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I like how Visa/Master Card are shutting “indecent” games down, but have no fucking issues with twitter generating CSAM.
It’s never an issue when the criminal is rich.
It’s a crime if you’re poor and a fine if you’re rich and all’at.
Well, in this case, isn’t Valve the “criminal”?
No, it’s the small indi devs, if vida tried to have a Microsoft game delisted there would be lawyers involved.
We now have the technological means to make online payments better in many ways for both customers and vendors. We just need to move away from one of the biggest American exports, middlemen.
How are we going to do that? What’s the payment method everyone should use for now?
Visa/MasterCard is a tax in every transaction. You might not see it but it is there.
I hate that I don’t get like a 2% cash discount, I get like 3%+ from credit cards so justifying cash is kind of hard
If you have bad credit you don’t get perks like that. So addicts, poor people, anyone trying to turn their life around. This is a regressive tax.
At least in Denmark, paying cash was shown to be more expensive, due to the cost of money transportation services and the fee banks charge to provide bills and coins for the change in the register.
Also the stores can’t do any analytics on purchasing patterns on you when paying cash. So all in all they prefer credit cards or registering for membership programs for payments.
Here in Czechia you can pay for online transactions with instant direct bank transfer, so cards are not really needed. This is often used for direct transfers between individuals where one generates a QR code on his phone and the other scans it.
That’s because Europe has SEPA, which are used in the EU.
Europeans mind can’t comprehend the issues of american banks.
They are so bad, it doesn’t make any sense.
Europeans mind can’t comprehend the issues of american banks.
Still need an American credit card to rent a car tho
No you don’t? What are you talking about?
Car rentals almost exclusively accept payment by credit card, unless you have a corporate account that is billed periodically.
I’m sure you can find an exception but please let’s not fly off to nitpick land.
My parents are not from the USA and don’t have USA bank accounts or credit cards and have had no problems renting a car in Europe or anywhere else they went. I really don’t get what you mean. I don’t see why you specifically need an American card and not just a credit card from any modern country.
Eu banks typically use a MasterCard or Visa partnership for their credit cards. The EU bank might issue the credit card to their customer, but the actual payment processor is an american company. If MasterCard/visa starts blocking certain payments, then there’s nothing that the EU bank can do about it.
You can know which payment processor your bank’s credit cards uses by the presence of a small logo on the front of the card. 2 overlapping red and orange circles = mastercard network.
As for car rental companies, Hertz has some wonderfully twisted logic on their Belgian site where they say that they accept debet payments from any eu bank card, as long as the card has the visa or Mastercard logo. In other words, they only accept Mastercard or Visa payments, not eu debet payments.
I mean if you don’t understand things you should ask, not assume others are in the wrong. Yeah it would be pretty stupid to be forced to have US accounts to rent cars in Europe, luckily we’re not THAT stupid.
VISA and MasterCard are practically a monopoly on credit card circuits, your parents’ cards may be issued by a local bank but there’s a 95% chance they’ve got one of these two companies’ logo printed on them, and out of every payment they make, these AMERICAN companies get 2% (blah blah cashback, blah blah terms and conditions), because they are made on their circuits!
You may also have debit cards that DON’T have those logos, but debit cards can’t be used for car rentals.I did ask. Specifically I asked what you were talking about. All you really had to say was Visa and MasterCard are USA companies that handle card transactions. If you had clarified that initially you wouldn’t be getting downvoted to hell.
you should ask, not assume others are in the wrong.
You also shouldn’t assume that, maybe if you think others don’t understand something, it’s actually because you’re wrong
If you have an account in any European bank, you can pay by bank transfer or SEPA in basically any European business, and often it’s their favourite way to do it because there is no commission. I don’t know country by country, but in Germany the standard for payment system is Girocard which is German payment processing, and the cards usually come equipped with both it and some American standard like visa and mastercard, but a lot of people opt out, if they don’t care about payment outside of Europe.
Any car rental worth it’s salt in Europe will accept some form of SEPA, but also, renting a car is not an essential part of people’s lives here, so it’s not even something people care about that muchbut also, renting a car is not an essential part of people’s lives here
It may not be part of your life, but I’ve done it hundreds of time as a travelling tech (plus a few as a tourist), and I’ve had times when airports with hundreds/thousands of rental cars had trouble satisfying demand, so it seems there are others with the same need.
And no, they don’t accept SEPA, although terms vary by country, and if they do they require a safety deposit that can go from a few hundred euros to the thousands, not exactly practical.
Being traveling tech is absolutely not usual occupancy, so it doesn’t change what I said. But if you work in Europe and traveling around, and moving around instruments is part of your job, you should have a company card anyway for it, so again, it doesn’t really matter for the rest of Europeans.
What I’m trying to convey, that even though you will have some incompetence without American run banking systems, unless you’re in a very specific operation, like needing to rent a car at an airport for example, you wouldn’t be severely inconvenient.
I’m saying it as a refugee from a country that (for justifiable reasons) is getting some negativity around, and being born there I’m deemed not actually a good person in advance, and it took me a lot of time to convince various governments that I’m not a dangerous exemplar of my race. The time I spent without access to international banking systems like Visa weren’t debilitating, even though inconvenient at times.How is a deposit not practical? Unless they require it in cash that has to then at the end be picked up at the pickup point (which would be crazy)? A rental company is taking a huge risk by renting cars to any random person with a driving license. It’s the same reason they don’t typically rent to people below 25 (or without a higher deposit).
It’s really only unpractical if you don’t have enough money on your account to afford the deposit, but then why are you renting cars? Otherwise you just pay a bit more the first time and then get that money deposited back on your account when you return the car. There’s basically no difference in the end other than a bigger number the first time, and if you wreck the car or something, you will lose the deposit through your credit card too.
I’ve literally rented cars in Greece using cash.
They do require some form of identification for obvious reasons, but that is about it.
None of the rental places required credit cards.
I think you are making too sweeping of a statement here. Maybe this is the case for car rentals you encounter / have access to but the response should show that’s not the case everywhere in the EU. I rented a car without a credit card over 5 years ago where I’m from. You do pay a deposit that I suppose a credit card would normally insure for, but the option exists. Either way, if a car rental requires a credit card, I would not even consider renting with them. That’s ridiculous.
Look, if you go to mom and pop’s car rental, sure, they can accept hens as payment if they like. If you use car rentals the most common way, as a supplement for airport travel, you rent one in your city, you use it to go to the airport, return it, fly to your destination, rent another car at the airport, do your things, go back, repeat. At those locations you’ll only have the big names, AVIS, Hertz, Europcar… Those are mostly credit-card or corporate account exclusive. And corporate accounts are expensive, at my former company we had a bunch of people travelling constantly and it still wasn’t economically advantageous, apparently.
Also, you are just wrong about the big names you mentioned:
spoiler
Debit Cards – Accepted in many countries, but restrictions apply (see below)
In some countries, only credit cards are accepted—unless you’ve prepaid online with a debit card. If you prepaid your rental with a debit card, you must bring the same card to the counter, along with a valid credit card for the deposit. Your card must be in the name of the main driver, and valid for the entire duration of the rental.
Mini and Economy class; debit or credit card;
FVMR; debit or credit card;
Passenger van (9 pers.); debit or credit card;
Van; cash, debit card, or credit card;
Your debit card is now welcome at Hertz in Europe. Here at Hertz we like to make renting a car personal. You decide what to drive and where to drive, and now you can choose how to pay.
We welcome debit cards across our European locations. We want your journey with us to be easy, so giving you options on how to pay puts you in the driving seat. No complicated processes – a simple deposit that works the same for credit cards as debit cards. Go your own way. Pay your own way.
You never said your statement was just about airport car rentals. Over here that is very likely not the most common usage of rentals (and certainly if you exclude business travel and holidays), since airports are far between, but car rentals are all over the place, far away from those airports. You rent cars over here if you dont own a car and need transportation. Or if you have to move a large amount of items you rent a van.
Besides, you can simply take the bus or train from any airport to a real car rental which should be close by in any major city. Of course if you go do it in a business hub you will find scams for the average person. Does that sacrifice a little bit of convenience, sure. But if you buy all your water from street vendors at a tourist attraction we dont claim water is expensive.
I can see you are simply from a very different world, that of business travel, which is why your perspective is so different.
EDIT: And no, I didn’t use a mom and pop shop, I used the biggest car renter in my country (Netherlands) with over 130 locations.
in Poland we have something similar! we have BLIK and it generates a code for you that the other person taps into their terminal/you tap into an online purchase window, then it tells you to confirm again in the app and there you go, paid
there’s also BLIK phone transfers, you just need the other person’s phone number and (provided they have their bank linked to their phone number ofc) you can send money to their account that way
i haven’t paid attention to it recently but when this was being introduced they also added a cheeky “this transaction only took you 30s ;)” at the end lol
We can also buy paysafecards in convenience stores, and these are actually anonymous, unlike Blik.
- Natural monopolies should be nationalised. Network effects tend to be a significant characteristic of natural monopolies (my opinion).
- Payment infrastructure is critical for national security. Just the way cash is.
This is why imo, there should be a nationalised institution competing against private institutions like these.
- the nationalised institution must be owned by the state.
- its operations however must be organized as a consumer coop, where cardholders of this payment network are member owners. This would prevent the top down bureaucracy, corruption and inefficiencies that plague state owned corps.
Wow, I had no idea you could do that in Japan, and the idea never crossed my mind.
That’s a brilliant solution to online payments.
Well this means that there is still a payment provider doing the barcode system. This payment provider could still block certain vendors. It works excellently to protect the privacy of the buyer, though.
I consulted for a luxury brand on e-commerce for a bit and I was surprised how important credit card splitting was to their American business.
Like, people splitting a purchase across multiple cards because they were so close to the max for each.
I questioned how much time we were spending on it but they assured me it was a common use case.
Note I recently had to do some gymnastics to split a purchase over ‘credit cards’ because I had received a few modest gift cards. I suspect that’s an even more common case, since people want to completely use up a received gift card and that’s all but impossible without splitting. Even if I have 10s of thousands of available limit, a gift card means I’m trying to spend like $50 or $100 out of a card.
I HATE gift cards. Kiddo got one for Nintendo. We have a hacked switch! Can’t even use it.
Have a Home Depot one that says “invalid” or whatever wording, won’t let me use it.
Basically buying a piece of plastic, they take your money and tell you to fuck off. No one’s going to take them to court for $50, so it’s win-win all around for them.
Regift it to someone who can use it
I did this ONCE on a $10k required purchase. Never again.
Interesting, usually when I get into something that expensive, they don’t even want to accept credit cards. I think most I got someone to take as a credit card transaction was about $6,000. They’ll only take check or certified check, or if a car then of course they really want you to borrow through whatever they have partnered with.
unfortunately, was for a lawyer. paid it off in two months, but didn’t quite have $10k i cash in my pocket. it wasn’t for a DUI, i don’t drink lmao. thats the most common reason for lawyers i’ve heard.
I wonder where that puritan far right “women’s rights” advocacy group is now that Twitter is generating CSAM and non consensual AI generated material, or maybe the purpose was always to punch down on independent artists.
They are actively pushing against every attempt to stop Twitter and it’s owner Mask producing child pornography and non-consentually showing it to the users. That’s where they are right now.
That genuinely doesn’t surprise me, what an absolutely reactionary organization
I live in a country where it has become in a sense illegal not to be listed at an address. If you are not listed at an address, the government flags you as a missing person. If that happens, the banks lock you out of government ID, which is necessary to do basically any type of online banking, and if you have any funds behind an electronic ID wall, you won’t be able to access them.
Wtf is the point of all that? Sounds like it just makes the life of homeless people harder for no reason
That is the point. You must either be a land owner or pay rent to one.
Which country?
Lots of European countries have mandatory registration. It makes administration a lot easier.
Sounds like Sweden. They are like that.
Always amazed by how much oppression people can put up with.
Recently visited a country where cash is very much preferred and it was such a breath of fresh air. I thought it would be annoying to have to keep up with the spare change and what not but it was fine and actually felt pretty good. I’ve since started using cash a lot more at home.
I recently had a trip to Japan and had more mixed opinions about it. Mainly because they have a large variety of coins and oh boy do you end up with a lot of them.
Coinage is the single reason why I’m tipped over the edge to prefer card. I HATE dealing with change.
I wish there was a card that was closer to cash where the money is stored on the physical card not offsite but that seems like a nightmare in itself… Idk
We actually had that here for a while, called Chipknip. You could store money on it which you would need top off once it was spent. It disappeared when nfc debet cards became the standard though.
Ohh I gotta read about that now!
at least you have a choice wherever you live, use less card my pal
Apple pay?
oh boy do you end up with a lot of them.
You just need more practice with the Japan Coin Simulator ;)
https://wendal.itch.io/japanese-money-simulatorTheoretically the most coins you should ever have is 15:
4x 1 yen
1x 5 yen
4x 10 yen
1x 50 yen
4x 100 yen
1x 500 yenIs 15 supposed to be not a lot?
It kind of is, but I love the 500 yen coin anyway. It’s the 2nd most valuable common coin in the world (I think) after the 5 Swiss franc, (or at least it is for now as the yen continues to tank, currently worth about $3 USD whereas 10 years ago it was $4 and 15 years ago was over $6). It makes your change jar actually worth decent money (imagine if filling up a 2 liter bottle was worth a couple thousand bucks instead of a few hundred) and it’s kinda fun to have a small change pouch in your pocket worth more than a hundred bucks.
Plus it’s gold colored so you can collect a pile and feel like a pirate
Which country was it?
Greece
Having visited Greece (well, Corfu) a number of times, and as much as I love the place and the people, the primary reason they prefer cash is because they’re not big fans of paying taxes.
Didn’t they go through a whole thing where other countries were imposing shit on them to force repayments of national debt? Maybe understandable then that tax evasion is popular if a lot of what is paid in taxes isn’t going towards improvements to your own country.
Well if they dislike taxes, they probably hate transaction fees even more.
It might have had something to do with people waiting in line to withdraw 60 euros too.
No. In Sweden, 99% of all payments are cahsless. Most stores don’t even take cash anymore.
We still have plenty of (digital) options for payment in addition to Visa/Mastercard.
In my view, it’s actually the opposite. The more digital paymenst are used, the higher the incentive to create a competing payment solution. Swish and Klarna are taking over more and more here.
In Canada we have Interac E-transfer for transferring funds from our standard chequing accounts to private businesses or people we’re buying things off of. We also have “virtual credit cards” that are just a CC number with an exp date and CVV that we can use for online purchases and that money comes out of our regular back account without the need for a credit account.
Most people still have and use Credit Cards but we are far less reliant on them here. Most of them time if someone has one it’s for the perks that card gives, like cash back on purchases or points for rewards like gift cards, tools, vacations, etc.
We also have “virtual credit cards” that are just a CC number with an exp date and CVV that we can use for online purchases and that money comes out of our regular back account without the need for a credit account.
So, like, a debit card?
No, as you cannot use your debit card for online credit card interactions.
You can’t use a debit card to buy things off Amazon.
That’s a new one for me. I didn’t realize in some countries you can’t use a debit card on Amazon. To be clear, I’m not talking about an ATM card, I’m talking about a debit card with a Visa or MasterCard logo.
You absolutely can, I did so this week.
what why??
Must be a regional thing, because no such restriction exists in the US
Funny that, since I said in my OP, I’m Canadian.
Oh, so you meant “on Amazon here” rather than the overly broad and objectively incorrect “on Amazon” that you wrote.
The destruction of cash in the EU is jusy disgusting. I dont want to have to leave a paper trail for everything.
Could be an alibi if you ever get in major trouble, lookup the transaction, match to security footage, prove you weren’t there.
I don’t have to prove I wasn’t there. They have to prove I was.
So if someone is lying and says you were? Mistaken identity? Easy fix if you show you weren’t where the crime took place.
You have a lot of trust in “the system”.
I have no trust in the system whatsoever, which is why I wouldn’t talk to police. And I have seen that video and easily over a hundred police interrogation videos. It astonishes me how readily people talk to police and say shit that would have landed them in jail even if they were not involved in the crime they were discussing. As an autistic person, the interrogation videos with commentary and breakdowns have helped more with understanding social situations than most of what my parents ever told me.
Edit: interestingly enough, the best example of what to do when interrogated by police on YouTube from an actually guilty guy called Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam. When interrogated and asked about the murder, his responses are basically ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ and ‘I have nothing to say’, when asked about irrelevant questions he was curt and dismissive in much of his answers.
I thought klarna was just a payday loan basically?
It’s mostly a middle man to outsource payments. The stire doesn’t care if it’s on credit or not. You can pay directly with a bank account through Klarna, at least with the major Swedish banks.
Oh, I never looked into it. Just thought it was one of those high interest “loans” and said fuck no.
I was thinking that I definitely knew there were some European countries that are more cashless than the US.
Norway has an app called Vipps, released by the national bank. When first introduced it was primarily aimed towards payment from person to person, linked to phone numbers. But most online vendors accept it as a form of payment too.
I forgot my wallet while at the grocery store the other day, and using what little charm I have I managed to get the cashier to pay for me, and I Vippsed him the money owed.
Same, but called mobilepay in Denmark.
And once again I look at a Scandinavian country with envy
In Brazil you can use a central bank system called pix. Everyone with a bank account has it. You can send money to any phone number registered on pix and everyone accepts it.
All banks support it so people can use it anywhere with anyone. Also we support a system like Japan with barcode but since pix people are using it less
Singapore has PayNow, Thailand has PromptPay, India has UPI… Just US/EU still struggling to get out from grip of mastercard/visa. Tho after Trump nonsense Eau is trying, but UK is not even trying.
I still don’t know why USians don’t simply use bank transfers. Uses neither cash nor credit cards, perfectly easy.
we have zero say in what payment methods are available to us
companies and banks decide and we’re just their little bitches
I mean, we could all decide to not use credit cards and Apple Pay… But that’s too inconvenient. Oh, well, I guess we’ll continue being little bitches.
(Just got back from a trip to a cash-heavy country. It’s possible.)
Change begins with oneself.
Much like The Godfather, you insist upon yourself
what…what does that even mean?
they don’t know but they think it sounds important
not a family guy fan?
me using cash whenever possible (i really do) and even trying to influence my friends and family to do so isn’t gonna do shit in the face of several million rational people, let alone several million Americans lol
if i want reasonable payment systems i need to emigrate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i really like the city i live in though. actually it’s a lot more cash-friendly than most of the US fortunately
Always amazed by how much oppression people can put up with.
bread and circuses
indeed
Bank transfers here take 3 days typically. And that’s business days, so add another one if it’s after 4:30 pm, also Saturday, Sunday, and holidays don’t count.
That’s what it was like here not so long ago. It can occasionally still take that long if you’re sending money to another bank. Same for weekends and holidays. We still seem to get by just fine?
That’s too much delay and too insecure for businesses around here.
Many don’t even take checks for pretty much the same reasons (they are basically the same system, but entrenched): There’s no guarantee that the person paying actually has the money for the business to later receive it.
Because the US still does not have instant, or near instant bank transfers. ACH bank transfers cost money per transaction, on the order of 0.30-0.50 per transaction, and can much higher for larger transactions.
The US is just incredibly, and uniquely behind when it becomes to accessible payments. This is the reason why “FinTech” such as Cash app, PayPal, and Venmo, in addition to credit cards, are popular - they literally just don’t have the infrastructure in place for you to pay back a friend after they pay for a meal.
Every other developed, and even some developing countries, have had fee free instant payments, for the better half of a decade. The UK/Hong Kong have Faster Payment System (FPS). Europe has SEPA, and most countries mandate that transfers cannot charge fees. Australia has Osko. India has Immediate Payments Service.
I read horror stories of USians paying rent by writing cheques or mailing cash to avoid bank transfer fees and subsequently stressing out about fraud. This is just insane to everyone else, who just pays via instant bank transfers.
We do have Zelle. It’s just no one knows about it for some reason. I pay my rent this way. It’s also less convenient since people have to actively sign up for it with their bank and many don’t, so I do cashapp my friends.
Zelle isn’t available to download anymore (as least, on ios.) My landlord kept suggesting it for me to pay rent, and that’s how I discovered that it’s disappeared from the App Store.
I started setting up a bank transfer instead, but even that required precise coordination that we couldn’t get to work. I’d have to add his account to my online bank, wait for it to send two “microtransfers” of less than a dollar, then confirm the amounts on my end. Between our schedules and the fact I don’t know when the microtransations happen, we keep missing the chance to verify the numbers before the bank withdraws the microtransfers. Such a pain in the ass.
I ended up paying rent through Apple pay instead, which I still feel weird about. But I don’t have a checkbook (who does these days?) and it’s cheaper than a cashier’s check, so…
Zella isnt downloadable because it’s integrated into the banking system now. It’s not a separate thing.
It’s literally just a direct transfer now. Straight from your banking app.
Yeah there used to be an app but now it’s integrated into your banking app, so I guess yours hasnt adopted it. I go into my bank’s app and have the option for them to issue a check by mail from my account, or use Zelle. It’s no good for online purchases but I’ve paid an electrician that way before.
Yep, my landlord kept telling me to use Zelle through my banking app, but I use a small local credit union (and have zero interest in changing that. Credit unions ftw.) So I gotta do what I gotta do.
recently found out most banks in the US are not government owned and charge transfer fees for each transfer (up to $40ish for wells fargo)
among many other predatory schemes, yes.
land of the free
What do you mean “most?” There’s a government-owned bank here? That would be news to me
Always amazed by how much oppression people can put up with.
Or, there could just be an instant payment thing that’s run by the federal bank. Brazil created Pix, which is essentially an instant payment processor that makes transferring money piss easy, and it works 24/7 regardless of date and the money arrives in less than five seconds. It’s managed by the Central Bank too, and every bank that operates in the country is connected to it.
Same in Spain with Bizum
I avoid bank transfers whenever possible. If someone fraudulently charges something to your credit card it’s trivial to dispute the charge and get it fixed before you ever suffer any financial impact. If they fraudulently transfer money out of your checking account and your mortgage payment and a bunch of other payments bounce before you catch it, it can be a real nightmare.
Ive never paid for a bank transfer, and we have zelle which works. The reason is Interchange fees for credit cards are high (like 3%) and not capped, banks offer high rewards, sign on bonuses, travel perks etc. using a combination of interchange fees and interest paid. People are drawn to these even if they are losing money in the end due to paying so much interest (people are not financially literate). On the other hand high earners who are smart want to use credit cards for these perks, so alot of high earners will not shop at a place if a credit card is no available, essentially banks, VISA, and high earning yuppies have created a wealth redistribution system that preys on people who take on debt.
We do…? All the time? That’s the entire point of debt and now the growing popularity of zell.
Considering your using the term usians I expect you have a very poor understanding how we actually do things.
You mean debit and Zelle?
That’s why I’m asking.
That’s what a debit card is, and plenty of people use them.
Many people are idiots, though. They’ll use a credit card and pay interest all the time, rather than have the money to buy that TV or whatever before buying the damn thing.
I use a credit card to take advantage of the warped system, though. It gives me several benefits and costs nothing extra because I pay it off in full every month. All my purchases come with a year of reimbursement if stolen, a year of warranty past the manufacturer warranty, and cash back points. I have gotten thousands of dollars over the years for using a CC. Free money.
Bank transfer is barely available as a payment method in Europe and it’s slow as fuck. That’s not an alternative.
Dafuq you talking about? I live in Spain and use it all the time. Usually takes about 1 minute.
Same in colombia. Even fruit vendors on the street accept bank transfers. Takes a minute or two to transfer.
WTF are you talking about, they can take up to 24 hours on weekdays, longer on weekend/holidays.
I’ve literally bought stuff on a Sunday afternoon in Spain, when the whole country is having a collective shutdown and no businesses are open, with zero problems. (Edit: last time was between different banks, too)
We’re talking big things, like cars and motorbikes, because for normal stuff we just use Bizum, which is also really quick.
I literally just went to my bank and setup a bank transfer for Saturday, 17.01.
ok, which bank are you with?
UBS but that doesn’t really matter. I also have/had accounts with Deutsch Bank, Sparkasse, Volksbank and Postbank and it’s the same everywhere.
Oh no, an entire day? That’s horrible. /s
What do you do that always NEEDS instant transfer?
Pretty useful when ordering food, for example …
And you do that so much that you actively complain about the slow banking process? I can’t remember ever needing any money to be transferred right this instant, other than the rare delivery pizza treat. Sounds like you’re pretty well off if that’s such a common occurrence.
Yeah.
Also digital purchases, I don’t want to wait a day for a download. Hell, even with regular orders, I don’t want to have to deal with having to plan my order in advance around the weekend just so my stuff arrives on the next available shipping date.
So yeah, unless it’s instant it’s not really an alternative, it’s a downgrade.
