The biggest changes are:
1. Instead of having unlimited time to report an unauthorized transaction, I only get two months. And yes, there are situations in which this is useful.
2. SEPA authorizations to charge an account work by a three-way (bank + charger, charger + account holder, bank + account holder) handshake instead of a two-way handshake (bank + charger, charger + account holder). To get around this, the AGBs say that the bank assumes that I authorized all charge transactions unless I complain about a particular transaction. In short, I have to work things out with the charger instead of forcing the bank to undo the errant booking.
Both changes are very nice for businesses as it severely restricts what the end customer is entitled to do in the case of an error. That, of course, is not what the informational cover letter accompanying the AGBs say…
Sigh.
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Interesting, I'll watch how this situation develops.
+Claudio Procida I think part of the issue is that no one uses cash in large amounts these days because it is usually associated with strange activities going on. I'm not familiar with payment systems in Italy, but I suspect that if they try to limit cash here, it will be the retired folk who rally together to protest (if someone informs them) as opposed to the young people: in our suburb, almost 75% of households pay for heating oil in cash, and with oil prices skyrocketing, that amount is bound to be a few thousand per transaction.
Another step towards post-democracy. ;-(
There's little choice, given that technocrat governments (e.g. Monti in Italy) are severely restricting use of cash by limiting the amount allowed for transactions. Protest anyone?
And they charge you extra fees for paying in cash.
+Gerhard Torges it is theoretically possible – at least, the government has payment options set up for people without a bank account. Only, it's very inconvenient as you'd have to visit everyone once a month in person during their restrictive opening hours to pay your bills… and you don't really have the option of picking and choosing your suppliers from ones which may offer a better value but don't have an office nearby.
The problem is that even the social networks don't help the consumers to really organize and take some action.
It's like the weather: we talk about it, but we don't change it.
You're right. But how to pay in cash for your phone bill? Water, electricity, rent?
We're too much dependant on the financial industry #banksters already.
Double-sigh.
Heh, the choice seems to be pay with cash, or go with the flow. The decision to unify was ratified over a year ago – but not enough noise back then.
I detest the oligopoly that the financial industry has. They really deserve a beating from the Verbraucherzentrale, in my opinion.
So what to do about this?
There's no choice, is there?