
Money Horror - oltdaniel
https://oltdaniel.at/2020/money-horror.html
======
rsync
"Yes transactions are paused on the weekend. Thats like google would do a
break on the weekend."

This is correct. The correct response to payment and settlement "pauses" for
silly things like weekends and holidays is derision. Contempt. Ridicule.

These settlement timelines are based _literally on horse and buggy schedules_
from the 1800s. They have no place in our modern workflow.

~~~
SQueeeeeL
I feel like there's an argument to be made for having an actual human
monitoring large transactions. If you're trying to take out a $600,000
mortgage at 3 AM on a Sunday, that probably shouldn't go through, or at the
very least have some human verification. Humans tend to work 9-5 Monday to
Friday

~~~
Pt_
Surely anomaly detection is better done by a machine?

I guess there's a certain level of human "intuition" about these things but is
this not what most banks anti-fraud systems do already?

~~~
SQueeeeeL
I imagine the problem with this is it becomes a game-able system if it's
purely automated. Sort of like the stereotype in Law and Order where they
always pay hitmen $9,999 because "the IRS only monitors transfers over 10k."

~~~
kevinventullo
On the other hand, maybe this is a kind of perverse benefit of opaque ML
systems.

------
fenwick67
I once tried to rent a car at an airport rental car place while my car was in
the shop. They wouldn't let me do it without a credit card. They wouldn't
accept my debit card, they said, unless I had flown in (despite that my card
can be ran as a credit card).

Lyft happily accepted my debit card and probably cost less in the end anyway.

------
pjc50
This is a bit "don't do that, then"; almost all the vital things take debit
cards, including through contactless.

It would certainly be nice to have something like Vipps in more countries; EU
Faster Payments is getting there but not quite as usable. And it's 24-hour.

For any of the peer-to-peer solutions, you _have_ to consider the fraud
problems. The problem with micropayments is microfraud.

~~~
ben_w
One of the most surprising experiences of my most recent trip to the USA (18
months ago) was how _few_ places seemed to cope with cards — and that those
which did, mostly still used the magnetic stripe.

The experience showed me why Apple Pay and Google Pay were considered worth
developing, or using. The only places which could do contactless payment with
my card could also do it with my smartphone.

------
chkaloon
"Only with a credit card. I am a student, I have no real world use for this
kind of card"

Yes you do, that vending machine you're standing in front of

~~~
LeifCarrotson
You feel the need to take out a short-term loan for your soda purchase?

The fact that a debit card isn't considered as good as (and further, that it's
not assumed to be better than) a credit card is yet another bit of money
horror.

~~~
orev
The way the credit card system is setup is what it is. If you know what you
are doing you can take advantage of it.

One should almost never use a debit card, as if it gets compromised the money
comes directly out of your account and the banks don’t have much incentive to
help too much.

With a credit card, that stolen money belongs to the bank, and therefore they
have a big incentive to get it back, so using this kind of card allows you to
wield the power of a large company for your benefit. As long as you pay off
the full bill every month, you are getting this protection for free.

~~~
tener
Perhaps this is regional thing, but in my country I get exact same level of
protection for both credit and debit cards. Regulatory pressure can be useful
at times.

------
arkanciscan
> we have an vending machine where you can pay with a credit card

> I have no real world use for this kind of card

Seems to me that he does.

~~~
oltdaniel
Fair enough. But I don't pay 2€ per month for a credit card from my local bank
to buy stuff from a vending machine. The overall point is, that I have not
enough use cases to make resonable use of it in the real world over my current
free debit card.

~~~
webstrand
In the US, many, if not most, credit cards don't charge a monthly fee. Is it
different in the EU?

~~~
oltdaniel
I have not many experiences as I am 19 and haven't switche banks, but my
current bank requires a fee. See
[https://www.lzo.com/de/home/privatkunden/kreditkarte.html](https://www.lzo.com/de/home/privatkunden/kreditkarte.html)

~~~
adrianN
INGDiba and Comdirect both offer free credit cards. Probably many more banks
do as well.

~~~
4ad
Doesn't seem to be the case for ING:

[https://www.ing.nl/particulier/betalen/creditcards/index.htm...](https://www.ing.nl/particulier/betalen/creditcards/index.html)

Comdirect does, but he is in the Netherlands.

------
hn_throwaway_99
To be honest, I always kind of lol at these kinds of rants. Wishing for the
"one true payment system" is like thinking that everyone will switch over to
speaking Esperanto in the near future. NEVER going to happen.

Also, many of his gripes seem ridiculous. I don't know if the situation is
different in Europe, but in the US I think pretty much everyone should have a
credit card. You can use a secured card if you have bad credit, and most debit
cards in the US can be swiped as a credit card. All of his non-existent
problems seem like they could be fixed by getting a credit card. Credit cards
also have better fraud protection, let you build credit, and usually have
better rewards for consumers. There is virtually no difference in privacy
benefits between credit and debit cards.

~~~
fenwick67
Many people have aversion to actual credit cards because most middle-to-lower-
class families have stories of family members going into financial ruin,
exacerbated by or ending with credit card debt.

"Just be responsible with your credit cards" is an easy mantra to live by if
you are financially privileged.

~~~
vibrolax
The only financial privilege needed to use a credit card safely and
responsibly is the discipline to not spend more than one can pay when the
statement arrives. It's nothing more than self control.

------
eterm
This makes me glad to live in the UK, where it seems to me we might just have
the best payments industry in the world.

\\* Faster (instant) payments 24/7.

\\* All purchase transactions are generally assumed to be debit card, credit
cards are never required and very much optional (I don't have a credit card)

\\* Contactless payments are instant, easy and completely standard, everything
from the corner shop upward has them. You don't need your PIN for less than
£30 (£45 quid from next week).

\\* A banking industry that is quick to refund anything from any fraud without
asking, which makes for a low case of fraud because they pro-actively block
odd transactions.

\\* Up to £75k insured per bank

I've often heard stories about payments that I just can't relate to because it
seems our payment industry is so good. We have no need for bitcoin and the
trendy start-ups don't even gain much traction because the banks own apps are
normally just as good anyway.

------
GhostVII
I think most day-to-day problems are easily solved by just getting a credit
card, there are lots of no-fee cards that pretty much anyone can get. They
work everywhere, and have fraud protection (edit: In North America at least).

For me, the biggest problem is trying to move large amounts of money around,
especially across borders. It took me like 3 phone calls and a trip to the
bank to figure out how to move my money from my US bank account to my Canadian
bank account without having to pay an absurd $40 wire fee. And of course
currency conversion is a pain as well - if you are converting a large amount
of money you either pay a tonne of fees through the bank, pay a fairly large
amount of fees (~1%) through something like Transferwise, or pay no fees by
going through the hastle of Norberts Gambit.

------
grecy
I feel his pain.

I emigrated to Canada from Australia, and it was exceptionally hard for me to
get a credit card. Apparently no credit rating is the same as the very worst
credit rating. It also took time to get paperwork like a drivers license and
SIN number (a bit like an SSN), and without those there was no chance. I had
to go a few years without one, and the number of things I couldn't do without
one was immensely frustrating.

Visa debit sounds great, but I find it doesn't work for a _ton_ of
transactions that want a credit card.

In the end I had to put $1000 into a special locked-in account that I couldn't
touch before the bank would issue me a $1000 credit card.

------
Pt_
Would it be correct to assume the vending machine only accepts credit as it
likely doesn't have a direct connection to a banking system to authorize the
payments at time of purchase?

I seem to remember credit being a requirement for making purchases on planes
for this same reason.

I'm curious because I live in the UK and pretty much all terminals here accept
debit cards, although I think the UK in general has been a bit ahead in terms
of payment standards (chip & pin, contactless etc.)

~~~
4ad
The author (who seems to use his cards in Germany) is most likely confused.
The problem is not with debit cards vs. credit cards. Every terminal I've seen
in Austria and Germany supports both (but see below). The problem is that
Austrians, Germans, and perhaps other EU countries think that Mastercard/Visa
means credit card, and Maestro/Giro/whatever means debit card. This is
exacerbated by the fact that until very recently you couldn't even get a
Mastercard/Visa debit card in Austria (1).

These terminals support Mastercard/Visa cards, plus more recently contactless.
Mastercard debit cards certainly work.

Btw, if you are an american visiting these countries, and you want to pay with
a debit card, when the cashier asks if you pay with a debit or a credit card,
answer credit card. They don't care whether it's credit vs. debit, they need
to know if it's Mastercard/Visa or the local crap card, to push the correct
button on the PoS. If you answer debit, it will NOT work.

1\. Austria recently started replacing Maestro cards with Mastercard debit
cards... but they seem to be some kind of funny Mastercard cards, not "real"
enough for these terminals (except in contactless mode)... But at least you
can pay for your plane ticket.

~~~
Pt_
He specifically mentions that he's in the Netherlands in the article.

And based on the writing in the "banking standards" paragraph it appears he
understands the difference between debit / credit cards and that banking
network they operate on doesn't determine the type of finance they provide

------
adrianmonk
> _we have an vending machine where you can pay with a credit card or cash.
> Well, there is the issue already. Only with a credit card. I am a student, I
> have no real world use for this kind of card_

I think you've just proven that you have at least one real-world use. It may
still not be worth the bother, though.

------
easymovet
Using Bitcoin as a settlement layer has enabled services to crop up that
provide interesting crosswalks of other payment layers, see
[https://twitter.com/ln_strike](https://twitter.com/ln_strike)

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Bitcoin is probably the worst settlement layer there is.

------
throwanem
I like the optimism of imagining, in April of 2020, that the mild
inconveniences of various payment systems will continue to qualify as "money
horror"!

------
stiray
There is just one thing, that he has forgot about it. He feeds a huge
survailance capitalism machine with his data. The horror is not where he
envisions, the horror is in, f.i. google tracking all his expenses.

Not that they know who are your contacts (android contacts synced, gmail
contacts, images uploaded,...), where you surf (googletags, google analytics),
what you search (google search), what software you use (google play, google
spyware framework,...), now they also know where you spend your money.

Now this is real horror.

------
wslh
Use a stable coin... USDC if you are worried about regulations and risk.

