On 27 Jun 2008 19:52:56 GMT, Rian van der Borgt
wrote:

Here in Belgium, bus/tram drivers are also very reluctant to eccept 50
euro notes, simply because they often don't have enough change for them.

Most buses in the UK do not accept GBP20 notes for the same reason.

Neil

And then in this section of North America at least (Metro Vancouver),
you have to have EXACT coin change to pay on board a bus... ticket
machines at SkyTrain/SeaBus stations will accept bills to $20 and make
change, as well as accept credit/debit cards... once the fare is paid,
the ticket/transfer is valid across the whole transit system
(bus/train/ferry), depending on the zone/s paid for.

In message , at 20:46:10 on
Fri, 27 Jun 2008, Nobody remarked:
Here in Belgium, bus/tram drivers are also very reluctant to eccept 50
euro notes, simply because they often don't have enough change for them.

Most buses in the UK do not accept GBP20 notes for the same reason.

And then in this section of North America at least (Metro Vancouver),
you have to have EXACT coin change to pay on board a bus... ticket
machines at SkyTrain/SeaBus stations will accept bills to $20 and make
change, as well as accept credit/debit cards... once the fare is paid,
the ticket/transfer is valid across the whole transit system
(bus/train/ferry), depending on the zone/s paid for.

In Metro Nottingham, in the UK Midlands, the biggest bus company only
allows you to pay by exact money, but they accept notes (an all-day
group ticket for 2 adults and 2 children is now £6 so you can pay by £5
note plus £1 coin).

In fact by lucky chance almost all their tickets are currently an exact
multiple of £1 at the moment (a one-person all-day ticket is £3, up from
£2.70 which was always a pain to scrape together).

You can buy pre-pay smart-cards at their city centre office only, and
they'll happily accept credit cards or large notes there.
--
Roland Perry

Matthew Geier wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:35:07 -0500, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
Today, many of the better banks have "intelligent" systems that try to
spot detect fraud based on usage patterns. If you rarely traveled out
of your city/country or made large purchases, they might flag such
transactions at the time of sale and either deny them, require the
merchant call them, or even now call the customer's cell phone to
verify.

My bank definitely does this - last year just before a trip to Germany I
bought a whole pile of advance purchase DB tickets on-line. A few days
later I got a phone call from my bank asking about a number of
transactions from Germany. The operator said she had noted down against
my account that I was about to travel to Europe after I explained why I
was buying DB tickets with my card.

A few days later? That's not very helpful.

Many years ago, I made a purchase of about USD 5000 at a computer store
for work; while I was at the register waiting for the approval, my
mobile phone rang and it was someone from AmEx calling to see if I was
the one making the purchase. I confirmed everything was fine and within
seconds the register got the approval and spit out the receipt for me to
sign. Prior to that, I think the largest purchase I'd made on the card
was USD 250, so I have to admit it was rather suspicious and can't blame
them for wanting to be sure.

When I first started traveling for work, my debit card would frequently
come up with "Call Bank" when I first tried using it in a new city; I
had to call in and tell them everything was okay, and then the charge
would get approved on the next attempt -- and any others in that state
or country until I charged something again back home. After a dozen or
more trips in less than a year, that apparently became "normal" for my
account and I stopped having to call in. That bit me eventually,
because a few years later my card number got stolen and the crooks went
on a five-state shopping spree; I got the money back, but it took a few
weeks and dozens of police reports. If I didn't have a "pattern" of
traveling all the time, their charges would have been denied immediately...

S

Nobody wrote:
On 27 Jun 2008 19:52:56 GMT, Rian van der Borgt
wrote:
Here in Belgium, bus/tram drivers are also very reluctant to eccept 50
euro notes, simply because they often don't have enough change for them.

Most buses in the UK do not accept GBP20 notes for the same reason.

And then in this section of North America at least (Metro Vancouver),
you have to have EXACT coin change to pay on board a bus...

AFAIK, that is the case for all buses in the US as well. Exact cash
fares are required, though many systems will let you overpay if you
don't demand change (i.e. they'll let you pay USD2 for a USD1.50 fare).

There are many reasons for this. The most obvious is that making change
increases dwell time, which slows the bus down. The more important one,
though, is that this way the driver does not handle any money; the fare
goes directly from the passenger's hands into a lockbox, which reduces
the risks of both driver theft and robbery.

ticket machines at SkyTrain/SeaBus stations will accept bills to $20
and make change, as well as accept credit/debit cards... once the fare
is paid, the ticket/transfer is valid across the whole transit system
(bus/train/ferry), depending on the zone/s paid for.

AFAIK, all TVMs in the US and Canada will accept $20 bills. The problem
with doing that is the change you get: a USD1.50 ticket here means
twenty coins (18x$1, 2x25c) in change from a USD20 bill, and that's
enough weight and bulk to seriously annoy you. As a result, I rarely
see anyone using bills larger than $5 at our TVMs.

S

Nobody wrote:
In article (Neil Williams) writes:
I found a (Visa)
debit card to be an extremely convenient way of paying just over
gbp7,000 for a car a few years ago, certainly compared to the risk of
cash or the cost and inconvenience of a banker's cheque.
Also credit cards are limited in the maximum amount and I think those
gbp7,000 would exceed my limit.

Note moreover that in the Netherlands most people do not have credit
cards for two of reasons:
(1) It costs money to get a credit card

Costs to "get" a credit card?

(2) It is possible that a retailer asks you to pay more if you pay
by credit card

Pay more to use a cr card for a transaction?

Lordy, in North America, both scenarios would lead to loud guffaws,
and protests along the lines of.. "you want my business?".

Those were exactly my reactions. In the US, while a few cards (notably
AmEx) charge an annual fee, most don't and there are many where the bank
pays _you_ for having and using the card (usually a rebate of 1-2% of
purchases, if you pay your full balance each month). Store cards will
often give you 3-12 months to pay with no interest.

I get the impression that folks in Europe only get credit cards from the
bank that they have checking/savings accounts with. That is rare in the
US; most people get a debit/ATM card linked to their checking account,
but get their credit cards from another bank and use checks to pay the
bills. Debit cards are also relatively recent here, having been
introduced in the 90s to fight retail check fraud, while credit cards
were introduced decades earlier.

It's also illegal for US merchants to charge _more_ for using a credit
card, though they're allowed to offer a discount off the posted price if
you pay with cash.

Another major difference I'm sensing is transaction limits. My debit
card has daily limits of USD 500 for ATM and USD 1000 for ATM+POS, which
seems to be typical. In contrast, credit cards will generally let you
charge up to your credit line in a single day, and that could be
thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

S

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:39:45 -0500, Stephen Sprunk
wrote:

Another major difference I'm sensing is transaction limits. My debit
card has daily limits of USD 500 for ATM and USD 1000 for ATM+POS, which
seems to be typical. In contrast, credit cards will generally let you
charge up to your credit line in a single day, and that could be
thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

In the UK, it's usual for there to be a daily limit for ATM (250 quid
springs to mind for mine, and you can have them reduced - many
students living in bad areas do this to reduce the impact if they get
mugged and taken at knifepoint to the ATM), but it's not usual for
there to be a POS hard-limit, just an unpublished and potentially
variable one at which a transaction might be "referred" to confirm it
is genuine.

With credit cards, however, we're closer to the US - my main card pays
me 0.5% to use it, and there is no annual fee. In the UK it is
similarly unusual for there to be a monthly charge for a current
account other than those with bundled premium services; some (like
mine) even pay credit interest. The way the money is made is by way
of charges and interest for those who overdraw their accounts or
borrow on credit cards.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

In message , at 15:39:45 on Sat,
28 Jun 2008, Stephen Sprunk remarked:
I get the impression that folks in Europe only get credit cards from
the bank that they have checking/savings accounts with.

I don't get that impression at all. Especially as many of the more
aggressively marketed cards are not associated with conventional banks.

(eg Egg, Goldfish, Capital One etc).
--
Roland Perry

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:37:39 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 15:39:45 on Sat,
28 Jun 2008, Stephen Sprunk remarked:
I get the impression that folks in Europe only get credit cards from
the bank that they have checking/savings accounts with.

I don't get that impression at all. Especially as many of the more
aggressively marketed cards are not associated with conventional banks.

(eg Egg,Citigroup

Goldfish,

Barclays Bank

Capital One etc).

In article ,
MIG wrote:
On Jun 25, 10:54*pm, Peter Beale wrote:

We had a ten-shilling note (half of one pound sterling) almost up to
decimalization in 1971 - I think it was withdrawn in favour of the 50p
coin in 1970.

That's three people mentioning 1970, but surely the 50p came in in
1969? That's certainly when the bulk of the original ones were dated.

The ten shilling note and the 50p piece co-existed for a little while.
I remember at a primary school fete paying for an item with a 10/- note,
and getting a 50p (plus some pence) in change. To this day I don't know
whether the stallholder mistook the ten bob note for a pound or whether
they assumed the then-new 50p was worth less than it was ! It must have
been in late 1969 or early 1970 because I changed to secondary school
in September of the latter year.

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 6th June 2008)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

"Nick Leverton" wrote in message
...
In article
,
MIG wrote:
On Jun 25, 10:54 pm, Peter Beale wrote:

We had a ten-shilling note (half of one pound sterling) almost up to
decimalization in 1971 - I think it was withdrawn in favour of the 50p
coin in 1970.

That's three people mentioning 1970, but surely the 50p came in in
1969? That's certainly when the bulk of the original ones were dated.

The ten shilling note and the 50p piece co-existed for a little while.
I remember at a primary school fete paying for an item with a 10/- note,
and getting a 50p (plus some pence) in change. To this day I don't know
whether the stallholder mistook the ten bob note for a pound or whether
they assumed the then-new 50p was worth less than it was ! It must have
been in late 1969 or early 1970 because I changed to secondary school
in September of the latter year.

Nick
--

AFAIK, the 10-shilling note ceased to be legal tender in December 1971.