This VISA check card commercial - the one with the highly choreographed diner - everything in perfect synchronization, like the inside of a Movado watch, food flying onto plates and all…
Then. Some dolt, some neanderthal DARES to try and pay with, what is that antiquity??? Cash?
Oh no! The nerve!@!@!!
Forcing the poor cashier to make change? That’s got to be some kind of labor law violation, right? And the other people in line, now have to wait for Mr. Fumblyfingers to find the correct bills in his wallet, when all he really should need to do is hand over his Trusty Visa Check Card!
For the love of God man, get with it! Get that filthy, germ infested CASH out of your wallet! This is the twenty-oughts Mister, we’re a cashless society, don’t you know anything?
“He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a [del]mark on his right hand or on his forehead[/del] Visa Check Card, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the [del]mark[/del] card, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.” -Revelation 13:16-17
My daughter saved up to buy a PS2. When we went to get it at Fry’s, she paid with a stack of twenties. It was another thirty minutes before we left while the cashier and three managers inspected each and every twenty and argued the authenticity of them. There was discussion about the watermarks, red and blue threads, the stripe, everything. They wasted a great deal more than twenty bucks worth of everyone’s time in this process. I hate Fry’s.
At least in the most recent VISA Check Card commercial I saw, they were correctly swiping the card upside-down, not right-side-up as before (so you can see the VISA logo!). I mean, come on, any idiot who’s ever used plastic of any kind knows you don’t swipe them that way!
Maybe in a few years they’ll get the stripe on the correct side too. (Yeah I know that’ll never happen because then you wouldn’t see the front of the card at all, but a girl can dream.)
I am bias in this regard, but I really liked this commercial. And honestly, a check card costs you nothing to use it, why wouldn’t you? It comes from the same place you got that cash, so really, get with it already!
I like the music too. Where have I heard it before? It’s either something that’s been used a lot, or was used in something that made an impression (but not enough of an impression that I remember where I heard it).
Visa’s regular credit card ads don’t make any sense either, if you stop to think about them.
You know the ones; come to Gilette Stadium, buy your tickets, get some souvenirs, have a hot dog, but bring your Visa card because they don’t accept anything else. What’s in it for the stadium? Visa must be paying them to have an exclusive arrangement.
So, you’re paying out money that you have to pass on to your customers (me), and the result is inconvenience to some and no difference to others. I should reward this behavior why?
You probably did hear it at first on Looney Tunes. It was frequently used in the same capacity that it was used in the commercial…to denote heavy machinery and industry busily chugging away. Think Sylvester the Cat on the conveyor belt in the cat food factory.
Anyway, the name of it is “Powerhouse,” by the prolific jazz composer Raymond Scott. Great music.
Because they’ve got no fraud protection, that’s why. If someone takes my cash, I’m out that cash, but the thief doesn’t have access to the rest of my checking account.
Also, some people find that limiting their spending to what they’ve got on hand in cash works great for keeping them within their budgets.
Here’s a link to view the ad online. Thanks to the Raymond Scott Archives for the link.
Speaking of Scott, there’s a very nice feature on his songs being used in Looney Tunes on Warner Home Video’s new Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4.
Well thats crazy, you have plenty of fraud protection with your card. By law you can only be held liable for the first 50, and thats only if you dont report it. Pretty much all banks now have a zero liability statement.
Grant it, while you may not be out any money you may be out of some time as you figure it all it out, but you do have protection.
This is true. THe reverse is also true.Some people, me for instance, prefer to carry a minimal amount of cash. I use my Visa check card a lot. Ad for me, it is easier to keep to my budget when I pay electronically.
I hate this ad. I’d thought of starting a thread about it myself! See, I’ve got a debit card, but it’s not necessarily faster than cash. I mean, unless these particular cards work differently than mine, you’ve got to swipe the card, enter your PIN, wait for the cashier to push the debit button, request/decline cash back amount, and wait for approval. I can’t see that handing over a few bucks and waiting for the cashier to hand you some bills and coins in return takes any longer than all of that.
Granted, some people are slow with cash. Can’t just give 'em a twenty and wait for change. Gotta hunt for the exact amount, right down to the last penny. Scrabble around in the bottom of a cavernous purse, scavenging every coin. These are the ones you’d like to stuff into an ATM. And some have to have the total of the purchase before they even reach for a wallet. But somehow, I think that people like this would find a way to be slow and annoying even if they had a card, 'cause that’s just how annoying people are!
