{"items": [{"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121196597882", "anchor": "fb-10100121196597882", "service": "fb", "text": "The current system is so bad that it's very often difficult to even identify the merchant. I guess the spec has short length requirements because the name is very often highly abbreviated, and in all caps. And it often lists the name of an intermediary or holding company for technical reasons.
That something this broken could persist for so long makes me pessimistic that improvements are around the corner, but maybe you're right that the value of selling this data is new and will induce change.", "timestamp": "1573577960"}, {"author": "Wolf", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121196597882&reply_comment_id=10100121202356342", "anchor": "fb-10100121196597882_10100121202356342", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I always feel super neglectful when I skip thoroughly checking the monthly credit card bill but it's just far too tedious.", "timestamp": "1573580962"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121196597882&reply_comment_id=10100121203548952", "anchor": "fb-10100121196597882_10100121203548952", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Yea. If I could just read through the bill and instantly recognize each charge, it would take 5 minutes each month to check all my credit cards. But instead I always find a few mysterious charges on each bill I don't understand, research each one for several minutes (e.g., Google search the merchant name), then discover it was something totally normal that had been obfuscated. Altogether it easily increases time spent by an order of magnitude. Such a waste.", "timestamp": "1573581732"}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121196597882&reply_comment_id=10100121242925042", "anchor": "fb-10100121196597882_10100121242925042", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Yeah, I worked for a would-be credit card processor around 2005, and the software was older than dirt. Chages were communicated to the backbone in EBCDIC card images, hence the too-short all-caps merchant names. Credit card numbers were sent in plain text, relying on the fact that they were on a frame relay (in effect, a VPN) for security. This is not an industry that makes changes lightly.", "timestamp": "1573596597"}, {"author": "Sun", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121196597882&reply_comment_id=10100121529326092", "anchor": "fb-10100121196597882_10100121529326092", "service": "fb", "text": "→ You could use Open Location Code and use that to identify a business somewhat. The code it short enough. I hate it when businesses charge under a parent company and you have to figure out what business the charge is from. https://github.com/google/open-location-code", "timestamp": "1573752394"}, {"author": "Steven Joyce", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#thkER4MXwHfdd4Fpo", "anchor": "lw-thkER4MXwHfdd4Fpo", "service": "lw", "text": "Something very close to this is done with fleet cards (cards given by long-haul trucking companies to their drivers to pay for gas and other expenses). At the high-end, these cards capture a great deal of data, comparable to a receipt. (Not exactly equivalent -- it's more detailed then a typical receipt for some data fields, but doesn't include everything that can be put on a receipt). It's expensive to implement and maintain these sorts of data capture systems, since a receipt is very flexible about the data it can contain. As a result, more broad implementation doesn't make financial sense. The fraud gains are minimal. It's worth doing in the fleet card segment because it helps with a) expense tracking, b) enforcing agreements between the large trucking companies and the chain gas stations regarding fuel discounts, and c) optimizing the choice of gas station (trading off the route efficiency against lower fuel prices). When I last consulted in the industry, this kind of data capture wasn't even a close to being profitable for general-purpose credit cards. (It's been ~5 years so my knowledge may be a bit out of date.) If you scaled back the requirements, it might be feasible.", "timestamp": 1573578506}, {"author": "jkaufman", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#rmsWfmLQwzLqpXwFF", "anchor": "lw-rmsWfmLQwzLqpXwFF", "service": "lw", "text": "→ I just tried reading some about fleet cards, and found this exxon faq and this sales page. It sounds like the number of gallons gets sent automatically, and you can set up the card to prompt for an odometer reading to be sent too. This is neat, though very fuel-specific.\n
When you say \"at the high-end, these cards capture a great deal of data, comparable to a receipt\", what are you thinking of?\n\n
The fraud gains are minimal.\n\n
Why do you say that? I would expect comparing what was being purchased to a model from this user's history and a model of fraudulent transactions would be very helpful!\n", "timestamp": 1573580320}, {"author": "jimrandomh", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#WddDsaZg6w36JQRCo", "anchor": "lw-WddDsaZg6w36JQRCo", "service": "lw", "text": "Stores don't want to do this for the same reason they make prices that change frequently, are one cent off from round numbers, and are in the least legible font that is legally permissible. They want paying attention to prices to be inconvenient, because paying attention decreases spending and shifts that spending towards lower margin items.", "timestamp": 1573579181}, {"author": "jkaufman", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#ctEmpnmwGrGvhJgbx", "anchor": "lw-ctEmpnmwGrGvhJgbx", "service": "lw", "text": "→ Do you think this would decrease spending appreciably? I would be very surprised. (And if it doesn't decrease spending, or only decreases it slightly, then getting a better rate from the card company is enough to motivate them.)\n", "timestamp": 1573580484}, {"author": "jimrandomh", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#EYikNN7DheqjpNRQm", "anchor": "lw-EYikNN7DheqjpNRQm", "service": "lw", "text": "→ → Right, they would certainly do it if you paid them enough (and lowering the fee is a form of payment); this is a reason why the price would be higher.", "timestamp": 1573586044}, {"author": "Dagon", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#WwgJThnkT66YQS3Mu", "anchor": "lw-WwgJThnkT66YQS3Mu", "service": "lw", "text": "This used to be common, called "country club billing". most credit cards stopped it in the 70s, American Express continued it through part of the 90s. It's expensive for merchants and card processors, not valued by most customers, and as far as I know nobody is seriously considering bringing it back.
The various contradictory incentives about data privacy and who knows what when are all trivial compared to the amount of work it'd take, for no significant value to customers. The number of humans who bother to keep and categorize receipts is TINY, and it's probably correlated with not spending very much on credit-card fees. Attracting these customers may well be negative-value, but even if it's positive, it's not worth much effort.", "timestamp": 1573582878}, {"author": "jkaufman", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#YnYSKdpEirkrQCwWv", "anchor": "lw-YnYSKdpEirkrQCwWv", "service": "lw", "text": "→ It looks to me like country club billing stopped because at a time when everything was done on paper it was far too much work. If the purchase information was sent as part of getting the transaction approved then you can use it for fraud prevention in a way that wasn't possible in the 1970s.\n", "timestamp": 1573585141}, {"author": "Rebecca", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121225889182", "anchor": "fb-10100121225889182", "service": "fb", "text": "I want this so I don't have to keep track of receipts on work travel. That said, I think some stores that have a false name for your credit card statement for various reasons would prefer not to have the receipt saved.", "timestamp": "1573589983"}, {"author": "Danner", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121241472952", "anchor": "fb-10100121241472952", "service": "fb", "text": "Wait wait, you want a paper-like document trail tracking an important one-time electronic transaction? gasp!", "timestamp": "1573596004"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121244297292", "anchor": "fb-10100121244297292", "service": "fb", "text": "I've heard (on Marketplace, after 2009) that credit card companies do know what you buy. The story was about their ability to raise rates if your consumption changed. And merchants are certainly able to track you by CC number.
https://www.marketplace.org/.../how-credit-card.../", "timestamp": "1573597395"}, {"author": "Ruthan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121254417012", "anchor": "fb-10100121254417012", "service": "fb", "text": "If I understand what you're suggesting, this is already a not-very-well used thing; card issuers have frameworks that can include line item data, and incentivize merchants to pass it by offering better rates. https://fattmerchant.zendesk.com/.../360008489054-Level-2...", "timestamp": "1573601658"}, {"author": "Ruthan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121254417012&reply_comment_id=10100121254846152", "anchor": "fb-10100121254417012_10100121254846152", "service": "fb", "text": "→ L2 and L3 mostly seem to get used for commercial transactions; I'm guessing the savings on personal transactions is too small to be worth going after, but as I understand it there are also some explicitly different processing rules for corporate vs personal accounts.", "timestamp": "1573601744"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121254417012&reply_comment_id=10100121273339092", "anchor": "fb-10100121254417012_10100121273339092", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Neat! It looks like maybe this doesn't cover buying multiple things with the same transaction?", "timestamp": "1573608930"}, {"author": "Ruthan", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121254417012&reply_comment_id=10100121300534592", "anchor": "fb-10100121254417012_10100121300534592", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Most of the integrations I have seen support multiple items (Stripe in particular comes to mind); I'm not sure why this is reported otherwise, other than that gateways are arbitrary and capricious.", "timestamp": "1573619872"}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121256552732", "anchor": "fb-10100121256552732", "service": "fb", "text": "I had a corporate Amex card and the statement data was very thorough, such as flight numbers, dates, and cities for airline tix.", "timestamp": "1573602412"}, {"author": "shminux", "source_link": "https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNDhcfqKpzMuTK2EN#MtT9gpuepmw42YsPi", "anchor": "lw-MtT9gpuepmw42YsPi", "service": "lw", "text": "I work in the area. In the EMV specification the receipt content is already saved electronically and is somewhat standardized, see, for example https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/mccom/global/documents/transaction-processing-rules.pdf. What is missing is for the consumers and point-of-sale owners to be able to access it easily. The receipt does not identify the product sold, by the way, but enough details to verify the transaction's occurrence.
Of course, if your chipped card is stolen and pinless tap is supported for small purchases, no transaction verification helps you to avoid fraudulent charges. And if someone has your card and knows your pin (which still can be skimmed with card skimmers), then you are likely on the hook for all transactions up until you report your card stolen.", "timestamp": 1573621415}, {"author": "Ambivert", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/10100121193154782?comment_id=10100121310085452", "anchor": "fb-10100121310085452", "service": "fb", "text": "I've often wished for the addition of a \"memo\" line with purchases, especially when I buy from or pay through a site often. With one or two words I could save a lot of tracking down the expenditure.", "timestamp": "1573629538"}]}