BloggingThat

Have you ever walked in to a convenience store to buy a drink, gum or other low cost item and use a credit card to pay for it? Have you ever been fed a ration of crap regarding a minimum purchase? A sob story of how expensive it is to process, blah, blah, blah. If you are saying my money is no good here, then i’ll take my business elsewhere. No, not only for gum…gas too. Why?, because it’s wrong.

Many stores display signs of their required minimum purchase, others charge an extra fee to process payment. According to an article from msnbc stores cannot set credit card minimum. “Merchants accepting Visa or MasterCard credit or debit cards are not allowed to set a minimum amount for using the card; that is a violation of the merchant agreement.”

Here it is from the faq straight from Visa. ”

Can merchants set a minimum purchase or charge a fee for using my Visa card?
Visa has certain regulations that all merchants that accept Visa cards must follow. One of those rules is that Visa merchants are not permitted to establish minimum transaction amounts, even on sale items.

If you run into a problem like this with a merchant, please notify your Visa card-issuing bank. Visa member banks have access to the appropriate Visa rules and regulations as well as to the Notification of Customer Complaint forms which should be used by the bank to document and file merchant complaints.”

Still not convinced? Let look at the MasterCard policy. Can a merchant charge me a fee to use my MasterCard card? Can a merchant require a minimum purchase amount to use my MasterCard card? The answer to the first question is almost never; the answer to the second question is not ever.

I think I have made my case here. So, start a fist fight! No, just kidding, perhaps this is a more humane way to deal with this injustice. My personal choice is to mention it and let them know you won’t be back. The workers don’t care, but the owners will. Or, if you’d rather complain with less hoorah, write to Visa at askvisacorporate@visa.com. MasterCard complaints will be accepted at 1-800-300-3069.

[Photo CC by Brett L.]

Being a product of the 80’s, I love the tag line. I also have an acute sense for customer service or lack there of. That being said, I was at a local [family] burger joint with my wife and young child. My wife and I ordered hamburgers. My child ordered a hamburger from the child’s menu. The waitress tells us they are out of hamburgers from the child’s menu. Does anyone see a problem with this? As far as I can remember, hamburgers are made by smashing ground beef in to patties regardless the size or shape. Besides, if you are out of small, you give the customer large. It is your fault that you are out [of child burgers], not ours.

I do have more important things to think about, like, buying random kids video games so they can stop pretending to play. Don’t tell me you’re out of small food when you’re serving large food of the same kind.

Bloggingthat

Photo by Ran’s

Sometimes life can teach us a lot without even trying. I just found out I didn’t know how to spell scissors, nor could I find a pair in my house if I tried. Why by do kids love scissors? (and running with them) But, I digress. This is about making decisions, really important, life changing stuff here. A precipice of sorts. You could make a list of pros and cons. Weighing each aspect against another to measure its imperturbableness. Or, maybe einy meni mini mo, naw too childish. How about rock, paper scissors? But, who am I playing against? Can a rock really cover paper? It is not a bad thing, it’s just the edge, out of the box, the line in the sand, the coup de grace, the whole enchilada, very exciting and I can’t make everyone happy. This entire dialect occurred in my brain in less than five seconds. I have never really tried to capture it until now. I almost always come to the same conclusion when I think like this. I am digging deep, here and I came up with something I can hang on to.

Faith                                                                                           Meme!’s photo

“I’ll be honest with you.”

I understand this phrase is mostly used as a figure of speech, “I’ll be honest with you.”, usually means I am going to be candid, frank, to the point, pull no punches, or direct with you, as opposed to “I was just bullshitting you before, now I’m being honest.” or “I was candy-coating the situation, now I’m being brutally honest.”

When I hear this, I do not assume people are not honest when they do not qualify their statement with “I’ll be honest with you.”, though, sometimes I wonder.

What other phrases do we use that have little meaning?