Great work Visa, now I hate you • Hacker News Board

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#211

Post by corin_ » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:55 AM UTC

kmm wrote: post #158

revelation wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fits in nicely with the IOC WLAN police: https://twitter.com/SadaoTurner/status/230737352958566401/ph...

How do they enforce that? It's not illegal (yet) to emit WiFi signals, or is it?

I don't know the answer to your specific question about WiFi, but I do know that (and I can't remember the exact legal details so this is a layman's explanation, terminology may be wrong) they've created plenty of temporary Olympic-related laws already, so it's not impossible they've done the same for WiFi.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#212

Post by AlisdairO » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:57 AM UTC

rickmb wrote: post #189

Although I agree it's annoying and negative marketing, it's also being completely overblown here. This stuff is just a minor marketing gimmick. Paying with credit card is in itself rare in most of the world outside the US, where debit cards and cash are way more common. My guess is, 95% of all locals and non-US visitors automatically pay with cash and don't even notice the Visa-only signs. Not having the local curren…

Paying by credit card is incredibly common in the UK - very similar usage profile to the US.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#213

Post by UnoriginalGuy » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 8:58 AM UTC

rickmb wrote: post #189

Although I agree it's annoying and negative marketing, it's also being completely overblown here. This stuff is just a minor marketing gimmick. Paying with credit card is in itself rare in most of the world outside the US, where debit cards and cash are way more common. My guess is, 95% of all locals and non-US visitors automatically pay with cash and don't even notice the Visa-only signs. Not having the local curren…

> Paying with credit card is in itself rare in most of the world outside the US

I live in the UK: You're incorrect. I would say credit card payments make up the majority of transactions (exceptions: buses, market stalls, and Greggs).

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#214

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:10 AM UTC

rickmb wrote: post #189

Although I agree it's annoying and negative marketing, it's also being completely overblown here. This stuff is just a minor marketing gimmick. Paying with credit card is in itself rare in most of the world outside the US, where debit cards and cash are way more common. My guess is, 95% of all locals and non-US visitors automatically pay with cash and don't even notice the Visa-only signs. Not having the local curren…

> debit cards and cash are way more common

Exactly. And most debit cards are Visa.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#215

Post by tonfa » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:22 AM UTC

polshaw wrote: post #166

christoph wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When I was in France I would sometimes pay in a bakery with my debit card for a couple of euros.

Actually, I believe handling cash costs them money too and card processing fees might be less than what cash costs them.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#216

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:27 AM UTC

1337biz wrote: post #75

rubergly wrote: post #56

More realistically, Visa was probably hoping that many consumers would, like the author, already have the option of and be forced into using their Visa card. I agree that this seems, in addition to being extremely frustrating to almost all consumers, a silly marketing move, but I'm sure that Visa has run the numbers and has a sound business reason for doing this. Since, judging by mthoms's post, this seems to be a tr…

The other question is if this behavior is not in the end leading people to shift back to cash payments again. I never understood the popularity of offline credit card payments. In fact I never used my credit card for anything outside of online payments, except for one situation where I had to come up with a relatively large and time sensitive on-spot payment. This minor factor of not having to spend each week two min…

You buy laptops, TV, etc in cash?

As for that article, I don't need to worry about some "insurance company" caring about my diet since I'm not American. I'm quite sure european privacy laws also forbid sharing of my purchase history outside of the bank.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#217

Post by archangel_one » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:30 AM UTC

jarek wrote: post #182

archangel_one wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't live in the UK, having a fistful of sterling when you get home is not really the ideal situation. It's not far from it going bad, in a sense.

For values of "going bad" approaching "losing 2-4% of its value." The horror.

Well yes, but you have to go to a bank and exchange it, and they do their best to charge more - the last time I asked about selling €50, the bank wanted a $5 fee...

Anyway, it seems reasonable to me that people might want to avoid that when they have a perfectly good Mastercard which has always worked in the past.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#218

Post by brazzy » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:32 AM UTC

thebigshane wrote: post #165

jellicle wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Visa is not a person. The person who sponsored that campaign probably prioritizes his career over the RoI of the company.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#219

Post by kalleboo » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:46 AM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #155

Can anyone explain to me why the government issues currency for free, but doesn't provide for an electronic equivalent? Instead of having economic transactions being controlled by a giant corporation, shouldn't this be considered an essential function that should be handled by the state?

Denmark has the government-regulated Dankort, which until 2005 charged no fees, and since then has a fixed yearly fee for merchants (rather than a per-transaction or percentage). This can be a pain for visitors as many small shops and restaurants will only accept Dankort.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#220

Post by dagw » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 9:46 AM UTC

tonfa wrote: post #215

polshaw wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When I was in France I would sometimes pay in a bakery with my debit card for a couple of euros. Actually, I believe handling cash costs them money too and card processing fees might be less than what cash costs them.

I've heard several small shop owners say they prefer debit cards to cash since they claim it reduces the risk of robbery. The more people pay by card, the less cash there is in the till and thus the less reason to try to rob a place.