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Comment by extradego | Hacker News Reader

In the USA, this is just how it’s done. I’m not exaggerating; this is business as usual. Penalizing this would be a catastrophe for Americans. I think the sheer volume of the tricks, lies, gimmicks and gotchas cause each one bleed into the next to the point of immersion. The shimmer of the spectacle and hope become one and the same. Because every day is just another swindle at the Big Bazaar Of Life.

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A decade ago I would have thought your comment was over the top. Then I moved to Germany. And was surprised to find an utter lack of spammy phone calls, no crowd of ubiquitous scammers vying for my attention, no surprise mystery medical bills, nothing. I was with my German girlfriend in a department store once, she tore a little slip off the stockings she was buying, put her name and email on it, and dropped it into a jug by the cash register. I gave her a "were you born yesterday" look and asked if she hadn't yet learned that these things are all scams. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. A month later we won an all expenses paid trip to a resort in Turkey, it was on the tacky side but also the height of luxury and relaxation. All the stocking brand wanted from us in return was a few happy selfies to post on their Twitter account.

If more Americans knew that it doesn't have to be this way, maybe things could change.

Good Lord, you're right. This sort of marketing could work, if Americans were more vigilant about punishing bad actors.

If someone in Germany tried an American-style scam, the sheer tangibility of the vision I have of angry Germans not effing stopping until the perps are put in jail is palpable.

Sadly, this seems to be a national attitude and those just don't seem to be transmissable.

Now I'm wondering whether Germany is the exception or the rule. I darn sure wouldn't want to trust anyone, say, in Russia. Not sure about Latin America though. Argentina might seem safe, but Mexico? Africa, mostly probably not.

That’s how it was when I was kid (in the US). Obviously not twitter selfies, but the equivalent at the time.

I have more or less the same story moving to Austria. I get spammy calls but they are actually legit surveys (quality of life, political leanings, newspaper preferences, etc) and only because I gave up my phone number at a party many years ago and haven't bothered to have it removed. I get once of these survey calls about every 3-6 months and if I'm not in the mood I just tell them I don't have time and they never call back. On occasion they ask if they could call back at a later date.

Re: winning things - I won 500 Euro from Visa for entering a contest, where the only requirements were to fill out the online form with my name, age and email address, followed by using my Visa card 3 times in one month any of the following 3 months. I should note that Visa the company here doesn't actually function as a credit card like in the U.S., rather it's directly connected to your bank account, where at the end of the month any balance due is automatically deducted. If your account drops below zero, you just pay some interest at the end of the month. From my basic research (looking at my bank statements for the past 2 years), it's extremely low. In fact looking at my last "25% KEST" charges, I was in minus for 3 months last year, and the charge was 0,02 euro cents. I honestly have no idea how that works, but I assume we have some good consumer protections in place.

> rather it's directly connected to your bank account,

So a debit card?

I thought a debit card was just for withdrawing cash? We have bank cards (Bankomat Karte) for withdrawing cash - in fact, when you pay and want to use the card, many people just say "karte" (literally: card) to mean a bank (debit?) card and not a credit card.

Our Visa cards can also withdraw using a pin, but I don't know anyone who does (anecdotally speaking - but I do pay attention to shoppers ahead of me in line, seems like a rare occurrence). I personally use it to (very rarely) purchase products for which I don't have enough cash on hand, and because banks generally set the withdraw limit to 400€/day. On top of that, most places (IMO) still don't accept credit cards or will charge 3-5% fee (such as the official Apple dealer McShark). Visa transactions are also hindered in comparison, there tends to be less information available about the purchase and seller names are truncated to ~20 characters. Also the booking is often delayed (online) until the statement is sent per e/mail, unlike bank transactions which appear online within 24 hours.

> I thought a debit card was just for withdrawing cash?

In many countries you can use the debit card to withdraw cash and make online and EFTPOS transactions. EFTPOS machines can process debit and credit cards. With debit cards the money is deducted from your account immediately or in your case at the end of the month. (but then it should be called credit not debit)

So to answer your question using your selected terminology, they are zero-interest credit cards.

What you initially described isn’t a “debit card” despite GPs post, but a debit card isn’t what you think either. A debit card can be used like an ATM card (what you call a Bankomat, and isn’t charged a cash advance fee like using a pin with a normal credit card), but it also can be used pinless like a credit card, just the money is immediately held in your bank account. That’s the difference with what you described originally, the immediate rather than end of month part. The closest thing really we have in the US generally used to what you describe is a “charge card”, which some versions of American Express are. You are required to settle up in full at the end of the month usually, though, and carrying a balance isn’t allowed (again, not always, but usually).

>Visa the company here doesn't actually function as a credit card like in the U.S., rather it's directly connected to your bank account

People get these concepts confused a lot.

Visa is a payment processor - that is, a company that facilitates electronic payments.

Different "payment types" (credit, debit, gift card) can use the Visa network.

Visa, the company, does not issue any credit cards or debit cards directly themselves, they only make agreements with other financial institutions who issue cards that use the Visa network to process payments.

So your debit card is issued by your bank and uses the Visa network to transfer funds.

Visa debit cards are also extremely common here in the US as well.

MasterCard is like Visa in it's just a payment processor, it doesn't issue cards itself. American Express and Discover, however, are both payment processors and issuing banks, they issue credit and debit cards themselves. It gets more complicated because other financial institutions issue credit cards that use the American Express payment network.

So because of all this I've had a debt card that switched from Visa to a MasterCard when the bank's agreement with Visa expired and they got a better deal with MasterCard. I also had a credit card that switched from using the American Express network to the Visa network.

This is certainly true. In fact, I would go so far as to say we (those born or raised in the US) are conditioned from a young age to become dependent on our consumer economy in order to lock us into a system where we have to accept this sort of behavior or go to extremes to reject it becoming an outcast or "wierdo".

This leads to the development of an ineffective coping mechanism where one learns to identify scams they have seen in the past and find a defense for it. This is like leaving a firewall wide open and only closing a specific port after an attack has occurred on that port. More precisely this is a reactive approach to defense.

A comprehensive approach to systematically develop effective safeguards in the US probably won't happen, ever. The people who want these safeguards are too busy with their day-to-day lives to dedicate any considerable amount of time to achieving it, meanwhile the people don't want anything to change have the time, money and influence to fight any attempt at reform. Meanwhile value is being extracted from the consumer which leads to a never-ending cycle.

This is getting a little scary with the shift to rent-seeking behavior. This is true from even the more established, trustworthy businesses (think Microsoft). A monthly subscription is not so bad, but when this becomes the normal way to buy things from the big names it legitimatizes the practice so a scammer can get their hands into your pocket forever.

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