traduction par Argos Translate:
Vivaqua a retiré leur machine à sous et refuse maintenant de l’argent. En effet : pouvoir accéder au service d’eau à #Bruxelles dépend désormais de l’acceptation par la banque et de l’acceptation des services bancaires.
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Hello,
Did you manage to fix your bank issues?
If you don’t want to use corporations, Banque de la Poste (so managed by a public service) is available
Thanks for the tip. The bank issues persist. I think it’s important to not be dependent on banks for the most essential things (food, water, shelter). So people should be protesting against Vivaqua.
Banque de la Poste is used by old people, so they should be able to provide services without use of smartphones.
I guess most people are just used to the banking system and do not really care.
Theoretically someone could enter Brussels for a semi-short-term (e.g. 90 days) and need water service but as a non-resident I think all banks would refuse them an account. So Vivaqua should really comply with the law¹ and accept cash.
- caveat: The most recent terms of service actually state that payments must be made by bank, so it’s unclear if they are breaking the law. I’ve heard that contracts can override law in Belgium which is strange. It would seem any merchant could simply make customers agree to pay electronically to circumvent the cash acceptance obligation.… or vice-versa.
Theoretically someone could enter Brussels for a semi-short-term (e.g. 90 days) and need water service but as a non-resident I think all banks would refuse them an account. So Vivaqua should really comply with the law¹ and accept cash.
I guess in that case they could use a foreign bank account to pay the bills?
I guess in that case they could use a foreign bank account to pay the bills?
There are a few pitfalls with that (assuming they have an account at their origin):
- if you make a foreign bank transaction that does not resemble the kind of purchase that’s typical of a vacationer, some bank’s AI algorithms will treat the transaction as fraudulent
- some small non-European banks simply do not offer international transfer services which limits customers to using a card to pull cash out of the wall
- foreign networks are not necessarily compatible with the payment machines. E.g. the US has Discover card and Asia has JPN and UnionPay. ATMs tend to support more networks than point-of-sale terminals
- banks often fleece customers on foreign exchange rates. You will usually get screwed if you do a mixed-currency transfer (on top of getting fleeced on the transfer fee which can cost more than a month or even 3 months of water). There are some special cards which get decent rates at the ATM but not in other situations. Some travelers avoid the high fees by exchanging cash in advance before they leave. Often you can get a better exchange rate when buying the foreign currency than when buying local currency using foreign currency because consumers are less desperate when planning in advance.
All of this is true, but how many people would go for a 90 days stay in Belgium without making sure to have a bank account that would avoid those caveats? There are bank accounts for foreigners: https://fififinance.com/banking/bank-account-belgium
I appreciate the link. I didn’t know of some of those options (and a temporary visitor likely would not know either).
Proof of income is listed. Probably not many people carry that around assuming they’re working. I personally tend to take long 90—180 day vacations when I’m between jobs because that’s the best time to do it as it does not require any request or justification to an employer. Minimum deposit could be a problem as well (banks are becoming cashless which triggers the same problem that the account is supposed to solve). Proof of work permit is obviously a non-starter for those not coming to work. And indeed when I was looking for an account one of the banks I approached demanded that.
So ultimately it’s a really bad idea for a distributor of something as essential as water to refuse cash. There are countless pitfalls which can cause a real nightmare for people. If we were talking about a burger shop, no problem… burgers are not essential & there are always other vendors so exclusion is not tragic.
