Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 July 5

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July 5

AusPost Visa Load & Go Online Payment?

I know it is possible to use the Load & Go card online but I have a quick question. A particular section for the VISA payment details requires the "Name on card" to be entered. As the Load & Go doesn't come pre-inscribed with your name in the card, would I just enter the name I used to register the card with? Or is the online usage of the Load & Go voided in this situation? Thankyou so much for your help! 220.233.24.164 (talk) 02:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I found this page: [1]. It says enter "Valued Cardholder" if asked for the name on the card. RudolfRed (talk) 02:35, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou so much!!!! I really appreciate your answer!!! So just to confirm, in the space provided for the section "Name on card" I simply just type "Valued Cardholder"? 220.233.24.164 (talk) 03:15, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

That's what the page says. I've never tried it. RudolfRed (talk) 03:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Can a adult with a disability get legal assitance in Canada for a name change?

I'm a 28 year woman living in BC Canada and I would like to get legal and financial help changing my middle and last name. I have a condition called aspergers and a mental illness hypomania. Can I get Legal and Financial help with this? thanks! Narwhalgal84 (talk) 02:36, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Legal Services Society offers legal aid in BC. Try asking them for help, or for a referral to someone who can help. RudolfRed (talk) 02:42, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Content for wikipedia

Can I add information from text books, encyclopedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacquileen (talk • contribs) 14:31, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but your should paraphrase, not copy directly. And ideally you should cite your source. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:51, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

You can get more info in Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright#Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else? and Wikipedia:Copyrights. For general info on contributing to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Your first article and WP:Tutorial. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Air travelling

Is there an official estimate of how many non-unique passengers travelled by air worldwide in a given year (e.g., 2011)? --Theurgist (talk) 17:27, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

If I read that literally, you are asking how many passengers made more than one trip. Is that what you meant? Looie496 (talk) 17:39, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

No. Sorry for not being clear enough. English is not my first language. Feel free to revise my original post any way you like. I mean: a passenger who made one trip counts as one; a passenger who made 15 trips counts as 15; etc. --Theurgist (talk) 17:53, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

("Whether unique or not" would have expressed your meaning clearly, or better yet, how many flights or how many trips. μηδείς (talk) 18:10, 5 July 2012 (UTC))

Do you mean only commercial airlines, or are you including private aircraft, military airplanes, cargo planes, and helicopters ? Also, do you only count passengers, or do the crew count, as well ? StuRat (talk) 18:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Are there different official estimates for all that? Ideally, the data should include just everything and everyone. But I guess anything else could do as well. --Theurgist (talk) 18:13, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

If you have a budget for this question, you might want to look at http://www.oagaviation.com/Solutions/Reports-Guides/OAG-FACTS. Whilst some 'executive summaries' of the information are available, most of it seems to come at a cost, and I can't find out what the cost is. I'm guessing if you need to ask you can't afford it. It does seem that this would be a way to get a particularly accurate answer, though. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:51, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

To give a vague idea, I'll quote Giovanni Bisignani's (then IATA's CEO) words in 2011: "We are officially announcing our 2010-2014 forecast. According to the industry aggregate forecast, in 2014 3.3 billion people will fly. That is 800 million more travelers than in 2009, when the forecast period started." [2] IATA's 2010-2014 Airline Industry Forecast itself, with presumably quite a bit more detail, doesn't seem to be available for free either. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:54, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

prices at 99

why do prices always ends in 99? instead of $79.99, why dont they just round it off to 80.00? 203.112.82.2 (talk) 23:17, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

See our article on psychological pricing. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Lots of prices end in .95 also. The extreme case of this kind of thing would be gas stations, which always have a price ending in 9/10 of one cent, regardless of the rest of the price. So you might buy 10 gallons at 3 dollars and 51 and 9/10 cents, hence you pay 35 dollars and 19 cents, rather than 35 dollars and 20 cents. What a deal! :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:16, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I've got gas to sell you at 3.519̇ Fifelfoo (talk) 02:28, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

If you drop it to 3.14159, I've got a pie for you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:08, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

That would go on forever. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:23, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

This is plain stupid, because it obviously doesn't work: everyone rounds up in their heads anyway. 109.97.175.158 (talk) 09:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

If you read Sluzzelin's link, you'll find it's not stupid, plain or otherwise, it does work, and people don't behave as you think they do. --Dweller (talk) 10:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

From what I gather, it's based on unverified assumptions and the research on the actual effect is inconclusive. 109.97.175.158 (talk) 12:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm told by a friend who specialises in fraud that there's also a drive towards awkward-but-large price endings by large companies worried about cash till fraud committed by employees in parts of businesses that largely revolve around cash/small-change. It's harder for staff to do the mental arithmetic required to commit fraud and still balance the till, if prices end in things like .78, .92 and .83 than .00 or even a uniform .99. --Dweller (talk) 10:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Slightly tangental, but according a former department store manager of my acquaintance, the reason why an item is discounted (damaged, returned, discontinued, etc) is encoded in the last digit of the discount price. FiggyBee (talk) 08:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The explanation I've heard along those lines is that the .99's mean you have to give change, so you have to put it through the till. If prices ended in .00 then people would often pay exact change and the cashier could just pocket it. There would be stock missing, but they would have no idea who was responsible. (The main reason is the psychological pricing Sluzzelin linked to, though.) --Tango (talk) 11:12, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

That wouldn't work in America, because the sales tax on a 99 cent item will push the cost up to about 1 dollar and 5 cents. I don't know about regular retail, but in fast food joints they have or had a standard practice of whoever runs the register would be told to pocket a few dollars at the start of the shift, and at the end of the shift, when it's reconciled, the cashier returns the difference in the till - which might or might not be exactly what they pocketed earlier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Why ? StuRat (talk) 14:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll second this question. I've never heard of that. I've worked retail (not fast food) and we never did anything like that. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

In my state (Michigan), there's no sales tax on food items, unless "prepared for immediate consumption". StuRat (talk) 14:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Prices also occasionally act as signifiers for cashiers or store employees, for example, a price ending in .97 might indicate that the product has been discontinued and not to order more. Alternatively, it could mean that the product is not eligible for quantity discounts, or could relate to some other supply issue. I once worked at a store that regularly priced items at .93, because with tax this would round out to an even dollar amount. Alternatively, it could have to do with retaining an exact profit margin. eldamorie (talk) 16:23, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, not wanting at all to to hijack the thread, but can I just ask - do Bugs's and Eldamorie's comments mean then that in the US, or some parts of the US, the price displayed on the item or shelf is not the price you actually pay, because sales tax will be added on at the till (register)? - Karenjc 20:59, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is almost always the case in the U.S. -except for gasoline and maybe tobacco. Rmhermen (talk) 21:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, you learn something new every day. Thank you for the info :) - Karenjc 21:38, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

That would be totally forbidden in The Netherlands, except for B2B sales. More on topic, adding no new information at all, it's amazing that are many more reasons imaginable besides .99 sounding a lot cheaper than 1.00. Though I tend to go with that one. I would however, also expect "reverse psychological pricing". If I had the money (...) I feel that I'd buy a house at an "honest price" of $ 1,008,000 sooner than exactly the same house at $ 999,999. "You aint fooling me this time, this is a house, not a candybar so I have thought about this.". (funny, your question is immediately generalized here) Joepnl (talk) 21:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

UK too - B2B sales are quoted ex-VAT but displayed retail sale prices must be the price you actually pay, hence my question. The .99 (or .95) phenomenon is almost universal here and is usually anecdotally attributed to psychological pricing. Although we also have the pound shop, which also has connotations of good value. Karenjc 22:53, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

It is highly unusual for posted American prices (except in a few situations) to include sales tax. Occasionally you find restaurants than do that, and make a big deal about how their $5 whatever is "really" $5 because tax is included. But it's very rare. But everyone knows there is a tax, so it's not a surprise — though it can add up on big ticket items. Many states have sales tax holidays where people buy televisions and things like that. (I'm not sure whether the holidays apply to buying cars; those taxes add up to enough that in some regions, people make conscious choices about which states they buy them from.) --Mr.98 (talk) 16:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Psychological pricing is the main reason. I have done mail order sales with offers made at different prices and the $99 offers did much better than the $100 offers. μηδείς (talk) 20:54, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

As the psychological pricing article points out, part of the reason this continues is probably simply that consumers are used to it. People are accustomed to large retailers being more likely to use .99 prices, so it gives a kind of air of professionalism. I think it's interesting looking at the various pricing structures used by variety stores around the world. There have been 99 cent stores in the US, 300 escudo shops in Portugal, 36 ruble shops in Russia, and 1.99 real shops in Brazil. Oddly enough, the article explains that there are no "100-dollar stores" for reasons of pricing efficiency, but at the end mentions a "100 pound shop" in London, though it appears to be a kind of cross between a shop and an art installation. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 14:21, 8 July 2012 (UTC)