Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Great work Visa, now I hate you

modern-products.tumblr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 267 posts

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#251

Post by lflux »

vegardx wrote: post #227
lflux wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Sweden as well.

I think you are misleaded by the branding on your debit card. Most transactions are not going through Visa, but a third-party solution that the banks them selves run. I might be wrong, but I think Nets delivers the solution in most of northern Europe. They call it NetAxept. This is a direct pay solution used with online terminals, the Visa/MasterCard-part of your debit card is just for offline transactions or credit.

There are quite a few different payment processors here (Nets, PayEx, BABS, Dibs...), not really sure about how the backend works between banks. My card works in anything with a Visa logo, but there's no credit connected to it.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#252

Post by thebigshane »

Deestan wrote: post #223
thebigshane wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's basically a "Monkey Cage" answer. http://paws.kettering.edu/~jhuggins/humor/banana.html

Funny but not very enlightening. This isn't a case of generations of companies still following the same pointless habits (wearing suits and ties, etc). If those monkeys were responsible for monitoring a return on a 700 million dollar investment, I think that one of monkeys would try to investigate the situation further. Also, I think science suggests humans are smarter than monkeys [citation needed].

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#253

Post by thebigshane »

brazzy wrote: post #218
thebigshane wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt it was one person who decided, negotiated and implemented the sponsoring of this campaign. So what is your point? Does it really seem reasonable to you that no one would notice how entirely unprofitable (hypothetically) the investment is? Over the course of a dozen+ years!?

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#254

Post by brazzy »

thebigshane wrote: post #253
brazzy wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I doubt it was one person who decided, negotiated and implemented the sponsoring of this campaign. So what is your point? Does it really seem reasonable to you that no one would notice how entirely unprofitable (hypothetically) the investment is? Over the course of a dozen+ years!?

It could quite easily be one high-ranking manager who decided and pushed through such a campaign, and now uses company money to pay for research that "proves" its success and enables him to brush off those who doubt it but lack similar clout.

This kind of thing is par of the course for company politics. But probably unlikely to persist this long.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#255

Post by varikin »

rrreese wrote: post #197
smussman wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiousity, do you have a link to the study or a writeup? I'd love to read it.

Koch-funded climate change skeptic reverses course: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-kochfunded-climat...

Thank you. I was have a really hard time finding a link I felt was credible. I only know if it from seeing an interview on TV.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#256

Post by Osiris »

jarek wrote: post #181
Osiris wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this Visa deal, what on earth are people without Visa supposed to do? I do not have a Visa card. I have one Mastercard and one Discover card, plus my PayPal credit/debit card which is also Mastercard. The only Visa I've had in years have been those prepaid rebate cards. But I don't think it's VISA that we should be blaming but the Olympic Committee that agreed to this and the McDonald's deals. They didn't have to…

Why do you have a Discover card? Serious question, I've never been sure of the utility or purpose.

Why do you drive a Honda instead of a Toyota or GMC or Ford or Kia? A credit card is a credit card. I did get 5$ cash back on a lot of travel I did for work like hotels, restaurants, etc., so that was one reason.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#257

Post by jarek »

Osiris wrote: post #256
jarek wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have a Discover card? Serious question, I've never been sure of the utility or purpose.

Why do you drive a Honda instead of a Toyota or GMC or Ford or Kia? A credit card is a credit card. I did get 5$ cash back on a lot of travel I did for work like hotels, restaurants, etc., so that was one reason.

Yeah but both Hondas and Kias can drive on almost any road. That's not the case with Discover acceptance, though I understand it's a lot higher in the U.S.

High cash back is a fair enough reason, thanks.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#258

Post by pbreit »

klausa wrote: post #5
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…

>But this Visa deal, what on earth are people without Visa supposed to do? I just don't see how anyone sane could think this was a good plan, either from an Olympic organiser's point of view, or Visa's. I think both OP and you (or me, for that matter) don't have access to important data - specifically, what's the percentage of people that have BOTH Visa and MasterCard (and what percentage of those that do not, are li…

Even if the percentage overlap approaches 90%, I don't think it's a smart move. It's very anti-customer and will cause a decent percentage of people a great deal of angst and a much larger percentage of people will be quite disappointed. And don't forget that high-spending corporate travelers use Amex almost exclusively.

The problem with a payment provider striking an exclusive deal like this is that it creates very real problems for people unlike, say, and exclusive beer deal. And it creates a great deal of negative feelings towards both Visa and the Olympics. I'm sure Visa is able to show that it is a good deal for them. But I suspect it is just as easy to show the opposite. Not smart at all.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#259

Post by pbreit »

dangrossman wrote: post #117
simonw wrote: post #80

I've been having enormous trouble understanding the thinking behind the "We are proud to only accept Visa" marketing campaign. I simply can't understand how it could be viewed positively by any consumer - it's such an obviously anti-customer thing to do. I've been trying really hard to understand why Visa would make such an obviously unfriendly and counter-productive decision. The only theory I can come up with is th…

> 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…

I'm not sure I even understand what is being reported. I have little doubt that the opposite could be demonstrated with equally valid numbers. And did they also survey for spectator displeasure?

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#260

Post by dangrossman »

pbreit wrote: post #259
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…

I'm not sure I even understand what is being reported. I have little doubt that the opposite could be demonstrated with equally valid numbers. And did they also survey for spectator displeasure?

If spectator displeasure was a problem on the scale Visa could care about, then brand equity among those surveyed would have gone down instead of up. Why would they care to survey that directly? What matters is whether the sponsorship is a net gain for the Visa brand or not. The research says it is, big time.
Post reply on HN