I was under the impression that selecting debit when paying at the cashier means a direct debit of your account happens (as this article seems to imply). Which isn't subject to laws protecting consumers which apply to credit cards.
However selecting credit by the cashier - while using eg a MasterCard branded debit card still gives you the consumer protections (eg when disputing charges the onus is on the bank etc)
Am I completely wrong about this? Is the only difference the payment rail that gets used - and that has no affect on whick consumer protection laws you fall under?
Reg E is Reg E regardless of whether you’re on credit or debit rails, and most other regulations/laws are similar, but feel free to ask an extremely specialized lawyer for the specifics in your state.
The thing that is materially different are brand rules, because Visa/Mastercard/etc are effectively their own legal systems. They can, and do, require issuers to do certainly things vis customers and dispute resolution that go above what the law strictly requires. Those requirements may be more customer-friendly than what the debit network saddled the bank with, as debit networks have less of a brand to protect and less power over issuers.
(Speaking strictly for myself and on the basis of things I have believed for a long time: unless you need cash back, customers should choose credit ~every time.)
The slightly tricky part is that the brand rules may still apply even if it transaction on debit rails, since the brand is printed on the card and Visa/MC doesn't want to deal with consumer complaints because the merchant routed it to debit rails despite Visa's "zero fraud guarantee" (the primary exception for this is pin debit transactions are excluded since those primarily go through debit networks). The challenge then becomes the issuer needs to take a loss as some of the debit networks don't have the chargeback infrastructure that the larger networks have, but you are often still protected by Visa rules just because the card has Visa printed on it.
Thank you for explaining how brand rules might affect the decision which payment rails to choose. But does this also apply to payment cards that were issued by banks outside the US?
When you transact with a foreign credit/debit card at a POS or ATM in the US, you are also routinely asked if you want to proceed as a credit or debit transaction. I never know what to choose and if it actually makes a difference.
If your foreign card is a Visa or MasterCard you should have to choose credit for your transaction to go through. In this case you still have the same chargeback rights as you would have for a transaction at home, but that might not be any (nb: even if chargebacks aren't a thing in your home country the brand rules on them still apply. Some banks will do one if you ask them nicely.)
If it's a Maestro card you should probably try credit first, but I'm not sure.
If it's a VPay card you're relying on pure luck anyway.
Yes, the rails used should not affect the consumer protections you do or do not receive. If it's a debit card, it's a debit card regardless of if it's processed over a credit network.
Exactly how long the transaction takes to _clear_ your account may vary depending on the semantics of the network and integration used, but processing a debit card over a credit network doesn't mean you get to hold onto your money for any longer than you would otherwise. The auth will put a hold on the funds in your account instantly and you will effectively have that much less money in your account.
The terminology makes this so much harder to distinguish. My bank does have different consumer protections for different cards issued through them (debit cards require you to report fraud within 7 days, credit cards require you to report within 30). I didn't realize that the payment network used was not coupled to these mechanisms.
I wonder if financial marketing understands this? Associating credit with less risk, less requirements, in naming of the networks themselves? Even though settlement can occur on each network
There are consumer protection laws in place wrt to your liability based upon discovering fraud. It's something like no liability w/i 48 hours, $50 in liability with 1 week, full liability after that. I may be getting the specifics wrong, but the gist is correct.
It sounds like your bank has made the decision to eat the small liability as a customer value add.
One of the reasons why people are often wrong about CC being safer than debit is because many banks will also make you whole the next day after reporting fraud rather than waiting for it to process before returning the funds. They're not legally required to do this, but neither are credit card companies, both are doing it to gain customers.
The payment processing space, like basically anything when you look close enough, has a fractal-like complexity to it. And in my opinion the industry as a whole does a pretty poor job of abstracting away that complexity, often leaking it through, such as with the "debit or credit?" question.
But turns out it's pretty difficult to hide the complexity, and many businesses are built around hiding it as a service. It usually involves taking on risks others aren't willing to or having an Apple-like resolve to piss off some customers by deciding what's best for them without asking or, rarely, the power and/or innovation to actually change how things are done.
False. Charging back a debit transaction can be massively more difficult - the network rules are very different between Amex etc and debit. The minimums are the same but as Zelle folks are finding out - payment rails matter in terms of protection
Depends...
... on your geo: in the US credit/debit terms used like that often refer to the network it'll travel over. As others have noted the rails don't impact the consumer protection you receive. Outside the US things credit/debit don't have this overloaded meaning.
... on who's asking: sometimes the retailer wants or has to offer you a choice of networks. Sometimes your multi-app chip card is asking you to choose which app to use.
Being asked whether you want to pay with credit or debit when you are trying to pay with a debit card is one of those culture shock moments every time I visit the USA and I ask myself "how could it not know?"
A Twitter thread [1] from Matthew Green in this bill. Essentially he says that this bill is a dead on arrival bill which is designed to make EARN IT look like a fair compromise.
Thanks for that. I was aware of this phenomenon but didn't know its name. Funny, the Overton Window article does link to DITF, but not the other way around.
Thanks for the reference, I didn't know that name and always called it the "aim at 1000 to get 100" rule, which is essentially trading without doing it openly.
We (HNers) might not fall for it but the proven technologically illiterate Representatives and their staff just might. This is why citizen's lobbying is so important. If the lawmakers are willfully ignorant - or in this case willfully arrogant about attacking encryption - the only thing that will get them to vote the right way is to hear from enough real constituents that the lawmakers feel like their reelection will be in jeapordy if they do vote the wrong way.
I agree with lunchbreak's comment that this new bill seems "engineered" to make EARN IT look like a reasonable compromise.
FYI, there's a long history of politicians attempting to regulate mathematical truths they don't understand. My favorite example is probably the infamous Indiana Pi Bill, via which local politicians wanted to regulate the value of Pi to be exactly 3.2, according a "proof" published by some crank. The politicians were even hoping they could get people outside Indiana to pay a royalty for the "proof." No, I'm not making this up:
> My favorite example is probably the infamous Indiana Pi Bill, via which local politicians wanted to regulate the value of Pi to be exactly 3.2, according a "proof" published by some crank.
Honestly, that seems to be a bit of a distortion. What I've read about that makes it sound like some state legislators were fooled for a little while by a crank, which caused a dumb bill to advance a little before being killed. No law was ever passed, and the motivation appears to be less of trying to force nature to submit to law and more trying to secure rights to (what they thought) was advanced technology. Even the "regulate the value of Pi" aspect is a (popular) overstatement, since (IIRC) that value was only implied by the bill.
> The bill easily passed committee and was unanimously passed by the house. Representatives received it favorably, with one gushing that "The case is perfectly simple. If we pass this bill which establishes a new and correct value of pi, the author offers our state without cost the use of his discovery and its free publication in our school textbooks, while everyone else must pay him a royalty."
The Wikipedia link is way better and more credible:
> Upon its introduction in the Indiana House of Representatives, the bill's language and topic occasioned confusion among the membership; a member from Bloomington proposed that it be referred to the Finance Committee, but the Speaker accepted another member's recommendation to refer the bill to the Committee on Swamplands, where the bill could "find a deserved grave".[5]:385 It was transferred to the Committee on Education, which reported favorably;[6] following a motion to suspend the rules, the bill passed on February 6, 1897[5]:390 without a dissenting vote.
Honestly, it sounds like none of them understood the mathematics and the main effect of the bill had something to do with getting the state a license to use the copyrighted techniques royalty free. I'm speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of those who voted for did so because they thought there'd be little harm in getting something for free.
If anything, the more embarrassing thing seems to be they didn't seem to understand copyrights or patents very well, which are creatures of law that legislators should better understand than mathematics. I don't know if the precedents existed 120 years ago, but you can't patent/copyright mathematical truth, so even if the crank was right they should have known they didn't need to to anything to avoid paying him royalties to use his results.
If you live in California, let Senator Feinstein's office know you're not pleased with this. Unfortunately I don't think she's up for reelection this year, but if she doesn't retire next year, consider not voting for her in the next primary,
Feinstein was one of the EARN-IT Act's sponsors, and a long-time opponent of cryptography.
At this point, with all of the tech industry in her state, I think she has enough of a permanent remember-harvy-milk voter block to blatantly ignore them as she has been doing for the past couple of decades.
She is one biggest pro-spy-on-everyone senators there is.
Been there. Done that. Got the form letter response.
Thank you for writing to me to share your concerns about law enforcement access to encrypted communications. I appreciate the time you took to write, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.
I understand you are opposed to the “Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act of 2020” (S. 3398), which I introduced with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) on March 5, 2020. You may be interested to know that the Senate Judiciary Committee - of which I am Ranking Member - held a hearing on the “EARN IT Act” on March 11, 2020. If you would like to watch the full hearing or read the testimonies given by the hearing witnesses, I encourage you to visit the following website:https://sen.gov/53RV
The “EARN IT Act” would establish a National Commission on Online Sexual Exploitation Prevention to recommend best practices for companies to identify and report child sexual abuse material. Companies that implement these, or substantially similar, best practices would not be liable for any child sexual abuse materials that may still be found on their platforms. Companies that fail to meet these requirements, or fail to take other reasonable measures, would lose their liability protection.
Child abuse is one of the most heinous crimes, which is why I was deeply disturbed by recent reporting by The New York Times about the nearly 70 million online photos and videos of child sexual abuse that were reported by technology companies last year. It is a federal crime to possesses, distribute, or produce pictures of sexually explicit conduct with minors, and technology companies are required to report and remove these images on their platforms. Media reports, however, make it clear that current federal enforcement measures are insufficient and that we must do more to protect children from sexual exploitation.
Please know that I believe we must strike an appropriate balance between personal privacy and public safety. It is helpful for me to hear your perspective on this issue, and I will be mindful of your opposition to the “EARN IT Act” as the Senate continues to debate proposals to address child sexual exploitation.
Once again, thank you for writing. Should you have any other questions or comments, please call my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841 or visit my website at feinstein.senate.gov
Remind her how unhappy she was when the CIA poked around Senate computers, and if even her title and the law won't protect you snooping, maybe cryptography isn't all bad.
> the only thing that will get them to vote the right way is to hear from enough real constituents that the lawmakers feel like their reelection will be in jeapordy if they do vote the wrong way.
Like most real world systems this sounds incredibly inefficient to me. In germany there used to be (and maybe still is) the "Wahl-O-Mat" [1] ( an artificial word made out of two words: vote and automation ). The idea is to answer some questions and the Wahl-O-Mat tells you for which party you should vote.
Let's extend this idea and make a thought experiment. Imagine the questions and the answers would be tended / adjusted over time (like a profile on a dating site). The rules how the voting suggestion is computed are straight forward ( a weighted sum or something ). If a new controverse question arises then people adjust their voting-profile according to their beliefs (or if it doesn't matter to them they don't). If the profiles are public then the outcome of the next elections can be predicted easily. Best next thing to direct democracy.
"That's not to say that the 480 million have all died as a consequence of the fires because some things are going to be mobile — birds will fly away and come back," Dickman added.
"Some reptiles, like lizards, would perhaps go underground," he continued.
I hate big numbers without context. You can just replace whatever number given with "a shocking amount", and get a more honest statement.
A common one these days is "X tons of CO₂", which means absolutely nothing to 99% of people.
If you want to inform, there are ways to put numbers in context. How many % of some relevant emissions are these tons of CO₂? 480 million animals out of how many total?
Ever seen a bird fly away from your location only to see the fire move faster than the bird?
> Some reptiles, like lizards, would perhaps go underground
How long's the ground on fire? What's the ambient temperature just half a meter below ground during a fire? How much oxygen is preserved and for how long? Those lizards are being cooked alive. Those that aren't will suffocate.
>Not only that but the 8th generation developer edition supports Suspend-to-idle natively which allows the system to resume much more quickly from sleep.
What's different about this from before? I have an xps9350 with fedora - and have noticed sometimes buggy suspending (it shuts down instead of suspending) - but it usually got fixed with kernel update
When the Federal reserve lowered interest rates investors had to look for places to invest their money to make a larger return. Now that rates have risen there is not as much money flowing to VCs because there are safer - albeit less profitable - investments
However selecting credit by the cashier - while using eg a MasterCard branded debit card still gives you the consumer protections (eg when disputing charges the onus is on the bank etc)
Am I completely wrong about this? Is the only difference the payment rail that gets used - and that has no affect on whick consumer protection laws you fall under?