I tried to order a ticket for the State of the Map EU in Antwerp, but failed to pay because I do not have a credit card or a Google Pay account and there are no other payment methods selectable.
Does anyone know whether there is any alternative payment option? I am surprised that very popular payment methods such as PayPal or bank transfer/SEPA are not supported.
Isn’t it sad, that an European conference does not support payments with the European payment standard SEPA and a conference which in a broader sense has to do with software freedom and open standards is not attendable without having either a Google account or a credit card?
Already emailed to contact@stateofthemap.eu 2 days ago with that topic, but still have no answer.
You are right, I’ve just checked it out and yes, it’s a shame. People not using credit cards or Google Pay by principle are excluded from tht event. A real joke. I wonder if the contact team of SotM-EU will give you a reply or offer any other payment method. Good luck anyhow.
The kind of debit card you mean are the debit cards from Visa/Mastercard, whereas the debit cards common here in Germany do not have any card nummer and CVC which makes them not usable like a credit card.
A credit/debit card is not necessary for PayPal, it is also possible to connect it to a bank account.
There’s some differences here between the UK and Germany. To add more examples to those already mentioned: a website asking for payment by bank transfer is uncommon in the UK and would be seen by many as a red flag for potential fraud. Debit or credit card is the main way to go in the UK (direct or via a service like Google Pay or PayPal).
Back to the original question. It looks like Stripe is being used to take payments. That does have a SEPA option so perhaps the team could enable it.
P.s. As it was mentioned: having looked at many payment processors, PayPal’s fees are broadly in line with others (or at least were a few years ago)
As I found when cycling in Germany last week and it was almost impossible to pay for anything in small shops unless you had a German card or cash! Quite a culture shock.
All my payment cards (VISA, bank cards for direct payment) work fine in Germany, but small shops and local cafes in small towns indeed often are cash only. In Nederland this sometimes still happens, but since immediate NFC payment with just a handy is possible, almost all tiny businesses now accept this. Using QR-codes for open amount payment requests, even children selling stuff at free-market events now accept payment without any cash.
Yes - I was cycling along the Rhine, and in the Netherlands everyone (even the little ferries) took Apple Pay via my watch. But most German bakeries and shops in small towns didn’t take cards at all, and when they did, my UK (Visa) debit card didn’t work. I was honestly amazed that even the bakery attached to a Lidl had a sign on the county saying “no cards”.
They will come around - or disappear due to natural turnover. For an old hound like me, e-payment has been around for only a short time. I remember… oh well. You know.
I wouldn’t call it sad. Assuming good faith, I would think in Belgium bank transfer is not the method to use in such cases and a the local organization put there payment methods which are common for them. At least that would be my expectation
Same like a German SOTM-EU would maybe not offer G-Pay or Apple Pay…
I’ve always suspected that the Brexit was not a good idea …
It was a very bad idea, but they work fine elsewhere in mainland Europe.
My visa debit has worked fine this year in Belgium, France and Spain as a card and through Google pay and Garmin pay. The only oddity I found in France was the contactless limit is only 50€
I assume you’re asking that jokingly, but e.g. MullvadVPN accepts cash payment in an envelope, so it can clearly be done. You could also reserve a ticket beforehand and pay in person. I think it’s important to have privacy respecting payment methods, especially for a convention for an open source project such as OSM.
To explain some of the comments above, as a bit of background, “payment in cash” in the UK has a bit of a reputation for being used by e.g. allegedly corrupt politicians (see e.g. 27:40 into this video for a joke about this).
More seriously, it’s worth noting that the difficulty of tying up an offline payment to an online-generated token (as Mullvad say they do) is a lot easier than for an attendee at a physical conference. I wouldn’t make things for the volunteers running the conference any harder than they need to be.
SEPA bank transfer has been added this week (I just checked because I drafted a posting for the German subcategory). Thanks to the organisers for making the conference more accessible (hopefully the programme will become available as text soon).
