Since sunday I went to three festivals in belgium and everytime I had to buy one if those cards. They always cost 1€, you have to charge them and they make you spend more money because a refund is also 1€. For me that falls into the same category as buying a different currency for microtransactions in mobile games.
Also its not as easy to track your spending and at the rammstein concert they scammed me with charging the wrong items. Also a lot of plastic waste.
by retardwhocantdomath
16 comments
Is it legal for them to ask money to get a refund?
The trick is that you might decide to leave some balance on the card, planning to reuse the card next year and, since you’d only use it once a year, you’ll lose the card.
Making NFC payment cards for single events is plain wasteful. They can dress it up as mementos all they want.
Why they don’t want to cut the crap and just use payment terminals supporting wireless bancontact/mastercard/visa: each transaction made through those means costs them. Clearly having these cards made and temporarily running/outsourcing infrastructure and only having to pay for topups costs them less than paying the likes of CCV, Worldline,… for every transaction made.
The refund charge should be made illegal though. A transaction through bancontact/mastercard/visa/wiretransfer does not cost €1. And the payment card should be included in your ticket or should be an NFC tag integrated in an access wristband.
Imagine if someone invented a plastic card or an app that works with all events and is directly associated with your bank account.
They had a similar card on Ostendaise ( my kind of festival.. about good food ). But you could scan your card with your phone which showed your expenses and remaining budget. You can also withdraw the money back to your account one month after the festival. That last one is a bit tricky since people forget about it and the card gets reset for the next festival
The cashless argument is a bit old. But here we are.
I can get it for a festival. But for a one-time concert? Huge bullshit.
At Best Kept Secret (among others) they have been doing debit card payments for years now, so it’s absolutely possible to do.
Can you charge that card using cash? If not, probably should try submitting a complaint to the ministry of economics for them not accepting cash payments. Give them a bit of headache.
they should make concert tickets nfts and let you tap & pay with crypto
then we can have bars/clubs/social-gatherings entry be decided on earlier concert attendance
all while preserving your full privacy and allowed to resell your ticket as you wish
though every change of hands is forever tracked, known only between the two parties of exchange and the original issuer.
who doesnt prefer being in a crowd of people who enjoys similar things?
You could create new kind of social gatherings where the only thing you know about each other is the criteria upon which you were selected/filtered. You could technically create a crowd of at least 40% woodstock and 30% queen and 20% radiohead fan appreciation.
And that’s just one example.
speed dating for people who attend football matches
free drinks for Billy Eilish fans tonight at restaurant/club/bar/event
heck, you can even make new kind of identities, based upon groups of people with guaranteed upon similarities or other public properties.
I bet, somewhere along this comment, you lost me. And that’s okay. It’s almost to be expected at this point. Given all the places I’ve been.
It’s in their best interest to do so. They avoid charges per transaction if they make you pay once (or more) for transferring money to their payment system. I believe it’s around €0,03 for amounts up to €5 if you pay with your debit card or Payconiq app.
Do they accept V-Bucks?
It’s less scammy than at the Graspop where you have to pay 3.5 € (1 Skully) to get your money refunded (granted, you don’t have to pay for a card, so you could ensure you charge your bracelet with reasonable amounts and end up consuming only what you intended to)
Totally agree. I complain to the organiser whenever Bevers&Bevers are used. Complete scam. It’s as though Belgium has such a fucking boner for jetons that when the only reason for their existence no longer applies (noone is using cash anymore) people thought “how can we recreate this frustrating experience in the modern world”.
hey atleast its a souvenir
Ok so you pay double the amount for drinks and shitty food but you’re complaining about 2 euros on a card