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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

#371

Post by smsm42 »

koolba wrote: post #72
smsm42 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have regular rewards card, like 1%-1.5%, sure. But if you have 3% or 5% (I don't know of any card that does it on taxes specifically, but there might be ones where it fits some of the categories) or if you need to fulfill requirement like "spend $X000 in N months and get tons of points" then even with the transaction fee it might actually be a pretty good deal.

I’ve never seen a 5% rewards card for generic purchases. Does that exist?

Not 5% for everything, but "5% in our store" are common (Amazon, Best Buy, Lowes, etc.) and of course tons of cards do categories, so I can't exclude the case where however the service is classified (I have no idea... is there a category for government payments?) it fits one of the categories. In fact, some card might even run it as a promotion - with suitable limits, it's no more expensive than any other 5% deal...

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

#372

Post by jimmy1 »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #148
jimmy1 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most places that the poor (at least in rural areas) shop at offer substantial discounts for paying with cash. There is typically the "cash" price and the "card" price. At a liquor store, a 44 dollar bottle paid with card is 39 dollars cash. A haircut at the local barber is 13 dollars cash or 15 dollars card.

>At a liquor store, a 44 dollar bottle paid with card is 39 dollars cash The credit card fee is not 12.8% to 15%, that isn’t even a convinence fee. That’s your liquor store not reporting sales and not paying taxes. That’s a big reason why some businesses won’t take cards.

> not reporting sales and not paying taxes

I don't ever assume malice when there is a simpler answer, besides this store is prominent and at the border so they wouldn't be that dumb. The simpler answer is they give a small discount on cash, and a small markup on card purchases to really encourage cash. They are a deregulated liquor state (so they don't have a state ran "Liquor board") which means they can offer much lower prices than just across the border. And I am sure the owner just prefers to go down the street to his or her local branch and say hi to the teller and just deposit cash. Some people just like to do things the old fashioned way. My barber is the exact same way -- he doesn't take card at all, only cash.

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

#374

Post by mercutio2 »

frockington wrote: post #336
mercutio2 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

By paying $500 for a card last year, I was able to net at least 1.5k in additional savings. As long as you remember your point systems and use appropriately its a great system. To get the benefits most require travel or some other expenditure

The point is that if you’re only getting 2%, there’s no need to pay fees.

If you’ve got a card that pays more than 2%, sure, it can make sense to pay fees.

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

#375

Post by radicalbyte »

ghaff wrote: post #341
radicalbyte wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? I spent a week there recently and used my US Visa card widely.

The supermarkets process the transactions as cash on the credit card. I paid something like 5% in fees because of that (on a UK VISA card, about 15 years ago).

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

#376

Post by mmirate »

dang wrote: post #366
mmirate wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tax on the poor, the un-creditworthy, and the financially illiterate. Taxation is glorified theft, but in this case I don't care because these are acceptable targets.

If you continue to post uncivil/unsubstantive comments and use HN for ideological battle, we will ban you. We've already warned you more than once. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The comment I was replying-to was also putting forth an ideological argument. (Or at least attempting to, via connotations.)

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

#377

Post by what-the-grump »

bzbarsky wrote: post #356
pixl97 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some 50.8 million households or 43% of households can’t afford a basic monthly budget for housing, food, transportation, child care, health care and a monthly smartphone bill, according to an analysis of U.S. government data released this month by the United Way Alice Project, a nonprofit based in Cedar Knolls, N.J. that aims to highlight the number of people who live in poverty.

The big one there that jumps out at me is "child care", in terms of things that are somewhat discretionary (in the sense that stay-at-home parenting is a thing). And at $10-30k per year per child depending on where you are in the US, it's a pretty large-ticket item.

Well let’s take me. Stay at home parenting... assumes I make enough money to cover her, the child, and her retirement, and medical. Which is 70-80k that she is providing right now. So We either take an 80k hit or 30k hit.

It’s pretty simple these days. I’m pushing a household income of close to 200k and I haven’t been on vacation in 3 years.

I could make a shitload sure, drop the wife, move into a studio and eat ramen.

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

#378

Post by what-the-grump »

pard68 wrote: post #340
what-the-grump wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. 2% on your gross is a lot and any standard commercial policy will cover cash on hand. 50% of the country is broke, 80% live pay check to pay check. Many working minimum wage, low income bracket do not have bank accounts. The idea that cash is ‘hard to operate’ is a stretch, we’ve been exchanging currency for as long as commerce existed. If you handle enough cash to need an armored truck, you are far above…

Especially in the grocery business. Where I use to work our margin was 2%. Grocery stores are very tight.

I spoke to dell today. 2% margin is even worse on larger amounts. They will provide 3-6 month interest free loans just to keep me from swiping the AMEX. We are talking about 200k worth of hardware.

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

#379

Post by cmurf »

swiley wrote: post #272
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…

I wouldn’t buy things with cash if there where a half way decent debit card or similar I could replace it with. It needs to have real transaction authentication so I don’t have to deal with fraud and it needs to decline transactions when I actually don’t have enough money in the account (instead of charging $40 in fees.) That’s it, but no one seems to offer that so I use cash instead.

Chime? If your balance isn't enough to cover the debit charge, the debit charge is declined, no fees. And you can enable/disable the card in app. And it's part of a fee free ATM network, app finds the nearest free ATM or cash back business.

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

#380

Post by sitepodmatt »

thesimon wrote: post #326
Symbiote wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Maestro/VPay cards should work fine. Debit MasterCard/Visa Debit is the issue.

The problem is every UK bank or fintech prepaid is either Visa debit or MasterCard debit. maestro only exists on some kid cards 16-18yr old limit.
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