April 20th, 2010 §
I have a Debit Mastercard. After two years teetering on the brink of bankruptcy with the threat of foreclosure on my home hanging over me, I love my Debit Mastercard. Debt free now and renting, I can shop when I want where I want, online or off, without having to worry about bank fees. I know the exact price of every penny I spend and, as a single mother subsisting on nothing but her pension at the moment, those pennies are rather important to me.
Lately, however, something seems to be going wrong. For some reason, my Mastercard transactions have not been going through and I’ve been left at the counter with a queue of people waiting patiently (or not) behind me and then I end up having to push the “Savings” button instead of “Credit” and there goes that litre of milk I might have needed next week, or Caspar’s Freddo Frog.
Today, in a random tweet from S.H. Convery of Ginger and Honey I found out what has been going wrong. She got an answer from her bank, and I checked it out on the web.
Woolworths dumps Visa, MasterCard debit
Someone in the comments thread of that article thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but no. Liz Tay confirmed the story with both Woolworths and Visa. Woolworths is in the process of disabling the “Credit” option for Debit CCs across all their stores “including Big W, BWS, Dan Murphy’s, Dick Smith, Tandy, Thomas Dux and ALH, as well as Woolworths and Safeway supermarkets, liquor stores and petrol outlets.” And they are expecting savings “in the millions”.
Woolworths says “We can keep our costs low enabling us to deliver increased value to our customers.”
Visa’s ANZ general manager, Chris Clark, says, “there’s very little cost differential” (between debit CCs and EFTPOS) and that the move is “anti-consumer choice”.
Well, sure. It is. And I don’t know about you but I always assume, based on previous experience, that when corporate spokespeople says “customers” in this kind of context what they really mean is “shareholders”. But consumer choice, and corporate profit-seeking really aren’t my biggest issue here.
In all their stores they display Visa and Mastercard acceptance marks. This is not as simple as just showing a logo. Mastercard has Acceptance Mark Specifications and states, “Acceptance Marks and Brand Marks are not interchangeable. Each has a distinct purpose.” That purpose is to notify customers that they are able to pay with their Mastercard and while there are various designs for various products, there is absolutely no brand acceptance mark I could find which makes a distinction between the debit/credit product. I’m going to assume Visa uses the same practice.
I’m not a lawyer, and this is only my opinion, but doesn’t this qualifies as Misleading & deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act?
There is a very broad provision in the Trade Practices Act that prohibits conduct by a corporation that is misleading or deceptive, or would be likely to mislead or deceive you.
It makes no difference whether the business intended to mislead or deceive you—it is how the conduct of the business affected your thoughts and beliefs that matters.
~ Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
I’ve already provided the example: I walk into a store which displays a sign meaning it accepts my chosen form of payment. That is the bait. Then I shop and I take my goods to the counter to pay for them. Once there, I am forced to pay by another method which costs me additional money.
Do I have the choice to just leave the store without purchasing the goods? Sure. But as anyone knows (and especially a mother who has on occasion had to pay for food with 5 cent pieces) there is actually a lot of pressure in checkout queues to make your purchase efficiently and it is extremely uncomfortable to even make repeat swipes, let alone just walk out knowing everyone thinks you can’t afford to pay. So Debit MC/Visa card users are baited and Woolworths game seems to be Hook, Line and Sucker.
Moreover, at no store where I have had this happen has the staff member at the counter informed me what the problem was. They just let me repeat the Mastercard transaction until I give up. Whether that is because they are poorly informed or have been instructed to not mention it is anyone’s guess, but either way… Surely that qualifies as deceptive conduct?
I should also note that I have this experience recently at stores which are not part of the Woolworths Limited as well. I will not mention them by name here as I have not yet had confirmation but this looks like it will be an escalating problem. As Chris Clark stated, “”It puts into question the competitive landscape for the entire payments industry when a major dominant retailer can decide not to accept a payment solution that is strongly supported by the public.”
We all dislike having mega-corporations pass their operating costs on to us to increase their profit margin. We all dislike having our consumer choices limited. And we really really dislike being misled.
So I’m asking you guys to please pass the word around – blog, tweet, whatever – so that Woolworths, and anyone else following suit, can’t just make these changes under the radar.
I’m asking Visa and Mastercard… Is it really okay for businesses to display your Acceptance Marks when they only accept the cards of some of your customers?
And I’m asking Woolworths Limited to tell the truth. Just be honest. Put up huge signs stating you no longer accept our money our way. Announce it regularly over the your PA systems in store. Inform your staff that they must inform your customers at point of purchase. Whether my understanding of the Trade Practices Act is right or wrong, doing anything less than that… Well, it doesn’t even come close to meeting community standards of integrity.
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January 2nd, 2008 §
I’m a little bit bombarded. There seems too much going on at once and although in the workplace I’m a thoroughly organised person, the rest of my life has always been chaotic. Maybe I should start reading Zen Habits. I need the same common sense advice pounded into my brain over and over again.
- In the kitchen, every single dish I own is piled up around the sink and covering the benches. (Muy hygenic!)
- In my bedroom, every single piece of clothing I haven’t packed away yet is strewn across the floor. (This doesn’t even make sense because most of them remain a little snug since having Caspar.)
- On my computer desktop, there are more files than can actually fit on the screen.(I have since dumped them randomly into yet another to-be-sorted folder.)
- I have a list of to-dos about a mile long. (Or I think it is. One of those to-dos is to actually write a to-do list.)
And even here there are a few things not functioning the way they should. It’s not an entirely peaceful place to write.
Add to that the boxes all around the house that keep getting reopened and repacked and the pile of papers which, if they could be stacked, would be as tall as me. (What’s that you say? Matches?)
I’m a bit of a shocker at throwing things away. Having worked as an archivist, I like to archive things. And that would be fine, if what once were systems hadn’t gone to hell in a handbasket and I was the archivist in life that I am when something actually restrains me and makes me do things. (Like a paycheck.) There is something to be said for working for The Man.
I need a good, hard talking to. I always have. I’m sure my mother gave one to me time and time again as I was growing up. It’s a wonder she’s not now a shadow of herself, pale, and defeated by her inability to make me register the sense of what she was saying.
My skull is thick. The power of my deafness is awe-inspiring. Nothing has changed since I was a child even though, in primary school, my Opa sent me “A Round Tuit”.
I still never get around to it.
Discipline. I need discipline. It would be nice if I could blame the lack of it in me on my mother but I’m afraid I know very well where the blame lies. I am easily distracted. I have grand ideas but my impetus stops at the idea as though someone else would be there to implement it. I move on to the next one too soon and hence…
My ducks do not swim in a row.
There is too much to understand, too many things to do, too much I want to give, too much time that I want to take.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…” W.B. Yeats
Leaving aside the objectional usage of the word anarchy in that poem, I’m sure there is a reason these lines came into my head right now. Because I am standing amidst the ruins. Because I am not centred. I rebel at the notion that I need to be but, in truth, I need to be.
I need to be dogged, to sustain my efforts, to take on only what I can manage. And then manage it. There are no good fairies to complete my works; I am not Psyche and there are no ants to sort through all the grains of my life.
I need to change this.
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December 7th, 2007 §
I don’t normally post videos but this is extraordinarily powerful. Think about it.
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November 30th, 2007 §
Welcome to the November Edition of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. This being the month of Thanskgiving the theme was Gratitude. So let’s begin with that…
Gratitude
April Optimist from The Thriver’s Toolbox writes about the way in which gratitude worries her in Gratitude and Survivors, grappling with “the issue of how to balance profound gratitude for all that is good in my life and still seeing ways I might want to make it better”.
Over at Survivors Can Thrive!, Marj aka Thriver discusses Gratitude & Beauty, exploring her mixed emotions about the holiday season before expressing the thing she is truly grateful for: “The beauty inherent in each survivor.” She includes, by way of thanks, her poem, Your Beauty.
Advocacy & Awareness
Barry Pittard from Call For Media and Government Investigation gives us 2 posts, both in relation to Sai Baba. In Abuse. Some Reach Out. Many Suffer in Silence he answers the question, “Why are they not standing up for themselves?” and in Hazards For Abuse Survivors Both Timid and Bold he looks at the reasons why “even those few ready to go public can often be in no position to litigate”, examining some of the relevant case histories.
Marcella Chester at abyss2hope: A rape survivor’s zigzag journey into the open has written in support of the I-VAWA, Support International Violence Against Women Act. She provides some information on the legislation and discusses in detail the double standard prevalent in our society. “To be truly effective at crime prevention, the “Don’t …” statements need to be aimed at those who inflict violence and those who are tempted to do so. Rather than limiting the options of women in the name of crime prevention, their options need to be widened.” The code for the graphic is available in the post.
Megan Bayliss from Imaginif child protection became serious business responds to a meme and tells us all about the purpose and function of her blog in What’s a blog got to do with child protection? Me me Megan Bayliss. She tells us who her true mentors are, “those millions of bloggers affected by child abuse”, and thanks them. She reminds us that “Child protection is a bit like butter is to bread – hard to spread sometimes. But, the longer it’s out, the easier it gets.”
Risingrainbow from My Clouds, My Storms and Multiple Personality Disorder gives us Human Nature with All It’s Twists and Turns, exploring the idea of the human conscience and how it can be manipulated and broken, especially in children. So broken, in fact, that it can lead to Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is the first of a four part series which goes on to tackle responsibility and culpability. “Human nature as it is means there is a bit of “bad” in all of us.”
Healing & Therapy
April Optimist at The Thriver’s Toolbox thinks about all the steps it took to get her current place in life in Post Thanksgiving, knowing that when she faces today’s challenges, she can remind herself how far she’s come. “We get to choose. And as scary as that can sometimes be, it’s good, too.”
Jumping In Puddles at Lifes Spacings writes Old Learning To New about “the price of living as a multiple… as well the price of living in the extreme pain of trauma that is in the process of healing,” but also about all they are learning now: Learning to play, learning to cry, learning to touch and learning to say, No.
Keepers over at KeepersKorner took a giant leap forward and in Moving from Reliving to Simply Remembering describes an incident which would normally have triggered an abreaction. An overheard conversation some time earlier made them stop and think and now, more than ever before, they are considering themselves true survivors.
Poetry
At Ria Ludy’s blog, Fantasy or Ria Ludy?, you’ll find Only If YOU Believe in Me? railing against old ideas of worthiness and validation.
At My Dissonance, Ani Star contributes Restless, the first line of which is, “This mistaken refuge…” (The poetry is in PDF format and require an Adobe reader.)
Survivor Stories
New blogger, Steve Wurzer, presents My First Post, the very first post at Steve’s Recovery blog. About it he says, “This is the beginning of my blog on my own personal story of childhood abuse and recovery. It helps me to post it, and I hope others can be helped by reading.”
In Steve’s second post, Why I am posting this blog – Reason #1, he talks about shame and childhood rage. “I feel that I’m not good enough, like there is something wrong with me that makes me unable to say or express what I really feel or want to say. What seems so easy for many others, is difficult for me, and sometimes completely impossible. This comes from the shame inside of me.”
Before I go, I would just like express my gratitude to those who share their stories, to those who speak up and to those who are willing to listen. I have felt fortunate to be able to read this months contributions and I am honoured to have been able to present them here.
Thank you. All of you.
NB: Next month’s Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is coming up quickly. Megan at Imaginif is hosting. The carnival will be posted on December 14. If you would like to submit you can use the button below.
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November 25th, 2007 §
Today, November 25, was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In Australia, it is also White Ribbon Day.
The White Ribbon Campaign was started by a handful of Canadian men in 1991 on the second anniversary of the École Polytechnique Massacre in Montreal, during which 14 women were killed by a lone gunman, claiming to be “fighting feminism”. The ribbon was their pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls.
It is now an international movement.
I can’t overstate how grateful I am to those men who take a stand on violence. I may offend some people by saying this, but I truly believe women’s safety in our communities is dependent on men. There is a limit to what women alone can do to effect change in public attitudes.
Violence against women will only cease when men join with women to put an end to it.The positive roles men can play.
It’s not that long since I wrote the poem It’s all in the pitch, bitch. I don’t know that I communicated very well what I was trying to say then but I think it is true that…
Women talk
But men hear
Men’s voices
Like dogs
At the time, I was asking men to speak up, instead of letting things passed, instead of laughing it off when they know something isn’t funny. Today, I’m saying thank you to all those men who do speak up. There are a lot of you, but not yet enough.
It is difficult for a woman to speak in a society that tells her she can’t take a joke. It is difficult for a woman to speak in a society which promulgates the idea that women frequently lie about violence. Only 8% of women subjected to physical violence speak up. And only 4% of women subjected to sexual violence speak up. These are frightening figures and they make it easy for us as a society to believe that the research telling us between 40-57% of Australian women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime cannot possibly be true. Statistics
Sadly, it is true and we need men to speak for us to the men who do not hear us when we speak for ourselves.
I’m proud of my ability to support myself, to grow and learn and achieve. I’m proud of my ability to raise my son alone. But I am not so blinded by pride that I cannot admit how much our men are needed in this fight and I am grateful to every man I know who does not stand idly by.
I can’t help but think right now of the actions Paul de Waard and Brendan Keiler when they rushed to the assistance of a woman in distress in Melbourne’s CBD earlier this year. I cannot help but think what an awful loss to our community Brendan Keiler’s death was, and what an awful consequence for his intervention Paul de Waard is still dealing with. I do not use the word heroic often, but I cannot help but use it to describe these men.
I also use it to describe those actions which seem less dramatic, like telling a sexist co-worker to shut up, or telling your mate he’s an asshole when he feels up a woman in a bar. Every small action and, sadly, every inaction, makes a difference in the fight against violence against women.
To the men who speak up, and to the men who wore white ribbons today, you have my gratitude and respect. Without you, we can only pick up the pieces. With you, we can prevent women from ever being shattered by violence.
Thank you.
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November 10th, 2007 §
I’ll be hosting The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse this month.
For anyone and everyone who would like to participate, the Carnival will post on Friday, November 30, and submissions are due by Wednesday, November 28. You can go straight to the submission form here.
The November Theme: Gratitude
November is the month of Thanksgiving. While this is not a holiday celebrated everywhere, it does provide an interesting theme for the edition. Interpret it broadly. Perhaps it is about the things you feel thankful for, perhaps it is the things that you don’t. Perhaps it is the ways in which gratitude helps, or perhaps it is the ways in which gratitude is difficult. There are no limits to what you might write and, as usual, submissions not related to the theme are appreciated as much as the ones that are.
As this is the first time I am hosting, I thought it would be good to give a little extra information about the carnival. Anything related to all forms of child abuse is welcome; personal stories, poetry, media analysis, support and recovery information, the aftermath, therapy, child advocacy, and education. You do not need to have been a victim of child abuse in order to participate, although many participants are, because the goal of the carnival is to raise awareness. If you have something you would like to say, please don’t hesitate to take part.
I would also like to say thank to Marj at Survivors Can Thrive for giving me the opportunity to host. And thank you to everyone who contributes to raising awareness of this issue, not just in the carnival, but in life.
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October 18th, 2007 §
I’ve been immersing myself in my feedreader this evening and it it now past 1am so I have little to say. Or little time to say it. Take your pick. If you don’t know what to do with your time because of my self-indulgence, go and buy rice with the most priceless commodity on earth: Words.
I have bought hundreds and hundreds of grains of rice. Seriously… hundreds and hundreds! I got up to vocabulary level 48 but upon reading that there are only 50 levels and that hardly anyone gets past 48 I am determined to do better. Pride in abnormality, that’s my motto. Oh, and I get to feed people at the same time as I defend my ego.
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