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Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

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Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#391

Post by [deleted] »

rhengles wrote: post #380
eyelidlessness wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a scam that: 0. for many aspects of life you need positive credit history to live at all 1. debit cards don’t help you build credit 2. secured credit cards (your own money! not borrowed!) do 3. both function almost the same way, but the latter is much less equally available And if you think “living on borrowed money is a fraud”, I suppose that means you think only independently wealthy people should own homes? N…

That's a kinda chicken and egg problem. I could argue that the more financing you give to people, the more they're gonna be willing to pay, so this actually drive prices up.

[deleted]

Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#392

Post by jakub_g »

ikr678 wrote: post #360
jakub_g wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How in the hell they calculated so much overdraft fees? They charge 500% overdraft?

Poster probably had a series of small transactions from travelling ($5,12$,$13 etc). The bank moved the $900 to the front of the payment queue, and then every one of the smaller transactions cops the fee. It wasn't 500% of 900, it was the sum of the overdrafts on all the previous transactions.

For ~4k-ish of overdraft fees assuming ~$40 per single overdraft, they'd have to have hundred-ish transactions, sounds like a lot transactions (or the overdraft fees getting exponentially bigger with each one?)

Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#393

Post by kwhitefoot »

adpcm wrote: post #276
kwhitefoot wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banking fees? Never paid any as far as I can tell, not for the ordinary things. My bank here in Norway won't pay a bill if there isn't enough money in the account. It sends me a text and an email to say what happened and doesn't charge me anything. The only fees I pay are a small percentage for management of mutual funds.

I’m assuming parent meant fees like X per month for having a debit/credit card or for access to “online” banking.

You are right I pay an annual fee for my credit card and debit card. No fees for using them or access to online banking. The bank is online only anyway.

Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#394

Post by Arrath »

zaphirplane wrote: post #140
rjzzleep wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's transaction reordering? 1. have $10 in your checking 2. pay $9 for steak 3. fill account with $500 4. buy sausage for $2 bank reorders it as 1. have $10 in your checking 2. pay $9 for steak 3. buy sausage for $2 4. charge overdraft 5. count $500 deposit Is that what banks would do? I faintly remember that really old accounts I had in Germany had overdraft capability, but for all newer(last decade or so) accoun…

This thread assumes intentional reordering not that the transaction arrive at the bank out of order I have transactions that show up out of order to the event time. Thou I wouldn’t put it past some smaller banks in low regulation geographies

When the transactions 'arrive' in the bank's system should be immaterial, as they should be timestamped at the moment the card is swiped, matching the date and time the printed receipt I am handed has.

Regardless, the bank's mission is to make money, and they can make a lot more of it by adversely reordering transactions in their favor, it is not at all a reach to assume that they do so, and in fact have done so and may well continue to.

Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#395

Post by mavsman »

mdorazio wrote: post #379
mvkel wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Hypergrowth” is the operative word. Startup is also a way of running a company, not just “young company”

I disagree with both of your statements. Hypergrowth is a meaningless term and a startup is a type of company in a specific stage of its lifecycle. Running a company "like a startup" can be a thing, but that does not make the company a startup.

> Running a company "like a startup"

Based on my experience at Amazon, I believe this is something you hear at megacorps that are in denial about their current operating procedures and also don't understand how a startup operates.

Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#396

Post by mvkel »

mdorazio wrote: post #379
mvkel wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Hypergrowth” is the operative word. Startup is also a way of running a company, not just “young company”

I disagree with both of your statements. Hypergrowth is a meaningless term and a startup is a type of company in a specific stage of its lifecycle. Running a company "like a startup" can be a thing, but that does not make the company a startup.

Curious: what makes a company -not- a startup?

Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#397

Post by chasebank »

jakub_g wrote: post #392
ikr678 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poster probably had a series of small transactions from travelling ($5,12$,$13 etc). The bank moved the $900 to the front of the payment queue, and then every one of the smaller transactions cops the fee. It wasn't 500% of 900, it was the sum of the overdrafts on all the previous transactions.

For ~4k-ish of overdraft fees assuming ~$40 per single overdraft, they'd have to have hundred-ish transactions, sounds like a lot transactions (or the overdraft fees getting exponentially bigger with each one?)

I was tooling around Europe for a few weeks before I left and was using my debit card everywhere. 1 euro coffee, beer here, beer there, it all added up. For whatever reason, the overseas transactions didn't clear as fast as a stateside one usually did. I imagine it was like a weeks worth of transactions. 12/day isn't really crazy when traveling but it's been so long, the only detail I really remember was the final blow.

Re: Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure

#398

Post by ca98am79 »

numair wrote: post #43

The beginning of this article is a fairy tale that ignores what used to be one of the biggest drivers of revenue for banks: overdraft fees. Maybe the HN crowd has never been in a situation where they were auto-billed into a negative balance, which then caused an overdraft fee that then further drove their balance into negative territory, but this was a weekly/monthly fiasco for millions of Americans. I was once in a…

This was the story of my parents lives when I was growing up. They constantly paid these fees and they constantly were under water financially. I never forgave the banks for this. However, my parents were also to blame - they simply were unable to manage their finances.
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