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

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#231

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 11:34 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…

Processing card transactions takes longer and reduces the serve rate of drinks. This is IMO probably a larger factor than the processing cost - cash has a processing cost too (staff time, security, fraud, bank charges) and it seems pretty close to the card processing cost.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#232

Post by ktizo » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 11:42 AM UTC

einhverfr wrote: post #133

ktizo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following Real-World Economics Review - http://rwer.wordpress.com/ - since they were the movement for a Post-Autistic Economics - http://www.paecon.net/PAEmovementindex1.htm - Steve Keen seems to crop up there quite a bit.

Looks like a great couple of sites. Bookmarked. Two of my favorite quotes by Keen from his presentations are: "The one thing Neoclassical economists don't understand is Neoclassical economics." And "The Marxist economists hate me even more than the Neoclassicals, which is quite an achievement."

You'd probably appreciate "Life Among The Econ" by Axel Leijonhufvud - http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/05/axe...

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#233

Post by msellout » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 11:57 AM UTC

msellout wrote: post #108

andrewfelix wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but I'm sure that Visa has run the numbers and has a sound business reason for doing this. As someone who worked for an advertising Agency with a big bank as a client, I think this is probably not the case. A marketing ploy usually starts with a reasonable idea and then slowly morphs into something horrible as it makes it's way through various departments; market research, legal, management etc. This campaign probab…

As someone who gets paid to 'run the numbers,' I can tell you that many large businesses make their decisions based on internal bureaucratic politics rather than sound business reasons. The executive sponsoring of the analysis project can easily bully the analysts into agreeing or simply restrict information from them such that the available evidence matches the sponsor's opinion. And sometimes there is simply no dat…

I'm past my edit time limit, but I should add context to the assertion that we can't estimate the value of a year of college. There are some good methods for doing so, but none that stand out as the correct way. It's a classic hard problem in econometrics.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#234

Post by Tichy » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 12:08 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #10

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…

> Needless to say they lost the sale. How many other sales did they lose I wonder? Surely not enough to cover the massive amount of money Visa paid to be an exclusive sponsor. In London this year that is reportedly over $100M and during the first week Visa racked up $700 million worth of charges at the games.

And how was that money distributed to the shops who lost sales?

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#235

Post by potkor » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 12:14 PM UTC

lflux wrote: post #226

corin_ wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the UK... most of our debit cards are Visa or MasterCard

Same in Sweden as well.

In Finland the banks recently dismantled the old debit card system and forced everyone onto the insecure (EMV based) and expensive Visa/MasterCard branded debit cards. You still sometimes see the old cards but banks have stopped issuing new ones.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#236

Post by podperson » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 12:18 PM UTC

VISA did equally stupid things for the Sydney Olympics, e.g. convincing the taxi companies to only accept VISA for the duration. It's extremely annoying (I was a Mastercard user at the time) and surely anti-competitive.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#237

Post by fleshgolem » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 12:22 PM UTC

reidrac wrote: post #229

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.

I find that "the only card accepted everywhere" very amusing :) I spent 5 days in Berlin recently and I found lots of places that either were "cash only" or they only accepted "Maestro" cards. I had two Visa cards that I couldn't use, so frustrating. EDIT: typo

Yup, credit cards are not really a thing in germany

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#238

Post by UnoriginalGuy » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 12:27 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #228

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Our Greggs has a card terminal, McDs do too now but most people appear to pay cash.

Greggs only added that recently and I also believe there is a minimum spend (£5?).

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#239

Post by mgkimsal » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 1:45 PM UTC

what would have been perfect to do is give 5% cash back on every purchase with a visa made in london during the olympics. The marketing would have been far more 'word of mouth', the benefits more direct, much happier customers, and it may have prompted people to actually consider getting a visa card if they didn't have one. Or a random "one person per day using their visa card at the olympics wins $1 million".

All of these wouldn't have prevented competing currency, but likely meant almost everyone used a visa anyway, assuming they had one. But hey, what do I know? I'm just someone who has a visa card and would have been pissed off and offended at this campaign had I been at the olympics, just like the OP was. I guess we're not the target market, although I can't really determine who is the target market.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#240

Post by mikeash » Tue, Aug 07, 2012, 1:47 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #221

mikeash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I relied heavily on a bank card when I lived in France a decade ago. Has Europe regressed?

It's just that this is one of those situations where the "Europe" generalization doesn't work. In Sweden, where I'm from, everyone uses debit cards for everything. Right now I'm in Greece, and cash is king (in some supermarkets you even have to go to a separate desk to pay with a card - major hassle). Both are "Europe".

Yeah, I was really trying to sarcastically point that out more than seriously ask if things have become worse. Still, interesting stuff there, especially the bit about having to go to a separate desk in some places in Greece.

It's interesting to compare with the situation in China, where credit cards are very rarely used, but I've never had a problem paying with one in any kind of decently-sized store or restaurant. You almost get the impression that they knew you were coming and set aside a card machine just for you.