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What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

tautology.town

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Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#391
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you don't have a phone that supports the App, or if you forgot your phone or lost it (aka stolen)? How are you allowed to function if the App is missing?

You also can't make a card purchase if your card is stolen ..

I have backup cards. If one gets stolen, I can switch to a backup card instantly.

If my phone is lost, then apparently I need to buy another one with the...phone I don't have? A single point of failure is horrible design.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#392

Visa and Mastercard are legacy companies providing a service that is outdated in the modern world. China generally doesn't use Credit cards because when they "Modernized" there was new technology and infrastructure so you didn't need a nosey middel-man to handle the transaction. Instead they use apps. Scandinavia is hopefully moving away from these card-providers soon. They have the bankaxept system that works flawle…

> so you didn't need a nosey middel-man to handle the transaction

Aren't the apps just other middlemen that know even more about their users?

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Chance in hell, the US government is even going after Brazil because they've done the right thing. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pix_(payment_system)#United_St...

UPI in India too. Why are they targeting pix specifically? Yappy in Panama and alipay in China but those are privately owned, as the us wants.

Taking current political climate into account, Lula is too popular to straight up kidnap like the Venezuelan president, and the American-backed candidate isn't pooling incredibly well.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#394

I play the credit card "game" because I hate feeling like I'm leaving money on the table, but I really wish I didn't have to. Some degrees of fees make sense, to run the network, and handle fraud, but it's ridiculous that people have this sense that shopping should somehow fund your vacation. Where I am it's increasingly common to see credit card fees when checking out. I get it, because merchants are being charged 3…

There is, it's called debit cards, but Stripe et al. "simplified" pricing by charging a percentage regardless of card type instead of the traditional interchange-plus pricing. Merchant banks "used to" make money by tacking on fixed fees, i.e. a set-up fee, terminal fee, monthly fee, etc, but then Stripe came along and provided (1) a better dev experience, (2) better onboarding, and (3) simplified pricing.

why is simplified in quotes? Knowing you'll get $x - 2.9% and 30 cents is simplified compared to having to find out what kind of card was used, what their interchange rate is, What your rate on that is. Debit cards have a low interchange rate, but it's offset by the cards with rates higher than 2.9%. Stripe is taking on a risk that your customers aren't all going to use a chase sapphire reserve and thus cost stripe 4.5% when stripe is only charging 2.9%. If you're large enough, Stripe offers IC+, interchange plus, where you get complexified pricing, if desired.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If merchants across the world make a deal with me to charge exactly the listed/advertised number exactly, no more, no less, then I'll pay in cash again. Where are you not getting this? You mean taxes on top of the retail price? You would pay cash, if the merchants colluded with you in evading taxes?

You could just do what all of Europe does and just include the tax in the listed retail price, rather than only tacking it on at the end.

While that simplifies things for the customer, who knows exactly what they will pay, it's hiding the theft, making it look like it's part of the price charged by the merchant, even though the merchant has to remit that money.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#396
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been hit with fraud on a debit card and a credit card, the process to recover money from fraud on a credit card is so much easier and more hassle-free than a debit card. The big difference is that with a debit card, it's your money that is hit by fraud. The debit card is basically just a proxy. You have to go file a police report. You have to hope the bank will give you the money back. When the cre…

> The big difference is that with a debit card, it's your money that is hit by fraud. I kind of disagree. I think what's happened is the bank would prefer you to believe that . Imagine I kept my money at the bank, and deposited $10000 with the teller. Immediately afterward a robber follows in and steals that $10000 from the teller. Does the bank say "oh no Mr. TheChao! A robber stole your $10000!". I mean, no? The ba…

But that's not what happened when someone steals your debit card number. Once the teller enters the deposit and you walk away from the window, the money in your account is yours, the cash the robbers stole is the banks.

When someone steals your debit card number and uses it, it's your money that is debited from your account, not the banks, and debit card transactions have much different rules than credit card transactions where you're generally not held responsible at all for fraudulent transactions)

But with debit card transactions, you can be responsible for up to $50 of fraudulent transactions reported within 2 days, and $500 for those reported within 60 days. And the bank is not required to return the money while they investigate the fraud.

Though many banks waive those liabilities and treat debit card disputes the same as credit card disputes (but still may not return your money while they investigate, so you could be bouncing checks when someone makes a $1000 fraudulent transaction if you can't float the $1000 yourself while they investigate)

I refused to allow the bank to issue me a debit/ATM card against my primary checking account, fortunately they are one of the few banks that still offer a dedicated ATM card so even if I lose the card, it's useless without the PIN.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#397
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh when you deposit money with a teller, it gets added to your account, which is in physical terms probably just a big storage and a database who has how much. But in the case of debit card, the card ties the money to your account. It is actually that. It's as if someone would steal from a personal safe at the bank.

Except that you have strong statutory rights and commercial agreements between your bank and the card networks making it very likely that you’ll be made whole.

Eventually you'll probably be made whole (unless the bank isn't one of the ones that waives your $50/$500 liability). But usually they won't return your money until after they resolve the dispute so your account is still missing the disputed money which could make you bounce checks or be unable to use your debit card until the dispute is resolved.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#398
post #86

I play the credit card "game" because I hate feeling like I'm leaving money on the table, but I really wish I didn't have to. Some degrees of fees make sense, to run the network, and handle fraud, but it's ridiculous that people have this sense that shopping should somehow fund your vacation. Where I am it's increasingly common to see credit card fees when checking out. I get it, because merchants are being charged 3…

I used to think "I should be nice to merchants" and pay everything in cash. That was 15 years ago. Now, living costs have gone up, I'm getting taxed to death by not just governments but increasingly more by businesses themselves ("benefits fees", "installation fee", "convenience fee", guilt-tip screens, sneaky price increases, etc.) so now I feel no guilt in playing the system to get at least some of my money back. N…

Solution: Be nice to nice merchants and be shitty to merchants you hate.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPI in India too. Why are they targeting pix specifically? Yappy in Panama and alipay in China but those are privately owned, as the us wants.

Taking current political climate into account, Lula is too popular to straight up kidnap like the Venezuelan president, and the American-backed candidate isn't pooling incredibly well.

So it's the us wanting to control their backyard. UPI is halfway across the globe so it would be harder to mess with Indians

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Importantly, there is only an incentive for L2/L3 data on business/corporate cards, which have an inflated interchange rate above personal cards anyway. This is not a scheme to get enhanced targeting data for personal transactions.

I believe most prepaid visa gift cards are being monetized in this way. https://www.walmartgift.com/AcctMgmt/Controls/WalMartGiftCar... Ive heard of casinos trying to pay out winnings using some kind of prepaid card, where theyd also get info about how people spent their casino winnings. Lots of ways to leverage that data.

Prepaid cards are great for the vendor because they have breakage (the unspent amount before expiry). I doubt the data is worth much relative to that. If anything, they have much less of a tie to the individual.
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