Visa/MasterCard is a tax in every transaction. You might not see it but it is there.
I like how Visa/Master Card are shutting “indecent” games down, but have no fucking issues with twitter generating CSAM.
I wish I could pay in cash for online purchases from Amazon. Amazon has such a privacy nightmare that I cannot even hide or delete my purchase history. I know deleting the history doesn’t remove the trait or nullify anything, but the fact that it remains visible on your account is stupid. There are purchases that I dont want anyone looking at my account to know and sometimes I just like clearing it. I don’t care for shit I bought back in 2018 anymore.
Alternate account?
No. In Sweden, 99% of all payments are cahsless. Most stores don’t even take cash anymore.
We still have plenty of (digital) options for payment in addition to Visa/Mastercard.
In my view, it’s actually the opposite. The more digital paymenst are used, the higher the incentive to create a competing payment solution. Swish and Klarna are taking over more and more here.
The destruction of cash in the EU is jusy disgusting. I dont want to have to leave a paper trail for everything.
Could be an alibi if you ever get in major trouble, lookup the transaction, match to security footage, prove you weren’t there.
I don’t have to prove I wasn’t there. They have to prove I was.
So if someone is lying and says you were? Mistaken identity? Easy fix if you show you weren’t where the crime took place.
You have a lot of trust in “the system”.
I thought klarna was just a payday loan basically?
It’s mostly a middle man to outsource payments. The stire doesn’t care if it’s on credit or not. You can pay directly with a bank account through Klarna, at least with the major Swedish banks.
Oh, I never looked into it. Just thought it was one of those high interest “loans” and said fuck no.
I consulted for a luxury brand on e-commerce for a bit and I was surprised how important credit card splitting was to their American business.
Like, people splitting a purchase across multiple cards because they were so close to the max for each.
I questioned how much time we were spending on it but they assured me it was a common use case.
Note I recently had to do some gymnastics to split a purchase over ‘credit cards’ because I had received a few modest gift cards. I suspect that’s an even more common case, since people want to completely use up a received gift card and that’s all but impossible without splitting. Even if I have 10s of thousands of available limit, a gift card means I’m trying to spend like $50 or $100 out of a card.
I HATE gift cards. Kiddo got one for Nintendo. We have a hacked switch! Can’t even use it.
Have a Home Depot one that says “invalid” or whatever wording, won’t let me use it.
Basically buying a piece of plastic, they take your money and tell you to fuck off. No one’s going to take them to court for $50, so it’s win-win all around for them.
I did this ONCE on a $10k required purchase. Never again.
Interesting, usually when I get into something that expensive, they don’t even want to accept credit cards. I think most I got someone to take as a credit card transaction was about $6,000. They’ll only take check or certified check, or if a car then of course they really want you to borrow through whatever they have partnered with.
unfortunately, was for a lawyer. paid it off in two months, but didn’t quite have $10k i cash in my pocket. it wasn’t for a DUI, i don’t drink lmao. thats the most common reason for lawyers i’ve heard.
Here in Czechia you can pay for online transactions with instant direct bank transfer, so cards are not really needed. This is often used for direct transfers between individuals where one generates a QR code on his phone and the other scans it.
That’s because Europe has SEPA, which are used in the EU.
Europeans mind can’t comprehend the issues of american banks.
They are so bad, it doesn’t make any sense.
Europeans mind can’t comprehend the issues of american banks.
Still need an American credit card to rent a car tho
No you don’t? What are you talking about?
Car rentals almost exclusively accept payment by credit card, unless you have a corporate account that is billed periodically.
I’m sure you can find an exception but please let’s not fly off to nitpick land.
My parents are not from the USA and don’t have USA bank accounts or credit cards and have had no problems renting a car in Europe or anywhere else they went. I really don’t get what you mean. I don’t see why you specifically need an American card and not just a credit card from any modern country.
I mean if you don’t understand things you should ask, not assume others are in the wrong. Yeah it would be pretty stupid to be forced to have US accounts to rent cars in Europe, luckily we’re not THAT stupid.
VISA and MasterCard are practically a monopoly on credit card circuits, your parents’ cards may be issued by a local bank but there’s a 95% chance they’ve got one of these two companies’ logo printed on them, and out of every payment they make, these AMERICAN companies get 2% (blah blah cashback, blah blah terms and conditions), because they are made on their circuits!
You may also have debit cards that DON’T have those logos, but debit cards can’t be used for car rentals.


