XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.books
From: rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com
"Your Name" wrote in message
news:YourName-1308131559160001@203-118-187-140.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz...
> In article , Robert Bannister
> wrote:
>> On 12/08/13 11:23 AM, Rod Speed wrote:
>> > "Robert Bannister" wrote in message
>> > news:b6qu74F48beU5@mid.individual.net...
>> >> On 11/08/13 11:13 AM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>> >>> On Wed, 07 Aug 2013 22:33:50 -0600, Greg Goss
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> In the very early days, you could get the ATM card combined with
>> >>>> your
>> >>>> credit card. Thus you would use the credit card in ATMs and choose
>> >>>> which of three accounts you're interacting with.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> With the rise of using your ATM card as a debit card for purchases,
>> >>>> this feature was lost. Unlike at an ATM, the electronic pathway for
>> >>>> using a credit card is quite different from that a debit card uses.
>> >>>
>> >>> You can still get those in Canada but they're devastating for the
>> >>> merchant since debit transactions cost 12-15 cents each while if a
>> >>> credit card depending on the type of card it can cost 1.6 to 4.5% of
>> >>> the purchase. That's a huge chunk of the merchant's profit margin
>> >>> particularly on the affinity cards and 'high spender' or points
>> >>> cards.
>> >>>
>> >>> Now a merchant who doesn't cover all his costs is out of business so
>> >>> you know where those costs get passed along to.... in grocery stores
>> >>> they used to work on a 1-2% margin because they were getting 'the
>> >>> turns' but these days it's 7-8% mostly to cover card costs.
>> >
>> >> I don't know how much shop keepers get ripped off by the banks here,
>> >
>> > Its nothing like as high as that 7-8% here.
>> >
>> >> but I know that if they didn't accept transactions from saving
>> >> accounts as well as from cheque accounts and credit, they would soon
>> >> be out of business.
>> >
>> > Woolys and BigW don't in fact allow you to select
>> > the Credit option with a debit card, and that hasn't
>> > done them any harm business wise.
>>
>> I've never seen a debit card, but my MasterCard still comes up with the
>> "Cheque, Savings or Credit" choice at Woolworths and BigW.
> That's the machine / software rather than your card
Yes.
> - it does it for all card types.
No.
> If you try to use one of the other options the transaction will fail
No. Before Woolys and Big W changed how their system worked,
if you hit the credit button with a debit card you got exactly the
same result as if you hit either the cheque or savings buttons,
the amount was deducted from the amount of cash you had in
the account the card was linked to.
And that is how all the other operations still do it with debit cards.
> (unless of course you've already set up that card
> to be able to use a cheque or savings account).
That is all a DEBIT card can ever be setup to do.
> I'm pretty sure it happens on all the
> machines I usewith my credit card,
We arent discussing credit cards, we are discussing debit cards.
> even though that has never been set-up
> to use any other account type.
> You'd think that in these days of trying to idiot-proof
> everything, they would take away unusable options.
Yes, some are too stupid to do that.
And too stupid to just treat the transaction as
the only one that is possible with a card for which
there is only one type of transaction possible too.
> Presumably tap-n-go / wave cards use
> some sort of default account type if
> they've been set-up to use different ones.
They still allow you to select what sort of transaction
you want to do. The only difference is that you don’t
have to swipe the card or insert it either. You do have
to specify that you do way to pay by card and not cash.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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