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Strategies & Market Trends : The Financial Collapse of 2001 Unwinding -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (2692)	6/30/2019 8:34:35 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13800

Merchants only pay the high 2.5% "Card Not Present" rate for Visa cards if they refuse to follow the very simple risk prevention steps. Since "Card Not Present" transactions take place mostly online, they're pretty easy to follow. 1.) Electronically verify that the customer's Postal Code or address matches the one on file with the credit card; 2.) Record the 3 or 4 digit number on the back of the customer's card. You can end up pay the 2.5% penalty rate or more for other stupid merchant behavior. One example is, if you're not a business where customers typically leave tips, like a restaurant or barber shop, your charge can be downgraded to a 2.5% or worse penalty rate if the amount you electronically authorized is different from the amount you actually submit to your processing bank. This kind of behavior is borderline fraud or trying to maintain customer and merchant convenience in a very dispute-ridden area where the card holder is often going to seek a refund. That means lots of customer service time and dispute mediation, so it's hardly a surprise the bank is going to charge you more. This "not electronically authorized" penalty-rate is a business marvel for merchants. How could a merchant even try to charge more than "the customer authorized amount" if you paid cash. You check out of a hotel, or return a rental car and pay the bill. After you're gone they realize you didn't fill the tank or that you took towels from the room. There's a reason this type of merchant requires you to use a credit card, because without it these unauthorized charges after you leave would go unpaid unless they want to file a lawsuit. Debit Cards don't even allow merchants to make charges after the authorization, so not surprisingly these merchants won't take a debit card as payment without first obtaining a credit card authorization. A penalty rate of 2.5% or even 2.95% for being able to get paid for these post-transaction charges is really cheap for the merchants. I'm sure Hertz paid a Credit Card penalty rate when they charged me for a speeding ticket in France three months after the car rental. But in addition Hertz made sure I had already signed-away my life to become part of their preferred customer network, so they charged me an extra $15 fee for handling this which more than covered the Visa penalty fee. . Many governments, like New Zealand, have mandated very low fees for the use of Debit Cards when they are cleared electronically. But customers using Debit Cards bear a much higher share of any fraudulent usage if one of the businesses they patronize is dishonest or unknowingly has a card skimmer attached to their card reader. With a credit card I can order something from the other side of the world and get the charge refunded if I don't receive what I ordered. Try that with a pixilated bitcoin. You may find this hard to believe, but I'd never use a debit card even if the business offers me a discount for Debit Cards instead of Credit Cards. This is often the case for online government transactions like tax payments or parking passes. If I'm dealing directly with the federal or state government I usually use an online ACH direct bank debit, but I recently discovered I can now pay my Estimated Taxes to the IRS, paying an extra fee to their credit card processor, and make a profit on the transaction because I earn cash-back which is significantly larger than the processing fee. Let's just say I'm thoroughly satisfied with the credit card payment system.