331–340 of 359 posts
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Generally (and excluding AmEx), requiring minimum purchases is a violation of the merchant-processor agreement.
That was the case until 2010, but since then the law requires that processors allow merchants to have a minimum purchase requirement of up to $10.
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Ignoring all copyright law? We're not talking about stuff that is cheaper equivalents which I'm fine with. The problem with China is counterfeiting brands. Say I make a charger and want people to think it's high quality. To do this, I spend 90% of effort on making it look exactly like an Apple charger. It even works, kind of, maybe once. This is a straight up scam, and the kind of crap that people knock China for. An…
Why do you blame the Chinese government when, if you want to prevent scam devices from entering your market, you should have your own customs and trade inspectors turn away counterfeit merchandise? The Us lets counterfeit products in. Likewise, if the Chinese government doesn't want to obey US law involving copyright or trademark, which is not an international policy, it is simply the law of the US, that is entirely…
This also has nothing to do with the US and everything to do with China. China counterfeits everyone's shit not just one country, but I appreciate how incredibly biased you are against the United States. I didn't even mention the US in my original post so I have no idea where you got that tirade. Copy pasted from your favorite Chinese government mouthpiece maybe?
The US can't inspect every piece of mail to find counterfeits, they need to be traced to the source, which China is unwilling to do.
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I don't see it as a class thing but it certainly is a culture thing. When the American's go to build their app, you get something out of silicon valley that is almost built for the programmers. It will use hardware that requires everyone to buy a new phone (like NFC). Things like QR codes would be derided as insecure and exploitable. It will comply with consumer protections. In China the app will be made chabudao (go…
You can use a credit card without an internet connection as well. The transactions are just stored until a connection is made. But with that being said I don't think China has the same fraud problems that the United States and to a large extent the West does. You can build insecure apps in China because nobody is trying to steal money from them like they do in the U.S. or something.
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Wow, one result you don't like leads you to throw the whole thing out? If you cook a meal you don't like, do you burn down your kitchen?
Are you referring to Trump? I wasn't thinking of him at all, I was thinking about the polarization of society and the two-party system. Trump will pass fairly quickly. He might even shape up himself, although the presidency shouldn't be adult education. The two-party system, congress and the whole shitshow, on the other hand, will stay for a long long time.
There are a non-trivial number of people (including me), who are happy when the federal level fails to legislate things that can be legislated perfectly fine at the state level. There is no reason to think that the laws in California should be the same as the laws in Michigan, much in the same way the laws in California shouldn't be the same as the laws in France.
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The Nordic countries also have that distinction, indeed credit cards are often charged 1-3% in fees, while debit cards are usually free. That hasn't prevented the demise of cash, and MobilePay, Swish etc are popular for personal and commercial transactions. The RFID card works on all public transport all across Denmark. Sweden has regional systems. I don't know about elsewhere. The leader for this is London, where an…
Most Danes use a combined visa/dankort which is a credit card but doesn't usually incur a fee. Also generally we don't have a seperate credit line, it goes directly to your bank account as soon as the transaction is registered (and simply overdraws it if you don't have sufficient funds). A lot of danes also seems somewhat confused about the debit/credit card distinction, because the only difference most people see is…
I'd guess most Danes realise credit cards are the ones where you often pay 1-3% extra, which is a difference you don't often see in the USA or the UK — there, it's limited to things like plane tickets.
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I think most people pay their balance off every month in the USA. Credit card doesn't mean borrowing. The big problem with credit cards in China is fraud: banks like ICBC will put the burden of proof on the card holder when a fraud transaction occurs, rather than the merchant as in the west. I really hate ICBC. Anyways, debit cards work just like QR pay does, just like UnionPay already does. The problem QR codes are…
Why credit cards and not debit cards?
Take the credit card swipe versus chip example. The chip is an improvement over the really old swipe tech in theory. In the US, using the chip is a terrible experience because it takes a lot longer for the process to complete. Why? Because merchant processors have no interest in putting the chips on a fast network because they can get higher fees on the swipe and conversely the stores are charged higher fees for enab…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was the case until 2010, but since then the law requires that processors allow merchants to have a minimum purchase requirement of up to $10.
What law is that? State or Federal?
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I live in NYC, and most stores seem to have $5-10 credit card minimums. America needs to admit that it's no longer the bastion of innovation that it once was (I say this as an American. If anyone doesn't believe me, just take a trip to East Asia). Americans are complacent and fine with not having the cutting edge (not to mention our failing infrastructure). I wish there was a way to change this attitude, but it feels…
Generally (and excluding AmEx), requiring minimum purchases is a violation of the merchant-processor agreement.
Cash will never die. Fundamentally, a wechat/alipay transaction is traceable. Traceability is great for expense reports, but a non-starter if you're a drug dealer -- especially with China's draconian drug laws. Even if you were to launder the money through fronts or a series of transactions, a state level actor (i.e, China) would have no real difficulty in tracking down such activity. With cash, this becomes much, mu…
It would lead to behavior of withdrawing money at an ATM then spending it to disassociate it from yourself by getting change. What if they build in scanning to cash registers though? Seems relatively simple to track cash if there was any will to do so.