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Re: Insane eBay

Jeff Blakeney <jeff.blakeney@a2central.com.remove-j4k-this> wrote:

>   To: Bill Garber
> Bill Garber wrote:
> > Here is some info. I didn't really read it all through, but
> > I provide the link for you in case you'd like to check it out.
> > 
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card#Canada
> 
> That just talks about how Canadians use their "bank" cards more than any
> other country.  There is no mention of Visa or MasterCard in that 
> section at all.
> 
True. If you scroll up to the previous section relating to Australia
you'll see that Visa and Mastercard debit cards are now effectively
ubiquitous in Australia. There are online access only accounts and
childrens accounts, but pretty much all other accounts come with a card
attached and most of these have either a Visa or Mastercard option.

If you read the whole entry from the top you'll even find info relevant
to the USA.

Different markets sometimes refer to essentially identical things by
different names.

For a number of reasons, personal cheques have been out of favour here
in Australia for the last 30 years or so. As a result, when cards for
accessing a customer's own funds through the Visa and Mastercard
networks were introduced they were labelled "debit cards" alluding to
the essential difference to "credit cards". Most "debit cards" are
attached to savings accounts, but calling them "savings cards" could
easily cause confusion as to their purpose.

As personal checks (US spelling) retained favour in the USA, it makes
sense for cards that provide electronic access to the contents of these
accounts to be called "check cards".

> > You may wish to recheck with your bank on this. As I recall,
> > the bank cards weren't connected with VISA or MASTERCARD back
> > when I signed onto eBay either. At least mine was just an ATM,
> > um, when was that, 2002?  ;-)

IIRC, I've had a Visa debit card for around 15 years now. It might not
be quite 15 years but it's definitely been more than a decade.

Regards,
Anthony.