Hacker News Reader

“Do you take credit or debit cards?

No, GoCardless is an ACH debit company.”

Most people prefer credit cards. How does it work? Do you ask people if they want to pay by ACH?

Or do you detect debit cards on your credit card form and use this instead of the credit card processor?

> Most people prefer credit cards.

In the US, perhaps. If you're going after international customers — the topic which the original article complains about — you'll find that this preference isn't nearly as strong as you think.

In the UK I disagree. I personally always prefer to pay by debit/credit card. The charges are instant (and will be displayed instantly if you use a modern bank), you get the ability to make chargebacks (or the UK's law-mandated protection for credit card customers), etc. Direct Debits on the other hand take 3 days to set up before the money actually leaves the account.

Internationally, the local card details often don't match US "debit cards" enough to actually be called by that term; I've taken the habit of translating to "bank card". I've had non-US bank cards with no credit with security & user terms better than US credit cards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com