I really don't understand why VISA / Mastercard / American Express / Debit Cards do not have a email associated with them that will automatically get sent receipts when you use those cards - or have them show up in the bank that issued the card.
It would be amazing and seems like a straight forward extension of the charge card industry. Of course end user machines will have to be updated, but that can happen over a period of years, but it is a straight forward extension.
And the email / identity shouldn't be disclosed to the sellers, instead the receipts should be sent to charge card's infrastructure along with the charge/payment. And then from there it is distributed to the users.
Maybe Apple and Google and Samsung could somehow extend their Apple Pay / Google Pay / Samsung Pay APIs to enable receipts automatically and start to push for that. If Apple advertised it in their keynote, and say StarBucks and Home Depot and Walmart supported it, we would soon have this everywhere.
msgodel 3 days ago [-]
A lot of retailers just ask you for an email/phone number once and then associate that with your card number to send you the receipt automatically.
That seems like a decent "good enough" solution.
foxyv 3 days ago [-]
This makes Walmart pay really attractive. I get the receipt as part of the pay system.
cph123 3 days ago [-]
In the UK we had something similar called Flux. I don't think it got widely adopted.
It needs to be pushed by Apple or Google and then the other players in this space will get FOMO.
jzwinck 3 days ago [-]
I came here to write something very similar. Visa and their competitors all have the ability to transport data about the payment. Most receipts are a fairly small raster image which could be sent as an extension. Visa could also offer a structured text receipt data format but the image may actually be safer to avoid a billion questions about how to represent unusual situations around surcharges, optional extras, custom discounts, split checks etc.
It would be important for the receipt to include the original broken-out list of items purchased, and not just the "credit card receipt" with the total paid. People need detailed receipts for returns and business expenses.
bitshiftfaced 3 days ago [-]
In many cases, the POS software would have to go out of its way to share the itemized receipt details with the credit card processor. There's probably an incentive to get paid for that data elsewhere that overshadows the benefit to the user.
AnotherGoodName 3 days ago [-]
Some of the payment systems do now allow you to associate an email address with cards which gets you itemised receipts at the cost of privacy.
I actually do use this a lot. Have a corp card and corp email and it’s setup with stripe, square, bunnings (an australia thing) etc. to email receipts. For the corp use case its great. Spam that one use corp email all you want, just send me the digital receipts.
VladVladikoff 3 days ago [-]
>But don’t use hand sanitizer, Dr. Martin said — “this will only enhance the absorption of BPA or BPS across the skin.”
There is a non zero chance some cashier did this non stop during the pandemic. I hope they don’t read this article it will make them very stressed.
xattt 3 days ago [-]
Alcohol melts the thermo-sensitive layer and makes a receipt illegible.
incomingpain 4 days ago [-]
>Most major U.S. retailers began replacing BPA with BPS about a decade ago.
So receipts were bad to touch a decade ago, causing the switch and the replacement is probably just as bad.
on_the_train 3 days ago [-]
As far as I understand it, other plastics have the same effect. It just takes time until the research is as bulletproof. Hence the companies just between mostly identical compounds while the underlying issue stays the same.
VladVladikoff 3 days ago [-]
You can say this about lots of things. Plastic bottles, tin cans of food, etc, etc.
Simulacra 4 days ago [-]
Tangentially related: I was friends with a lady who was lobbying congress to get ridnof thermal receipt paper. Over time, thermal receipts fadr, and after a year you really no longer have the receipt because it's mostly faded. This makes it almost a disappearing warranty.
I scan my receipts for major purchases, but I think she had a point.
larrled 3 days ago [-]
The trend I’ve noticed is towards emailed receipts which are not very consumer friendly. It seems like a better option is just taking a snapshot of the receipt on your cell phone. I’d appreciate having that option. A retailer could show the receipt on a tablet and I could take a quick snapshot. Win-win.
Why that hypothesis? Why not "Does BPA exposure cause upper molar cavities?", or "Does BPA exposure cause tinnitis?"
Those are equally random, and have the added benefit of studying something that is a threat to human health.
4gotunameagain 3 days ago [-]
Oh gee, I don't know, maybe because hormone exposure during gestation has been proven to influence the annogenital distance, a key sex indicator ?
Because plasticisers are endocrine disruptors ?
I don't understand why studying the causes of something has to invalidate the identity of a group of people. Clearly something causes people to be transgender. The same way something causes people to be albino. Is it offending to them if we study it ? No. Why should that be different ?
add-sub-mul-div 3 days ago [-]
We know why, I'm sure you get it, too. Roughly half the population meets new counterintuitive ideas with curiosity, and the other half discomfort. New ideas about sexuality and gender are particularly hard for the latter to process because those are such fundamental parts of our identity that it's hard to be flexible about the concepts.
Everything that played out about homosexuality and interracial romance etc. is happening with transgenderism. The fear is as predictable and inevitable as the broad societal acceptance of the new idea, it just takes time to unfold and the only way out is through.
Hence, this hypothesis. Half the population is compelled to work backwards from the discomfort to a comforting idea.
Rendered at 00:10:17 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
It would be amazing and seems like a straight forward extension of the charge card industry. Of course end user machines will have to be updated, but that can happen over a period of years, but it is a straight forward extension.
And the email / identity shouldn't be disclosed to the sellers, instead the receipts should be sent to charge card's infrastructure along with the charge/payment. And then from there it is distributed to the users.
Maybe Apple and Google and Samsung could somehow extend their Apple Pay / Google Pay / Samsung Pay APIs to enable receipts automatically and start to push for that. If Apple advertised it in their keynote, and say StarBucks and Home Depot and Walmart supported it, we would soon have this everywhere.
That seems like a decent "good enough" solution.
Discussed previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33179645
It would be important for the receipt to include the original broken-out list of items purchased, and not just the "credit card receipt" with the total paid. People need detailed receipts for returns and business expenses.
I actually do use this a lot. Have a corp card and corp email and it’s setup with stripe, square, bunnings (an australia thing) etc. to email receipts. For the corp use case its great. Spam that one use corp email all you want, just send me the digital receipts.
There is a non zero chance some cashier did this non stop during the pandemic. I hope they don’t read this article it will make them very stressed.
So receipts were bad to touch a decade ago, causing the switch and the replacement is probably just as bad.
I scan my receipts for major purchases, but I think she had a point.
Those are equally random, and have the added benefit of studying something that is a threat to human health.
Because plasticisers are endocrine disruptors ?
I don't understand why studying the causes of something has to invalidate the identity of a group of people. Clearly something causes people to be transgender. The same way something causes people to be albino. Is it offending to them if we study it ? No. Why should that be different ?
Everything that played out about homosexuality and interracial romance etc. is happening with transgenderism. The fear is as predictable and inevitable as the broad societal acceptance of the new idea, it just takes time to unfold and the only way out is through.
Hence, this hypothesis. Half the population is compelled to work backwards from the discomfort to a comforting idea.