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> People like the service that the middle man provides. They may not like the middle man, the fees, etc. but tell someone that "your transactions are not revers
by KronisLV 3y ago
> People like the service that the middle man provides. They may not like the middle man, the fees, etc. but tell someone that "your transactions are not reversible, if you lost your money that sucks I guess, even if we messed up" and they will be happy to pay that transaction fee with another provider instead.
This might not be entirely realistic, but the idea of passing that choice on to the end user seems interesting:
Payment of 12.99 EUR (VAT of X% included) to $vendor for $service, choose one:
[ ] - regular payment, 0.50 EUR fixed fee
[ ] - safe™ payment*, 2.00 EUR fixed fee
* safe™ payments can later be disputed and reversed, if necessary
Or something like that. I mean, regulation aside (this is a thought experiment), I can already choose whether I want to pay extra for tracking for international deliveries and when buying goods, sometimes extended warranty/insurance is offered as an option. Why wouldn't I get the choice whether I want my payments to carry less overhead OR have the protections you'd expect with the "middle man", as a choice within the same payment platform?
- thaumasiotes 3y agoYou can't give the choice of whether a payment can be disputed to the purchaser. The reason you can't do that is that you have no way to verify that the purchaser is who they claim to be. If you accept payment from a stolen card, it will be reversed, even if the thief checked a box saying "it is impossible to reverse this payment".
- KronisLV 3y agoI guess some are making that choice for themselves, in the form of using crypto (which then comes with a long list of issues). Then again, I guess it's also possible to go in the opposite direction and look into additional means of verifying who is making a purchase - over here, we have chips in government issued ID cards which can be used for signing documents, whereas most banks already use a 2FA system with codes (mobile app, not SMS; but also not TOTP, rather issued certs based on a contract with SmartID) for approving access to bank accounts and then another code for confirming orders. It wouldn't be entirely unrealistic to imagine that technology progressing and merging in the decades to come: you can already use the ID cards for signing into everything from government portals, to utility service providers.
- maccard 3y agoPayPal does this with Friends and Family. Go onto the various scam reddits and see how many people suddenly wish they hadnt listened to the seller and used friends and family instead.
- bigstrat2003 3y agoThere's no cure for stupid. No matter how many warning labels or hoops you put in front of the potentially dangerous option, someone will hurt themselves with it. That doesn't mean the option shouldn't exist, though.