Refuting Big Money
Cats: Politics, Tech|I’ve heard critics talk about Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Debt, referring to supposedly monolithic industries which are almost always doing something horribly rotten to Joe Consumer. I’m not quite that paranoid, nor do I use quite as broad a brush as those folks, but I will borrow their terminology here while talking about Visa commercials. While Visa is certainly part of Big Debt, the Visa check cards are more about Big Money than Big Debt (though it can be argued that one plays into the other).
The recent spate of commercials from card company Visa depicts retail businesses as well-oiled machines, with happy music playing and everyone in the store dancing in a strictly choreographed pattern as they enter the store, shop for their treasures, and make their purchases - if an only if they purchase with a Visa check card. The second someone pulls out a checkbook, or even CASH, the music dies down, the brightly colored lights fade and the dancing stops, possibly resulting in jugglers dropping toys or flowers dying. The clerk at the counter gives the offending non-Visa user a condescending, disappointed glare while they complete the oh-so-snail-paced transaction, and when the customer finally leaves, the happy music ramps back up again, the lights brighten, and the world is again runing smoothly, as it should be. I’m surprised that they don’t have a sniper pick off the cash or check user as soon as they leave the store, or else call the plastic police to drag the criminal away for ruining everyone’s wonderful experience.
These commercials aren’t just annoying to me: they are infuriating, because they push forward their propaganda so blatantly while lying outright to the viewers. Let me dive straight into my rebuttal:
1. Is using a check card really that much faster than a cash transaction? The point can easily be made that writing out a check at the register is very slow, but CASH?? Only in the age where check-out clerks can’t count back change on their own, and purchasers can’t do the math quickly enough to ensure they’re receiving the correct amount. Plastic is not the answer here.
2. A well-trained retail employee will welcome every cash transaction that comes through the store. Not only is cash on hand an indispensible requirement to doing business in retail, but the over-the-top processing charges by Visa (and the banks handling charged transactions) are prohibitive to growth. Retailers accept credit & debit cards only because the consumer likes carrying and using plastic.
3. I use my Visa check card on a nearly exclusive basis, but if a register clerk ever gives me the withering glares the actors in these commercials deliver, I’d probably get security called on me (not really). But seriously, what happened to customer service? Also, see #1 above.
4. In a truly cashless society, there wouldn’t be a human at the register to begin with. We even have checkout machines to accept cash at this point, so the commercials paint a false picture from the get-go. People are too expensive to employ, anyway, it seems…
I’ve got to go, but I wanted to get this off my chest. Please feel free to chime in for or against my rebuttals above.
