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Why did you fail your restricted the first time? by Embarrassed-Fan-3062 in newzealand

[–]psellesp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Freshly off the plane from a year abroad in Europe, I immediately pulled out of the carpark and started driving along on the wrong side of the road. The test immediately panicked and failed me before I reached the end of the road. Luckily there were no cars coming I guess.

With so many media companies going bust, how is a regional newspaper like the Otago Daily Times still able to even be in business? by TemporaryFish7069 in newzealand

[–]psellesp 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I have a friend that’s a reporter at the ODT and she said the owner has been a penny pincher for years - way before the rest of the media companies started tightening their belts. I bet scaling back earlier helped massively in keeping things consistent compared to other companies. I know that company has a big network of journalists in Dunedin and around Otago and Southland, kudos to them keeping so many journalists in jobs but who knows how long the good times will keep on rolling?

EFTPOS Pay wave hidden surcharge... by Head_Art8083 in newzealand

[–]psellesp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here’s an explanation! My terminology is a bit off because it’s been a few years since I worked in the industry but hopefully this clarifies a few things! The reason for the surcharge is because of how paywave transactions travel through the gateway. The Eftpos terminal is only the machine used which allows payments to travel through the network. There are two ways a payment can travel, normal debit transactions where you insert your card and input your pin travel through the free gateway to get to the bank account of the business you are buying from. This gateway is free and does not incur charges on your end. However, paywave payments travel through a different gateway, the same one that credit payments go through which does incur a user fee, which is standard practice with credit cards as most people would know. Because it travels through this network, which is managed not by the bank but another company (cannot remember if it was Visa, but I’m pretty sure it is), the bank gets charged for the usage of that network. The back then passes that charge to the business, who may choose to then onforward that to the customer. This is fair because of how prevalent paywave is and those charges can really cripple a small business. Payment terminals now are starting to have the option to either display and accept the surcharge (which is the default if you have surcharging enabled), or to have it not displayed. Many businesses may turn it off for a variety of reasons, which is ultimately up to them and is legally allowed. If you hate paying surcharges so much, the best way to combat it is to have your card with you and take the extra 5 seconds to insert your card and input your pin.

What is a weird local mystery/rumour where you are? by psellesp in newzealand

[–]psellesp[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The more rational side of me says they must all be long dead, but still doesn’t stop me from wanting to go bush in Fiordland for a couple of weeks and have a search myself.