On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 13:59:43 +1100
Rod Butcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I believe this issue needs to be tackled at a legislative level, along
> the lines of trade practice. There is too much at stake for powerful
> companies to practise any form of self-regulation here.
> What gets overlooked here in Oz is that in the US, together with
> free-enterprise capitalism they also have some fairly sophisticated
> legislation to keep corporations from running the show. We've espoused
> the first without the protection of the latter.
I don't know what your experience with the US might be, but on matters
like this they are probably behind us, not ahead. At the consumer level
(which is what this is) the US law is generally pitifully weak in
comparison with the protections afforded Australians.
> So - forget about complaining to banks, you'll be ignored unless you
> and all your mates are multi-millionaires. I cited the positive
> example of Macquarie uni to show that this is not a technical issue.
> I'm looking at tackling this thru political lobbying (Kim Beazeley and
> KIate Lundy were making positive noises until they were mysteriously
> silenced before the last election), and finding any existing
> legislation which may be invoked. Surely a company can't force its
> customers to use a particular product before it does business with
> them ? cheers
Why not? I bought a new car and had to pay with a bank cheque. No other
method of payment permitted. And St G would say that you can do business
with them anytime. Offering a limited service is no more out of line
than offering telephone banking only to certain area codes, or offering
telephone payments only through BPay.
I think it is a commercial issue. If enough people let St G know that
they are taking their internet banking elsewhere, it will make them
notice. If you make the point in a public way, they will notice sooner.
I don't think it is a political issue. Should they be required to
support *every* browser? Which ones would you legislate for? And if you
did, then you are just implementing a new kind of "standardisation" that
will limit creativity and development.
I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be pissed off. You should. I just
think you are looking in the wrong place for solutions.
Cheers,
Alan
> Rod
>
>
> On Sun, 2005-01-02 at 12:50 +1100, Mary Gardiner wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 02, 2005, Elliott-Brennan wrote:
> > > I don't know that I'd EVER change banks because I had to do some
> > > extra work to access their site - though if I could not access it
> > > at all, that'd be a problem!
> >
> > Even in my case, where I would have to notify several different
> > direct debitors and creditors of a new bank account it's enough of a
> > pain: it would take two years' use or so of a good online banking
> > site to make up the time lost switching accounts.
> >
> > It's not all or nothing. ("If you don't like it, leave!") Continuing
> > to use a bank's services does not somehow mean that you've
> > invalidated your right to complain to or about them, as discussion
> > here occasionally suggests. Being unable to take your business
> > elsewhere does lose you some power in the commericial relationship,
> > but not all of it.
> >
> > It may be worth looking at or getting involved with the Mozilla Tech
> > Evangelism project: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tech-evangelism/
> >
> > -Mary
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