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Comment by sk5t | Hacker News Reader

YMMV but I absolutely will not bite on non-creditcard-facilitated payments until/unless the same or better consumer protections are in place.

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It's probably a different discussion, but I think the actual problem is that in the US consumer protection seems to be an optional feature of certain payment methods, like credit cards, rather than universal legislation applying to all consumers and sellers. I think consumers should benefit from a reasonable set of protections and rules regardless of which payment method they use to complete a transaction.

Wait. What? I use credit cards for the consumer protections they provide. A store claims to have some type of return policy -- if I buy with credit, and they don't follow that policy -- I get my money back no matter what. With cash, that's not guaranteed.

What do you mean?

That is exactly what the parent was saying. They would not consider a financial product that bypasses the major payment processors (Visa/MC) unless it has similar customer protections built in.

I'm confused. The Apple card is a MasterCard.

And the post at the head of this thread contemplates the utility of Visa/MC in general. Not really a concern leveled at Apple's thing in specific, and I wouldn't want my concern about consumer protections to be construed as such.

The original question:

How long until these companies start skipping payment processors like Visa and Mastercard?

Should that come to pass, the Apple card becomes...an Apple card.

I see. I guess it seems fundamental to me that a credit card would have these properties -- even though it's not necessary to actually fulfill the role of a credit card -- which is just to provide credit.

The two seem intertwined, even though they aren't. I just assumed Apple -- if they became a payment processor -- would still provide those protections.

If they didn't, which I see is maybe what the OP was alluding to, why would anyone use the card?

Who said they are not?

Judging by past history (ACH, Debit Cards, etc), consumer protections will be much less robust for anything that isn't a credit card.

"who said they are?" is the problem here. Better to err on the side of caution.

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