[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 12:30 pm

ishy wrote:Paypal money?
You make it sound like some exclusive club.
It takes like 2 minutes to set up a paypal account and transfer some money from your bank account.

I did own a credit card in the past, but since I never used it for anything except amazon (and amazon uk did away with free shipping), I didn't really see the point in owning one.

If I want to buy something online, I can just wire some money from my bank, which unlike using a credit card or paypal doesn't have any transaction fees.

Credit Cards also don't have transaction fees. (For you.)

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 1:00 pm

Paypal does not accept my attempts at creating an account.
They wire me a smallish ammount of money and then ask me to tell them how much it was to make sure it's the correct bank account and then they don't accept the numbers i tell them.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:36 pm

Kaelik wrote:Credit Cards also don't have transaction fees. (For you.)

But I do have to pay a surcharge (to cover for the transaction fees).

violence in the media · Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:12 pm

ishy wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Credit Cards also don't have transaction fees. (For you.)
But I do have to pay a surcharge (to cover for the transaction fees).

The merchant agreements with VISA, etc. don't prohibit that sort of behavior in the UK? I've always been told that you (as a merchant) can be penalized by the card companies for that here in the US. Dunno how some rural gas stations get away with the different prices for cash/credit though.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:34 pm

It's by contract with your payment processor. Some places have made that clause illegal/non-binding. In the US, you can add surcharges because of How a class-action lawsuit settled (http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/ ... chants.pdf), which is a recent development.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:55 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Paypal does not accept my attempts at creating an account.
They wire me a smallish ammount of money and then ask me to tell them how much it was to make sure it's the correct bank account and then they don't accept the numbers i tell them.

Are you sure they're in the right order?

I've never had a problem with that. Well actualy one small problem. My bank listed the two together as a single credit when they added the money to my account, so I had to carefully check the records to find the right amounts.

Also, they don't wire, they use the Automated Clearing House. There's an important distinction. Wire transfers are instant, but expensive. Often both sending and recieving banks will charge around 10 to 25 dollars for a wire transfer, so you're losing 20-50 dollars on every wire transfer, as opposed to the ACH which is both slower and free.

Yeah, I didn't know the difference either until recently.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:16 pm

There was only one ammount sent my way as far as i remember. It's been more than 2 years by now and every time i try to register an account nowadays it still asks for that ammount because they remember my bank account from back then still . . even though i never really propperly registered with them, they still did not delete my data . .

And i am german, i always used "wiring money" as the translation für "Geld überweisen". Never knew it was technically wrong.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:19 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Paypal does not accept my attempts at creating an account.
They wire me a smallish ammount of money and then ask me to tell them how much it was to make sure it's the correct bank account and then they don't accept the numbers i tell them.

IIRC numbers in german sometimes use a comma for the decimal point, while in english it's always a full stop. €1.34 vs. €1,34 for example. If you're using a comma maybe it's worth trying a full stop?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:25 pm

That is actually something that never occured to me i have to admit . .

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 5:30 pm

Stahlseele wrote:There was only one ammount sent my way as far as i remember. It's been more than 2 years by now and every time i try to register an account nowadays it still asks for that ammount because they remember my bank account from back then still . . even though i never really propperly registered with them, they still did not delete my data . .

Yeah, that's the problem. They will have, in fact, sent two ACH transfers to your account. Your bank might have credited them together as a single item on your statement, like mine did. In which case you'd need to go over your statement from that period and look for the names of the transfers, since the amount should be in the name.

Paypal should ask you for two numbers. If they only ask for one disregard that advice.

Otherwise, you might consider calling their customer service number. If you can't go over your old statements then they can probably resend.

Of course, these days they also have instant verification where you give them the username password to your online banking account and they log in once to make sure that its really yours then discard the data.

And i am german, i always used "wiring money" as the translation für "Geld überweisen". Never knew it was technically wrong.

Yeah. Wire transfer is done directly between the two banks. They actually have to call each other and set it up. It requires human intervention on both ends and they charge for it. But its instant. ACH transfer uses an automated system shared by the banks. It doesn't require any coordination between them, but it does take longer.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 7:48 pm

hyzmarca wrote:Of course, these days they also have instant verification where you give them the username password to your online banking account and they log in once to make sure that its really yours then discard the data.

This seems like a hilariously bad idea.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:19 pm

It's also against most banks' terms of service for their online banking. There's pretty much always a "never give out your password" clause so they can say it's your fault if your ex logs on to your account and steals all your money. It's the same as the "never use an easily-guessed PIN" on credit cards - I saw a report about a man in my province who might never get the money his ex spent on his credit card back because the PIN was the same as his debit PIN and she knew the debit PIN.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 9:23 pm

You don't give Paypal your password. You log into your bank account through paypal, much like you log into paypal through other websites.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 11:34 pm

ishy wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Credit Cards also don't have transaction fees. (For you.)
But I do have to pay a surcharge (to cover for the transaction fees).

Then you live in a third world shithole that fucks over consumers, and you should focus on not doing that before you make decisions about how you pay for things.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:20 am

Kaelik wrote:
ishy wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Credit Cards also don't have transaction fees. (For you.)
But I do have to pay a surcharge (to cover for the transaction fees).
Then you live in a third world shithole that fucks over consumers, and you should focus on not doing that before you make decisions about how you pay for things.

You have to pay a surcharge either way. The only question is whether you can avoid it by paying cash.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:41 am

fectin wrote:
Kaelik wrote:
ishy wrote:But I do have to pay a surcharge (to cover for the transaction fees).
Then you live in a third world shithole that fucks over consumers, and you should focus on not doing that before you make decisions about how you pay for things.
You have to pay a surcharge either way. The only question is whether you can avoid it by paying cash.

Uh... No.

It isn't a surcharge if it is included in the price. That is kinda the fucking point of having a word "surcharge" at the point you are talking about, you might as well just talk about those surcharges you pay for employee wages.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:14 pm

Ukraine opens the Ministry of Truth

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 11:36 am

Australia never stops amazing me

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 11:54 am

Yeah. Bringing back slavery of the natives (as part of a general slavery of the poor thing). This is the same government that did the "Hey kid, now we have you locked up here to be tortured... why don't you give this guy a call and ask him to give into our demands?" thing recently.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 12:06 pm

Longes wrote:Australia never stops amazing me

Oh that. The re-introduction of slavery thing?

Yeah, that's not that big a deal really. And a large part of the reason they are targetting aboriginals is they lost the battle on trying to pull the whole "anything other than constant slave labor and starvation is a moral threat to unemployed people!" on everyone that the Australian public actually cares about.

We fucking INVADED and OCCUPIED aboriginal settlements with the fucking military, oh, gosh, fucking years ago as a god damn political stunt when kicking the guts in on refugees was losing political mileage. And it didn't work as a stunt, less because it was evil and stupid and more because no one in white Australia fucking cared.

Mean while we are quietly overseeing a massive nation wide government sponsored "lost generation" far bigger than the somwhat officially recognized one with the government seizing Aboriginal children from their families in ludicrous numbers. To the point that I can't remember was it 200 times? The amount of money in the NT was being spent on seizing black children "because poverty" than was being spent on "less poverty". To the point that an aboriginal mother can get fucking multiple court orders declaring her a fit parent only to have the fucking authorities turn up for a "routine investigation" and for the unexplained local police they bring with them to take said mother aside and say "run for it, they brought us here to take your kids for no reason" (spoiler, story ends with her kids taken).

Mean while our borderline genocide of Aboriginals has stepped up far more in other areas. We are seriously up and shutting down and expelling the residents of somewhere between 150 to 250 remote Aboriginal communities, because hey unlike remote white settlements (that get better government services anyway) we apparently can and will declare black settlements a "waste of money" with NO regard to any sort of rights as citizens to basic services we will simply shut down all their services AND then we are going to fucking forcibly expel them from the land they own after that. Is there even a plan for where all those people are going to go? No. There is literally NO plan for that. There is no room for them in the cities, they are basically going straight to starving on the streets. How do we know, oh because we've ALREADY gone and done the fucking pilot project and flat out stole the land off a couple of remote aboriginal communities already just recently.

So yeah. The whole "fuck it, slavery for the dole" thing is ultimately just the icing on the cake of the batshit racist apartheid thing we have going here.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 12:28 pm

Essentially, if the PM manages to anger Putin enough that every last inch of our country is nuked flat, it will be an improvement on current conditions. For the actual people residing here, that is. Admittedly if anyone can do that, it's him, so there is hope.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 7:17 pm

Spain doesn't want protests

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:13 pm

Okay, I gotta ask: is Cameron TRYING to go down in history as the worst PM in UK history?

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:43 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Okay, I gotta ask: is Cameron TRYING to go down in history as the worst PM in UK history?

Is this in reference to a specific new development, or just that Cameron and his cabal are ideologically committed to a theory that doesn't work?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:52 pm

This was prompted by the UK porn restrictions, but it's especially conspicuous in conjunction with the Scotland independence vote not too many months ago.