK and therefore the minimum spend between merchants can vary enormously. For instance, I can buy milk at £0.49 on an American Express card in Tesco, but in my local pub, anything under £10 (on any card other than AmEx - AmEx is still not accepted in that many places in the UK) requires me to pay a £1 transaction fee. There is no reason behind this, other than Tesco are so…

There is a reason behind this. Tesco deems it worthwhile to take a (smaller) hit to keep your business, whereas your local pub believes you aren't going to switch pubs, and just wants to encourage you to use cash so that they keep as much of the price of your drinks as possible (i say this because £1 in 10 is a 'penalty' more than covering costs.. which should be closer to 30p).

IE, your choice of supermarket is more elastic than your choice of pub.

Bitcoin seems to be the closest thing we have to disrupting this, but the chicken and egg problem isn't going anywhere.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#167

Post by thebigshane »

jacalata wrote: post #127
dangrossman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I simply can't understand how it could be viewed positively by any consumer Visa's market research suggests a significant increase in Visa usage and Visa brand value among consumers aware of their Olympic sponsorship (which has been ongoing since 1986, and already committed through the next 4 Olympics games): > According to the U.S. Sponsorship Tracker, a Visa commissioned study following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic…

He wasn't asking 'why sponsor the olympics', he was asking 'why take the exclusive angle'. Saying 'they've been doing it for years' does not answer that.

Saying "they've been doing it for years" implies that it probably works. That is the answer (well okay, it's his answer)

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#168

Post by pyre »

mthoms wrote: post #6

During the Vancouver Olympics not only were we not permitted to use other credit cards, we couldn't even use our bank-issued debit cards for payment (in Canada we don't have Visa Debit cards - our debit cards are issued directly from banks have been accepted everywhere for nearly two decades.) Cash or Visa Only. So there I was at an official Olympic souvenir shop picking up some gifts when I was told no - I'd have to…

  > in Canada we don't have Visa Debit cards
Visa seems to be pushing these into the Canadian market. In Toronto, they have ads for Visa debit cards running the length of buses / subway cars. Looks like it's only being offered through major banks though. (Though I guess that doesn't apply retroactively to the Vancouver Olympics... ;-)

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#170

Post by varikin »

jellicle wrote: post #147
dangrossman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I simply can't understand how it could be viewed positively by any consumer Visa's market research suggests a significant increase in Visa usage and Visa brand value among consumers aware of their Olympic sponsorship (which has been ongoing since 1986, and already committed through the next 4 Olympics games): > According to the U.S. Sponsorship Tracker, a Visa commissioned study following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic…

>According to the U.S. Sponsorship Tracker, a Visa commissioned study following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games conducted by Performance Research When a company is paying for research about its own decisions, the research always comes back that the decision was wonderful, or that research firm doesn't get hired again.

>or that research firm doesn't get hired again.

This is the key part. Research funded by biased parties can produce valid research and results. There is the case of the physicist that was skeptical of global warming that was funded by the Koch brothers to study global warming. As a scientist, at a well known college for physics, he was skeptical but not blinded by money/politics. His research changed is mind completely.

But, like you said, he won't be hired again by two brothers that are wealthily through oil.

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