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Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

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Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#301

Post by gruez »

exabrial wrote: post #273
bit_logic wrote: post #169

This seems like a missed opportunity for Google Pay and Apple Pay. Before smartphones and NFC, it would've been too much for every merchant to make their own card, nobody is going to carry that many cards. But imagine if Target, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. made store cards and they all integrated with Google/Apple Pay. When a customer enters the store, the app could automatically pick the right card. Google and Apple jus…

Or just a new payment system in general, based on asymmetric cryptography and message signatures. I'd love to generate a key, enroll the key with my bank, and have them authorize transactions signed by said key. This would be similar to have you enroll an ssh key at GitHub. The problem with the credit card number system is the lack of authentication. Anyone you pay with a credit card can take a picture of the numbers…

that's pretty much what EMV is. as for offline transactions, TANs are more user friendly.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#302

Post by empath75 »

cynwoody wrote: post #190
jamie_ca wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it. My MasterCard is 2% cashback (through points, but that just means I batch it), but has an annual fee of $150 for two cards, and a minimum household income. I need to spend $7500 on the card just to break even, but if I funnel nearly all my expenses through the card I can net $1000 or more a year. These "rewards" come from the merchant, in the form of higher fees, and because the merchant can't discrimin…

I have an American Express Blue Cash Preferred, with a $95 fee, and a Fidelity Rewards Visa, with no fee. The AX card rebates 6% on groceries, 3% on gas, and 1% on everything else. The Visa pays 2% on everything else. No silly quarterly schedules on changing categories of spending. Therefore, groceries and gas go on the AX Blue, and everything else goes on the Visa (which used to be an AX card, oops, AXP!). And, of c…

As someone who declared bankruptcy from credit card debt in my 20s and now makes a comfortable six figure income with no debt and who heavily uses rewards cards, the fact that this scheme is just a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy disgusts me and I wish they’d do away with it. There are so many ways the wealthy get rewarded with more wealth and the poor get charged for being poor. It’s an absurd system.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#303

Post by empath75 »

mercutio2 wrote: post #155
jamie_ca wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it. My MasterCard is 2% cashback (through points, but that just means I batch it), but has an annual fee of $150 for two cards, and a minimum household income. I need to spend $7500 on the card just to break even, but if I funnel nearly all my expenses through the card I can net $1000 or more a year. These "rewards" come from the merchant, in the form of higher fees, and because the merchant can't discrimin…

There are many zero fee 2% cash back cards available in the USA. Why pay fees?

You can get a lot more money back with the cards with fees. The fees just encourage you to use them more often.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#304

Post by eksemplar »

sorenbs wrote: post #18

In Denmark we have a national payment system called Dankort. All issued Visa cards also work as Dankort. Transaction fees on Dankort is one tenth of visa, and all payment terminals default to Dankort. This saves Danish retail a lot of money while still ensuring they we can buy stuff online and when traveling using visa.

This isn’t the full picture. It’s true that we have a national payment system called Dankort, but I think it’s debatable whether or not it’s saving retail money and it’s certainly possible to get a VISA card that isn’t tied to your Dankort.

There are pros and cons to every system. The Dankort is very consumer friendly, and it’s cheaper than credit cards, but it’s not cheaper than debit cards and the Dankort itself isn’t really a true credit card nor is it a debit card.

The fees are low because they are regulated by legislation, but at the same time, the fees are making the company that currently owns the bid to issue and control the Dankort a lot of money from their monopoly.

One of the major downsides is actually the cost to retail. Accepting Dankort transaction is actually expensive, costing a store 20.000dkr a year per terminal. Which is why kost smaller retailers have turned to the mobile pay app.

The major upside is that a Dankort works everywhere that isn’t a tiny/indie store, and that it had relative low fees for consumers. Of course Denmark being a tiny country of 5.5 million people and no real geographical challenges as far as size go, helps a lot in that regard.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#305

Post by clan »

chillacy wrote: post #283
clan wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around here debit cards are protected in the same way as credit cards. You are fully covered if you in no way have been negligent. If the PIN code have been used you have a own risk of $173. Have you been negligent the own risk goes up to $1255. In very severe cases you can be made fully liable but that is very rare.

Do debit cards also issue chargebacks? That’s when you disagree with the service you’ve been provided with by a merchant and you call your credit card provider (usually a bank) and issue a chargeback, resulting in a full refund usually (they tend to side with the customer). You can’t abuse it too much but I know people who definitely abuse it for what I’d consider trivial disagreements.

As far as I know chargebacks are not misused in the same way around here.

But yes - it is available for "remote orders" with the debit card. But only for phone, mail and Internet orders. Not from a physical shop using pin code.

My personal guess is that it is tied to good consumer protection laws. We do not need to misuse chargebacks as we have other avenues of regress. You further more need to have your documentation in order when asking for the chargeback. They do do not offer blanket chargeback. You need to document your case and that the vendor is not cooperating.

Important caveat: If the receiver went bankrupt the bank cannot help you - you Will have to take it up with the executor.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#306

Post by bena »

wcoenen wrote: post #242

A lot of problems would go away if all merchants (voluntarily or by law) explicitly charged their payment costs to the customer. Both for card and cash transactions, because cash handling isn't free either. The customers using high reward cards would then soon discover that they are just paying for those rewards themselves, and the free market would quickly push everyone to the most efficient payment systems.

Why not extend that out further. Explicitly charge their delivery costs, their production costs, their management costs, their payroll costs, etc, etc?

Eventually we'll just clamor for merchants to just put a single price tag on everything and not worry us about how much of each item is going to all of their various costs.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#307

Post by Symbiote »

Nursie wrote: post #173
Symbiote wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful generalising the whole EU on stuff like this. These cards were very common in the UK until the new rules limiting fees were introduced. It looks like there are still a few: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/cashback-cred...

I live in the UK, and that's kinda what I mean - since that rule was brought in, such things are basically unheard of. The most you can get these days seems to be Avios or Amex rewards points.

Then it shouldn't "sound really weird", since you know the regulation is fairly recent, that cashback cards existed in the UK, and that America doesn't necessarily have the same regulation.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#308

Post by freeone3000 »

kasey_junk wrote: post #99
throwaway76543 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merchants raise prices to compensate. That is why it is "the poor, the un-creditworthy, and the financially illiterate" who ultimately pay.

Sure but I think the argument is that because those merchant fees are unknowable no one can make intelligent choices around them. The disadvantaged are obviously more impacted but it’s possible that all of us not in credit card employ or shareholder are taxed. A prisoners dilemma sort of thing. But we are well past my economics understanding.

Unknowable?

Visa: https://www.visa.ca/en_CAsupport/small-business/interchange....

Mastercard: https://www.mastercard.ca/content/dam/mccom/en-ca/Documents/... (PDF)

AMEX is a bit harder to find, reseller is https://www.helcim.com/ca/american-express/

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#309

Post by Symbiote »

radicalbyte wrote: post #200
Nursie wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds very weird to this european.... but that's probably because fees here are capped at 0.3% and AFAICT there's not really such thing as a cashback card. (I think they used to exist, just not any more)

Here in The Netherlands you basically can't use credit cards for offline purchases. Everyone uses the European debit cards with chip/pin. The fees are very low too, it's cheaper to process than cash is.

> Everyone uses the European debit cards with chip/pin

Actually, everyone uses Dutch debit cards with Chip+PIN. Colleagues and I had trouble using debit cards from other EU countries on our last visit.

Re: Credit-Card Backlash Mounts as Kroger Weighs Expanding Visa Ban

#310

Post by duck »

caf wrote: post #196
smileysteve wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy this because it discounts the high costs of cash controls. Cash has high costs that likely make electronic forms of payment competitive. You have - Employees skimming the till; - Theft insurance for a safe, the nightly amount in the safe - Managers balancing the cash registers with change/safe - Armored trucks picking up the money (2-3 men guarding the transfer) - Banks processing the money - Employee tim…

If this was the case then merchants would happily encourage people to use cards rather than cash.

There is a push to go cashless in a lot of urban areas.

https://www.dmagazine.com/business-economy/2018/07/why-some-...

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