No, you had it right.

I'm having a tiff with my tap-to-pay, prepaid card, and credit union all unable to offer me the services they each still advertise.

My tap-to-pay app is linked to a prepaid card. This can be loaded by ACH, debit card, credit card, or cash. All of which worked until this fall.

I noticed my automatic debit loads were failing, and asked my credit union. It took some time, and they initially pointed me to the prepaid card provider. Who claimed it was being declined, despite funds available. I checked, and eventually found that my debit card, from Visa, no longer permitted this 'merchant' to use a transaction code that is described as a 'Visa Money transaction'. The credit union says their hands are tied.

The prepaid provider claims they were forced to recode these transactions as 'Visa Money', by, yes, Visa. Why? No answer but I have a theory:

- Visa Money transactions earn discount and interchange fees like any debit transaction.
- But debiting my account this way does earn the prepaid provider a discount fee when I withdraw the funds from there. (No interchange, so you know who this is)
- However, if I were to load my prepaid card with a credit card, this becomes a cash advance. Which earns a higher interest rate in most cases. and is paid LAST by most banks if I pay off my balance. Actually, since I may never pay off the balance, these cash advances will forever be charging interest at that higher rate. Forever. Unless I do pay the balance to zero. I have to pay off the lower interest rate transactions FIRST before I can pay off the higher rate ones. Sharp practice.
- So I cannot any more load from my debit card. Visa rejects the 'Visa Money' transaction for my debit card.

Well, my prepaid provider is unwilling to change anything of this, my credit union is unwilling, possibly unable to, and I'm stubborn enough to cling to the prepaid despite the inconvenience of cash loads.

ACH, you say?

ACH takes 5 days to clear. It just does. This is mostly my prepaid provider's fault, I know, from research. No apologies. It just does. They use the float.

Now, how does all this actually work out good for me?

- I get promotional rebates for using tap-to-pay, which will expire. Then I will reassess the situation.
- I also get promotional rebates from the prepaid card, those also will expire.
- I get fees waived on the prepaid card, which I do not expect to expire any time soon. Free so far.
- And cash loads are fee-free for now also.

But the fees make the systems work. So fees it is. All the way down.

Those of you who pay attention to the payments industry know the names of all the entities I;'d rather not expose explicitly. There are similar problems for every other, EVERY OTHER, institution. Fees drive the industry, and revenue is necessary to keep the servers on to do all this. I get it.

But it's cheap to advertise you can, and then you won't. And to hide behind disclaimers and contractual language that clearly serves you, not your customers. that is the game, and I know it.

Wow. You don't understand what a payday loan is.

The 'Payday' in payday loans describes both the method and timing of payments. Most people taking out payday loans do so intending to make payments when they get their money, which is usually payday. These are generally secured loans, title loans secured by the borrower's car most common, though some are not. The loan company regularly imposes limited payment options, for instance requiring payment in cash, in person, at the specified office. If your car breaks down, the traffic goes really bad for the first time in 2 years, or you get sick, you risk default. these companies are happy you default, as mostly these defaults occur well into the term of the loan, the usurious interest rates assure the principal has been paid, and the collateral is just more profit. It's a nasty business.

For those who are essentially unbanked, this is one of few options for solving cash flow problems such as car repairs or a lost paycheck due to layoffs or any number of circumstances beyond their control.

This short video further explores the problems of the unbanked.

If I encounter a hibernation data issue, I reboot. In fact, my Windows alerts me and offers to clear and reboot, try again, or sometimes go to safe mode.

Reinstalling? Nope.

FM pilot is 19kHz. Good quality FM is possible. What's not appreciated is the quality you can get out of AM broadcast.

My Windows 7 laptop doesn't fragment due to hibernation. My Windows 8.1 laptop ditto.

But I'm not the one trying to use AMD drivers.

You're doing it wrong.

Hibernate.

And what speakers output as sound isn't very accurate, compared to the input electrical signal.

What that last conversion does is ugly.

My right ear easily discerns 15,734Hz (really annoying back in day of analog TV) and reasonably good discernment to about 18.7KHz (tested by a doctor). My left ear is virtually useless beyond about 8KHz, which makes for a hard time reply listening to music - I extrapolate a LOT my head. My hobby in recording and sound reinforcement was always a challenge.

Try to convince people that you can in fact hear their TV flyback transformer whine and you get blank stares. I've proven it to tech by picking the noisy flyback blindfolded ( and not forgiving the 'touch this' trick at 25KV), and fortunately that's a thing of the past.

But I've met people who could hear much better, most of whom made their living on that. Very instructive. I loathe MP3s at anything less than 320k, but lots of radio uses much less rate. I'm not disappointed it the difference between vinyl and CD, though with a good noise gate you can make vinyl sound a lot like CD. I'm always resampling my CDs in my online libraries such seem to revert to lower rates for some odd reason. Hmmm...

There is the problem of just how replicants 'escape', conspiracies abounding.

Deckard may be recreated every 4 years or so, with his last memories intact, an interesting way to use replicants.

Time for two or more Deckards? On than one planet?

Time for more Rachels? Or just the same one over and over?

Who's running Tyrell?

If the recycled Deckard gets older, that satisfies his own self-doubt about his nature. Cover for his replicantism. And he can always be left dead if he gets too close to the truth.

And he could be a minor character in the continuing story...

In generalities, yes. Specifics, no, sadly.

Our worksite bandwidth isn't constrained by the circuit, it's the firewalling. We are one of the top ten targets in the universe. Given that, I'm not slowed down by external access, but by internal firewalls. We have to protect against internal threats also.

A production server requires three instances - production, test, and development. Days to implement, weeks to approve. We have to actually know what it will be expected to do before we can request it.

I'm currently using around 120GB of storage, of which 40GB is purely redundant. I'm limited only by the shared volumes, and I see about 16TB available. Our tech now knows that this storage is cheap.

Our website managers, however, believe we need a world-class presence, so we are now engaged in rapid releases, monthly. This is a reporting site our customers use to get statements, details, and resolve complaints. I'm not sure we need to team the site so often, but I'll let our customers make that point.

Not all corporate IT is lost and dysfunctional.

I'm still using green screens. They try to force me to the GUI, first by pointing out the functionality. I out of that they are denying me those functions in terminal, so of course the GUI is better. They really just don't want me running macros to pull details on 5,000+ accounts when I'm asked to.

Yes, that's it.

No, until they find a Filipino who can remember how things worked before the current issue was raised. That's somehow become very difficult. Then I move over to the Dark Side and get more pay for interfacing with them. But not until.

Trust me, if the kill off our team and let the Filipinos do it. The ticket count will triple. They will still need someone to consolidate, properly categorize, and track. They were never able to do so with the US team for 14 years. I'm not yet quaking in my boots that they will get the offshore team up tothat challenge in even a quarter of the time. But they will try.

I work with teams in the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Britain, Australia, India, and the Philippines. I have no normal working hours any more.

But my employer does not require me to do 8-5 and will other hours. An 11pm call either leaves me staying the next day at 10am, or
  taking the 2nd day off.

We really do have to throw them all out...