Re: Great SWT Program
On Oct 7, 8:14 pm, bbo...@gmail.com wrote:
Now that I think about it, I'd think a debit card would work, and
that anyone with a bank account should be able to get one of those.
But there are security risks there too. <shrug>
I don't see many e-shopfronts with an Interac Accepted Here symbol or,
most usually, anything but a few credit card logos (e.g. MasterCard,
AmEx, and Visa) and a field for inputting a "credit card number" on
the checkout form. Square peg, round hole, and you're suggesting the
square peg will somehow work in that hole anyway...odd.
It might help to know that in the US, "debit card" means something
subtly different than in Canada. Debit cards function much like the
Canadian Interac system (complete with PINs), but are not (for the
most part) offered by banks themselves. Instead, you get a debit card
from a credit card company and the fees are collected from merchants
along with the fees for credit card transactions.
Credit card companies (and, for that matter, Interac banks) have a
strong motivation not to provide services to online retailers. As it
stands, online retailers have a very poor record for security, and
since debit cards (under both systems) are effectively cash, there is
no way to dispute illegal purchases nor any protection from
unscrupulous retailers. Credit card companies already offer both
dispute resolution and a sufficient level of fraud protection to both
parties, so it's in nobody's interest to burden banks with the same
thing (fees are quite high enough as it is, thank you). Credit card
companies draw much smaller revenue from debit cards overall as they
collect no interest on debit purchases, so they have no motivation to
extend protection services to them.
You may also be waiting a very long time before you see Interac,
specifically, accepted by online retailers. Interac is a consortium
of Canadian banks (only) and the vast majority of online retailers are
based out of the US, with no access to Canadian financial networks.