So today I was browsing the PSN store lookin for something to buy because I didnt want to spend anything over 10 bucks( being going overboard on the wallet lately). Just something cheap with enough Value to keep me enteratined for few days/weeks. As Im lookin around PSN Wonder boy in Monster World catches my eye. I completely forgot SEGA had put a few of the Monster World games on PSN and to make things even easier on me its only $1.00!. Of course I was xxcited.  Then I got to the payment screen and realized I would still be paying  5 bucks. Stupid increments of 5. Stupid didgital wallet which is pointless for people who use a debit/card directly. I have to give 5 bucks to PSN only to use a dollar of it and have the rest sit there and if your like me, You hate having money sit there.

I dont understand why the big 3 dont allow..direct payment( I will call it this for now due to lack of a better name atm) with use of a credit/debit card. When using a prepaid card it makes sense. It would be completely dumb to have to make tons of prepaid cards in $1 $2 $3 $4 ext increments so to streamline it is more convient for prepaid users but credit/debit? why? I guess it makes sense for the big 3 as it encourages more spending in the store when you cant take the remaining money back. What else you gonna do with it? but then you think how many more ppl would purchase Wonder boy if you really only  had to spend a dollar? For any game?  Im sure im not the only person thats been turned off from buying because it's on sale for 7.99 originally 10, but you stillgotta pay 10 to get it.

Never. It costs money for a company to process credit card transactions, so they usually have a minimum transaction for credit card purchases. It used to be against the rules of Visa and Mastercard to do so, even though a lot of merchants did it anyway, but under Dodd-Frank retailers can now require a $10 minimum.

So be thankful it's just $5, ya whiner!

What? Government interference allows for screwing of the consumer in favor of a megacorp? Say it aint so!

Umm....for 360 you input your credit card data once and then you can easily add points to your account instantly whenever you need to buy a game. Its fast and convenient.

Credit card transaction fees are a huge drain on profit margins, especially when you're dealing with many small transactions.

I remember when I worked for a small, locally owned convenience store, people would try to pay for a single soda or $2 worth of gas with a credit card then get angry when I'd tell them there was a minimum purchase amount. I would say, seriously, you're literally contributing to the death of this establishment. We'd lose money every time we engaged in transactions under a certain amount. With small businesses especially, it's a huge problem.

It's annoying but I can't blame them.

On a related note, even though I despise using Windows LIVE (Microsoft Account, whatever), I had to log in recently to access my Microsoft certifications. It had been a very long time since I used it for anything except that, so I was kind of browsing around and discovered that I have a balance of 400 Microsoft points from years ago when you had to use the horrible GFWL to buy Fallout 3 DLC.

Btw, anyone know how much that is in real money?

Thank you.  I should look into redeeming that somehow.  As far as Microsoft goes, I'm sure they have some rationale for using moon money, but my guess is that part of the purpose is akin to the psychological trick of using tickets at a fair, where people stop thinking of the tickets as "real money" and thus spend more freely.  

I forgot about this thread.

Why not just add the process as a kinda tax charge then to cover it? could they do that?

"in there"???

Cmon man, I'm not a native English speaker and the first thing I learned was the difference between there/their/they're

To much thought, but in context still understandable.

I don't know about now, the laws have changed since I worked retail, but it used to be against the law to charge the customer extra for using a credit/debit card.  They had to be charged the same--which meant, of course, that the increase in overhead had to be distributed so that people who used cash were really paying more than they otherwise would.  Businesses have always been looking for methods to get around this, though some were deemed unlawful.  "Discounts" for using cash, for example, which is really just marking up prices then giving back the cash user the difference as a discount.  The main one many stores have pushed is convincing the customer to use their own branded store cards.