That is an interesting theory, and I'm surprised I missed that sentence when I last read through the Wikipedia article. It does appear that the UK Maestro service actually uses a different underlying system than the standard Maestro service, contrary to my original perception (that UK Maestro was a direct subsidiary of the MasterCard Maestro service). That might go some way to explain why some U.S. stores just flat refuse to accept Maestro.
Having said that, UK Maestro shares the same brand and logo the parent service, and I have never ever been refused POS with my card at stores (online or retail) in other countries that advertise either the Maestro or Cirrus logo. This suggests that there must be some level of interoperability between the 2 services. This is getting a bit off-topic, but the information is definitely useful. Thanks Jon! On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Jon Colverson <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Apr 6, 1:20 pm, Andreas Kostyrka <[email protected]> wrote: >> 4.) While I'm not 100% sure about the UK Maestro thing, but the >> explanation that you cannot charge foreign currencies to a UK Maestro >> card sounds bogus. Hint: Take your UK Maestro card, hop on the train to >> Paris, buy yourself a French croissant, pay with your Maestro card, and >> you'll get an EUR charge on your UK Maestro card. Better yet, if you >> can deal with the DHS bs, hop on a plane, go to an ATM in NewYork, >> withdraw money, and again you'll get an USD charge on the card. That's >> at least how DE/AT/CH Maestro cards work. > > I have no particular expertise in this, but the Wikipedia page about > Maestro has some useful information: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maestro_(debit_card) > > According to that article, the debit card system called Maestro in the > UK is a rebranding of a UK-specific debit card formerly called Switch, > and the system is unrelated to the Maestro system used in the rest of > Europe. > > -- > Jon > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
