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This is how Visa works

eduardo.intermeta.com.br

41–50 of 106 posts

Re: This is how Visa works

#41
Random idea:

If I remember correctly, the US has extremely strict anti-bribery laws that apply to bribes made outside the US jurisdiction as well. These might only apply to government bribes (corruption), but if they apply here too, you could consider rattling the global Visa parent company's chain in the US in some way.

Re: This is how Visa works

#43
post #4

Before we convict them in the court of public opinion, can we have some impartial evidence? A single blog post isn't much.

Very true. The only "proof" I have is testimonial proof and some xerox, this is why the only thing possible to me to do is a blog post.

If you can I would try and see if you can find more local companies that have suffered from these practices, get them to post as well and increase the legitimacy of the claims.

Re: This is how Visa works

#45
post #9
post #3

Is anybody really surprised at this?

I'm not really hip to the Brazilian legal system, but in the US this would be highly illegal.

Funny, because that is how the US operates as well. Just talk to you local sales team about how the 'competition' operate. The thing is when 'nobody' does a thing, but 'everybody' else does; it is actually normal behaviour. And the really beautiful thing about corporations is that they are 'legal people.' And a whole lot of crime goes on by 'legal people' that 'real people' would never get away with.

Re: This is how Visa works

#46

Random idea: If I remember correctly, the US has extremely strict anti-bribery laws that apply to bribes made outside the US jurisdiction as well. These might only apply to government bribes (corruption), but if they apply here too, you could consider rattling the global Visa parent company's chain in the US in some way.

Sadly large companies can afford to drive smaller companies out of business suspect means and then fight charges in court. The court system moves slowly and is prohibitively expensive for small companies, so the small company is likely to run out of money long before they are able to force the hand of a larger company.

Re: This is how Visa works

#47
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world, yes, but I reside in a very similar country, and have seen and heard too many similar stories to be naive. I think the best thing that can be done is to blog about it like this; someone in Visa corporate will take notice and changes will be made, hopefully for the better.

Visa is a multi-billion dollar international company with strict regulatory controls. For them to say that "preventing some of our employees from breaking the law is hard" is not good enough. I accept that no organisation is going to achieve total legal compliance. But sometimes it feels as if some companies feel above the law; as if they are untouchable. As if, indeed, they are too big to fail.

"too big to fail"

I wonder if facebook fails, will that be a good thing where a lot of developers get on the market thus allowing startups to hire :P?

Re: This is how Visa works

#48

Plenty of multinationals play "dirty" in Latin America, I've heard similar stories about several other companies here from people that work for smaller, local competitors. That said, I highly doubt that it's a policy of the home office, it's really just the end result of hiring people who get results in the region, in a situation where oversight is difficult to impossible.

How many months ago was it that Wal-Mart got caught up in a similar scandal in Mexico?

Re: This is how Visa works

#49
post #16

While this is preposterous behavior, I am very surprised it's even possible to operate your own payment card network. Visa/MasterCard is the one monopoly I thought was practically unbreakable. Even PayPal, who is supposed to be a Visa competitor, issues Visa cards.

This happened in Brazil. From the figures in the blog post it seems as though Visa isn't quite so entrenched there.

Depends, on Rio and São Paulo every low class have a credit card today and Visa is really big in these two towns, maybe they are smaller elsewhere in Brazil but I don't believe that's the case.
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