this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
539 points (98.4% liked)

Buy Canadian

1571 readers
753 users here now

A community dedicated to buying Canadian products.

Une communauté dédiée à l'achat de produits Canadiens.


Rules:

1. Posts must be related to buying Canadian-made goods and / or using Canadian-owned services

2. Absolutely no bigotry will be tolerated. This includes, but is not limited to, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.

3. AI Content Policy

Not allowed: AI-generated images or articles

Tolerated: AI-generated post summaries

4. Only content in French and English is permitted

5. Declare all self-promotion

Users are encouraged to report any content that violates our community guidelines


Règlements :

1. Les poteaux doivent être en lien avec l'achat de produits et / ou de services opérés par des canadiens

2. Aucune bigoterie ne sera tolérée. Ça comprend, mais sans se limiter à, le racisme, le sexisme, l’homophobie, la transphobie, etc.

3. Politique sur le contenu IA

Non permis : Images ou articles générés par l'IA

Toléré : Résumés IA de publications

4. Seul le contenu en français et en anglais n'est toléré

5. Déclarez toute auto-promotion

Les utilisateurs sont encouragés à signaler tout contenu qui ne respecte pas nos directives communautaires


Related communities: Communautés connexes :

!buyeuropean@feddit.uk !buyafrican@baraza.africa !boycottus@lemmy.ca !canada@lemmy.ca !canada@lemmy.ml ___

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Visa and Mastercard are American companies, and they essentially tax everybody by taking a percentage of purchase prices for themselves. Not exactly a small percentage either, 1.2% to 2.65%. Ever wonder why so many merchants say they don't accept American Express? That's because they charge quite a bit more to merchantes, 50% more than Visa or Mastercard. Anyway, we're letting American companies tax us and we love them because we get rewards when we use cards. But it's just a shell game because we pay more up front because businesses need to charge more to make up for payment processing charges. They get to sit in the middle and rake in the money.

Now the alternative in Canada is Interac. Interac charges a set amount per transcation. How much? 2 to 5.5 cents. Unless you're going through Apple or Google Pay, and then it's a percentage again.

Interac is also Canadian.

Want to stick it to Trump? Stop using credit cards (and Google Pay or Apple Pay) and switch to Interac. Want to make Canada better? Stop using credit cards and switch to Interac. Is it going to be inconvenient? Yes. Online shopping will be much harder but I have seen online Interac payments before and we can ask our favourite Canadian merchants to accept Interac online.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Banana@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

On a lot of credit cards you get rewards for using them, like interest income. Basically the more you use it, the more interest you get, and you'll get a credit in your account annually.

Some cards have different rewards like 2% back on all grocery spending for example.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Oh, we don't have that. Nor air miles. Nor easy refunds.

I suppose the "richer" Europeans do though, I heard it referenced in an English movie of the same name.

Also, we never used checks, pretty much. Probably contributed to the explosion of CC use in the 90s despite the lack of benefits.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

an English movie of the same name

Is that a Cashback reference?

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 1 points 14 hours ago

Yup! It's the most recent movie I've seen.

[–] Banana@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's very interesting, I learned something new today!

[–] lunarul@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've only ever used a debit card when I was in Europe. There was zero incentive to get a credit card. Moving in the US was different, I needed to build credit and cards were the best way.

Now I have a Prime card because 90%+ of my spending is on Amazon and at Whole Foods, both of which give 5% cash back. I get thousands every year, something really hard to give up. I wish I could stop giving Bezos money, but the convenience of Amazon is just too much of an advantage for me. And I know that shopping is now just a drop in their earnings compared to AWS.

[–] Banana@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

God, I would honestly be so happy if we did away with credit entirely in Canada and removed all incentive to have credit cards.