desh | mo problems

mo problems

Has it really been that long since I last posted a pointless poll? My, how time flies like an arrow. And how fruit flies like a banana.

[Poll #942679]

I just bought a CD from The Hold Steady and another from Sufjan Stevens. Ask me in a couple weeks if you want to know how they are.

JITW tomorrow! Whee!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Plastic, but only because I save my cash for the cab, which doesn't take debit. Otherwise, my answer would be 2-4.

Heh, touche. I thought I covered everything. If you had a few $20s instead...

Our (Philly) cabs take debit now. Well, actually I don't know if they take debit/credit or just credit, but the point is they do have card swiping machines in them!

They don't do either. I've asked a cabbie about the machines maybe 4 times since I first saw them. The answer I got each time was, "Broken."

Debit cards: Freeing me from the hassle of "No, goddamnit, look, just ring it up. No. [i]Ring it up.[/i] Let the machine do the math. [b][i]Just DO it, register jockey![/i][/b]" since 1999.

Of course, that also leads me to my rant that everyone seems to have decided that "debit card"s are synonymous with "ATM card"s, which has pissed me off since roughly 2001. My card is a [i]debit card.[/i] It [i]debits[/i] an existing pool of money, rather than requesting credit against later payment. But as it is a Visa check card, no PINs and fees and flummery are required. I detest that other people's inability to label things accurately forces me to misrepresent my damn card to be understood.

Your card is a debit card that can represent itself as a credit card for purposes of the traditional credit card transaction and the machinery and programming made to facilitate it. Just because your card breaks the traditional ~~gender~~ card roles doesn't mean that the rest of us have to change our terminology to accomodate it.

My card debits an account. It is a debit card in the true sense of the word. The so called "debit cards" to which the rest refer hide an ATM transaction behind a paper-thin, torn veneer of a traditional purchase.

I believe the nomenclature should simply be changed, such that what we now refer to as a "credit card" transaction would be more properly titled as a "useful card" transaction, and the PIN-based nonsense can be accurately labeled the "clunky and useless dinosaur card designed to cost you money" transaction.

Yet strangely, that clunky beast is sometimes the best available transaction for all parties involved. The store is charged for the transaction on a different scale than for credit-card-style transactions, so for some amounts it costs them less. You can only get cash back from a "debit card" transaction, and moreover, it's illegal to charge customers a fee for getting money this way, making it often cheaper than an ATM.

Having said that, I never do it anymore. Credit card with cash back, baby.

Alright. I hereby rescind the "clunky and useless dinosaur card designed to cost you money", and replace with... [i]ATM Card[/i]. Because that's what it is. It is a card for an automated teller machine. They have built such a machine into the apparatus, it is still an ATM. Yea, so let it be written, so let it be done.

Debit cards in Canada require a PIN number, and are not backed by your bank, and not any sort of credit card institution.

It truly is a debit from your account, but you still need to enter the PIN to make sure you're not using a stolen card.

Er...ARE backed by your bank, and not a credit card company.

I'm not entirely sure what happens behind the scenes with my check card, to be honest. It's technically branded Visa, but it's very much a [bank name removed to protect the innocent] card, as there is a shop nearby that can process Visa fine, but has issues with cards specifically from that bank. All I knows is, I gives dem de card, de money is taken from my checking account when the transaction processes. I've found it generally much more efficient, timewise, at least, than the ATM transaction system.

Hm. That sentence, up there, doesn't work as well with the dialectical 'dems'. It seems to run rather counter to using the phrase "transaction processes." And yet, I'm investing a lot of time to comment on that fact here, rather than correct it there. Weird.

I could give a long-winded blathery explanation about this, involving issuing banks and bullshit like that, but here's basically what you need to know: when your card is used as a debit, it deducts in real-time and settles up later. This is why you should not use debit for restaurants/hotels - if some goon double-swipes your card, they've just tied up a shitton of your money until the second transaction releases. OTOH, when a cc is swiped, the system calls out for an authorization, which sets aside a portion of your credit limit for use. The authorization can last from a few days to a month, depending on when the batch is settled. What this boils down to: you can go over your credit limit, but you're not tying up real time money.

There's a lot more that goes on in there which I dismiss as magical handwaving, but.

That's the role signatures theoretically play for the US cards. 'course, now, places don't even make you sign for anything under like, $25, and my card has had the signature strip rubbed away and thus technically been void for about a year, and only one clerk even noticed.

In closing, I say unto thee: Madness, thy name is Canada.

And from this post, one sees that I have spent the day on internet message boards, rewiring it for improper HTML tags.

Honestly? $20.02 because I'd be too lazy to figure out the $0.07. But since that wasn't an option, $20.07.

I would've chosen $22.02 for the same reason, but $22.07 was the closest.

22.07 is even easier in Canada, since we have the $2 coin, so it's just a 20 and a toonie, nickel, and two pennies.

First financial transaction I ever made in Canada was handing over $10 for a $6 parking fee. I got two coins in exchange. I just stared quizzically at the cashier for a moment before deciding to actually read the coins...

You've no idea the difficulties I had in Germany, where you had coins up to DM 5,--. Large coins. Jangly, weighty coins that would tear your pockets because you forgot you were carrying $30USD in coinage when making purchases.

It was only after about three months that I was finally versed enough in the coinage to divest myself of it regularly.

i almost always pay by debit card, which i love, love, love to bits. if i pay cash, i'd more likely do 20.07 because i can always use the coin change for laundry. if i assess the cashier as being not so swift in the math department, i might even just do 20.02; most can handle that even if they don't have a cash register that calculates the diff for them.

Used to be I'd give him $20.07, but these days, it's $20. I try to maximize my coin change so I can dump it in the coin jug when I get home. There's a vacation in that jug, soon as it's full.

$22. And I appreciate your "in America" caveat. Very nice.

Oh, and for reference, if I had to pay cash, it'd be $20.07, largely because I prefer to have plenty of ones available.

Bah. And that would be me once more, with the HTML, full of fail. *sigh*

I'd do the $20 because that means I get singles back for change, which can then be used for the work vending machine.

Why not give 22.08 instead of 22.07?

Then your change would be $5.26. You'd get one of your own pennies back.

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