Every since I found out that the first digits of any credit card denote the issuer identifier (i.e., folks can tell who issued a credit card and what type it is just from the first digit or two) I've been annoyed almost each time I have to input credit card information on the web. Any decent credit card system knows that if a sixteen digit credit card number starts with 4, it's a Visa. And yet, each time anyone buys anything on the web, they must select "Visa" from the drop-down box. On a certain level we all know this; People in stores and restaurants never have to select the type of card before swiping.
When I'm feeling generous, I imagine this is so that the credit card companies can give an extra reminder that they only accept certain credit cards -- not being able to select a card type in an "essential" input field constrained to multiple choices is a pretty strong reminder.
When I'm feeling less generous, I suspect it might be so that the companies can subtly remind us that they have their own brand credit cards that we might like to acquire.
Responses to This Post
Your logic works for some categories of Credit Card, but definitely not for any kind of number-based payment method.
- another reason is that the merchant doesn't want to implement this logic which is prone to change - you want your Payment Service Provider to do this.
Your logic works for some categories of Credit Card, but definitely not for any kind of number-based payment method.
- another reason is that the merchant doesn't want to implement this logic which is prone to change - you want your Payment Service Provider to do this.
As for ours, I'm just bringing in a bit of logic I previously wrote to determine the card type from the number, and then passing that along.