that visa commercial is bull
 

have you seen that visa commercial where everyone is busily engaged in commerce, and someone pulls out cash and everything stops?

THAT IS BULLSHIT.

anyone who works in retail knows, cash is quick. i can understand bagging on the slowness of checks, most people have been behind the lady in the supermarket who decides to fill out her check, date and all, right there AFTER everything is rung up and bagged...

but cash is quick. no way can credit beat cash. at least in the store i'm working in right now, i have to wait for the credit machine to do it's magic, print out a reciept, guy signs, another receipt gets printed which is customers, etc.

i probably work in a more backwards old-skool type of store with outdated equipment. ok. but still, i don't see credit as being faster than cash.

so what is visa trying to pull? and how many people are watching that and thinking "yeah, stupid people paying in cash, slowing everything down! bastards!"

every time i see that commercial, it pisses me off...

if you work in retail, do you think cash is slower than plastic? if you shop, do you rather pay in cash or plastic?

LOL

Yeah. It's supposed to trick the TV watching zombie that cash somehow slows the process down.

Yes. It is bullshit.


I would much rather have someone give me cash. Credit card machines never work.

yah that ad is totally BS

Ever get behind someone whose card won't swipe? Or it's denied? Or the swiper won't work....
One time, after returning to NJ after a long road trip, I needed to gas up and pulled into a very long line at the pumps. In NJ, we can't pump our own and seeing that line, I was already steaming and wishing i could just get my own damned gas....
The woman in front of me(now just one car back) handed her credit card to the attendant, who then walks to his booth to swipe it after which he has to go back and get a signature...*sigh*...the woman's card didn't work. So they do it all over again.
Yep, cash speeds things UP not the other way around.

Of course there is always that octogenarian ,whose total is $2.98, insists on giving the 98 cents in as small of change as possible, which they have to rummage from the bottom of a change purse filled with buttons, efferdent, and nitro pills. :D

really?

I can tap my card at Duane Read and McDonald's and there is no signature if it is under $25.

I'm out faster than anyone with cash, even if they have exact cash because it doesn't need to be counted.

http://www.mastercard.com/us/persona...cards/paypass/

In Japan there are a few electronic cash systems that work as simply as shown in the ad, and you can even wave your cellphone instead of a card. That said, I saw ONE person use it in almost a year, and it was because he was showing me how it worked. No doubt it's impressive technology, but it's far from replacing cash.

As for the ad, I am really annoyed by the look of condescension when the guy tried to use cash. I don't like either of visa's new commercials.

I know it sounds conspiratorial but, sounds like this is another hype to get rid of cash and go 100% electronic funds.

Why do they want that? Because there would be no bad checks, no loyalty to one's currency and it feeds everyone to live on credit.

If there is no loyalty to one's currency, it makes it easier to make a one world currency and then one world government.

I don't think the electronic money idea is all that bad, in that it's harder to have it stolen, and it makes it easier to make sure everyone who works is a legal citizen and pays taxes.

On the other hand, it makes it easier to watch who buys what, and again a one world currency that becomes a one world government.

Many pros and cons to this.... but I am thread jacking.

Sorry for thread jacking.

Heh, Visa would be wasting their money to run an ad like that here in Iceland, because NO ONE uses cash anymore. I mean... no one. Every single place of commerce in Iceland has a swipe machine (they're very efficient, too), and every single person with a bank account has plastic. We're talking about debit cards here, btw... credit is only starting to make inroads (mostly for online purchases), but debit is ALL THE RAGE. There is really no place in the whole country where one would ever need to use cash.

I hate using cash.

I use my debit card 90% of the time. It doesn't cost me anything extra and takes very little time.

Spouse uses his debit card 99% of the time, which keeps us in this quagmire of being broke; he even uses it when there's cash in the house. We're both also lax when it comes to writing the debits down so I never balance.
Checks I use for bill paying-but this past month someone at the bank wasn't paying attention and debited a $300 check as a $20 check; then, because we didn't write down 4 debits, we were technically overdrawn, but with the bank error, have more than $200 available...I'm sure they'll find it so this week's deposit won't get recorded in my ledger.
Charge cards aren't any better. I always think there's more there than there is and end up overcharging.
Ok...maybe I'm just really bad with money....

Carry on...

Even though I rarely use cash these days, I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed by that commercial.

Its the implied peer pressure not to use cash message that really annoys me. It would be one thing if it was people writing a check, but cash takes no extra time these days as even the high school drop out at the cashier gets it done automatically. No thinking required.

i don't mind a good conspiracy thread jacking, and yeah, i kinda feel the same way, that it's trying to get us into only credit so "they" can watch what we buy and track us and crap...maybe not to control us directly, but to market better to us, which is still some kind of manipulation...

yep, gotta admit our society is leaning that way. You can pay for parking with a credit card for christ sake! it scares me frankly. We have more faith in credit cards than cash, and if no one has noticed, credit cards have an amazing tendency to be too tempting for the weak of heart (and weak of paycheck) and thus drives our negative savings average up....

While I don't think its a conspiracy, I do worry about a true cashless society. Just because something doesn't start out as a tool of oppression doesn't mean it can't turn into one in the wrong hands.

That's true. I never thought of it that way. That negative savings average is a bad thing to rack up. People should be a little more cautious when using credit cards.

I am SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you, that a company would air an ad that made their product look better than it does.

I am off to go drift my car across the desert and drink beer with bikini-clad supermodels.

Seriously, of course the ad isn't accurate. Why would it be?

Personally, I use a lot of plastic. Its more convenient for me. But I don't think that it slows anyone else down - or speeds things up.

The only retailer with PayPass in my town is 7-11, though McDonalds is trying to catch up. Unfortunately, none of the banks here have started offering cards with PayPass.

I live off of plastic--a debit card. I've been using my debit card over cash since I came to college 7 years ago, because most places in this town accept plastic. In fact, businesses without plastic soon found they had to have credit card terminals in order to be competitive. There are only a couple of holdouts in town, but they're given a pass as they're more old-timers' bars than anything else.

And abaya, the phenomenon of debit cards is all over Europe, not just Iceland. I think the United States is a bit behind the times when it comes to adopting these technologies.

I remember when credit cards slowed things down. The cashier had to open the book of lost/stolen cards and see if there was a match or call the 800 number for approval. Oh those were the slow days of credit.

oh and i can't tell you how many times the point of purchase credit card machines in Europe don't always work for for US cards. This was very true in Iceland driving up in Myvatn or in Western Fjords when the gas station was closed but the point of purchase pump was open. US cards were challenging in Spain, Finland, Austria in point of sale machines, regular hotel and dining wasn't a problem.

Now we have a bank card from Islandbanki now Glitnir. So no more troubles, and when we buy things for Icelanders they pay us in Kronur and transfer it into our bank account.

Not to take this conversation off track....but I watch this with a lot of interest as one of the "signs of end times" is a cashless society (for those of us that are believers and NO Im not trying to start any other kind of conversation here, Im just stating why I find it interesting)

I've always hated this commercial as I am one that strives to pay for things with exact cash when I can or as close to it as possible but I have to admit the convenience of my debit card is slowing taking over that habit

I really prefer my debit card to cash. It's a hassle to make sure I have cash on me, and I only have cash when I'm going to need it. What makes my debit card faster than cash at the grocery store, for example, is that I can swipe my card while the clerk is scanning my purchases (when I don't use self-checkout). That way he or she just hits a button and I'm done.

That's what I was going to say. What's next? A thread about how pissed we are that Axe deoderant doesn't make the chicks dig you?

That said, I love my debit card and it can definitely be faster than cash. You swipe and go through the menu while they ring you up. At the end you just press "ok." However, recently I'm trying out cash again. I'm trying to tighten up my budget as much as possible and because cash is tangible you can get paid, pay the bills and withdraw the amount that you want to limit yourself to for the pay period. You are much more aware of your spending when you have the paper money.

Yeah that visa ad is bs..Trying to get the sheep to use the plastic (ie keep your hard earned moola in their financial institution), occasionally overdraw (to the tune of $29 a pop)and to make money off your money....

Reminds me of a funny but true ad. "I called my bank to report unauthorized withdrawls to my account.... Then I realized that it was my bank doing the withdrawing"

<rant>
And, do not get me started on cards that do not read...The problem in this state is not so much the bank cards as it is the state issued foodstamp cards...
</rant>

Nicely done, bro!! We're Glinir customers as well. :) You've got quite a nice little system of "importing," there (and it's a good time to have kronur stored up somewhere, too). :)

Yeah, I hate those commercials! But I also have a pure hatred for credit cards.

don't get me started, i'm STILL pissed that it doesn't work....

When I was a cashier, the number of people who didn't know how to use a debit/credit terminal blew me away. I had an older man once who was paying with his debit card, and his daughter was there to help him. I asked him if it was debit or credit (we had an old system in which the cashier had to manually enter in the type of card on the register, if they didn't match it would cancel out). He told me it was Visa. I explained that was fine, but I needed to know if it was a credit purchase or coming out of his checking account. He said...It's Visa! After him yelling it was Visa a couple more times, I told his daughter to punch in credit because I obviously couldn't make him understand the difference.

Also...as soon as the communication between the terminal and whatever it connects to goes down, you realize how INconvienent plastic can be.

Thank gods I'm no longer in retail.

This summer Red and I were at Silver Sands outlets in Destin, Fl. After making our selections the cashier rang up our purchases including my coupons and discounts which amounted to quite a bit. After swiping my debit card, the system went down. We waited for several minutes while the manager scurried. There was a long line. Did we have cash? or a check? No to both. Not wanting to lose my discounts that were tied up in the purchase we had them set our stuff aside and we headed out in search of an ATM. The ATM at the outlet was down as well. We got in the car and drove around and found a working ATM not to far away. 30 minutes later we're back, completing the purchase. "We're so sorry for the trouble", they said. In the past I would always carry at least one check with me, but now I'm strictly debit and a small amount of cash. Recently, at a local mom and pop diner the system went down while we were eating, and when we were ready to pay they could only take cash. They knew us, so it was easy to just go to an ATM for cash and then go back and pay the bill. But that only worked because they knew us. I see a lot of potential problems in a strictly cashless society.

It's not bull, though it's an unfair representation. It would be like saying that everyone is safe in cars now because airbags are available. Well, they are available, but there are still plenty of older cars rolling around which existed before airbags were so common, or at all available.

It's as simple as a quick swipe if you have a good receipt printer like a thermal, don't require signatures for the purchases, and use an internet connection instead of a telephone dial-in connection for transmission. A slower printer can add time, requiring signatures adds time, and using telephone dial-in for transmission takes a few seconds longer than an internet connection.

Really, though... why is anyone getting their underwear in a twist because it takes 9 seconds longer to take a credit card on a slow set-up than for cash? Maybe it's as much as 17 seconds if they have to sign for it.

The real issue is getting rid of checks as payment in stores. Those are a gigantic waste of time and check fraud is around $20 BILLION annually. Checks should be for the movement of finances, NOT for point-of-sale transactions. Bills/payments, interpersonal movement of money, and for purchases from business-to-business, absolutely... but not people in stores. Thankfully, most all restaurants no longer accept checks. I just wish retail stores would stop as well.

There is absolutely no advantage or reason to use a check to pay for something. Paper trail? You already use a ledger (and if you don't, then you have no excuse whatsoever) and get a receipt. That's all you need.