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Have you never walked into a store and they said you can't use a CC because their reader is down? It is nice to have a few dollars in your pocket for times like

Have you never walked into a store and they said you can't use a CC because their reader is down? It is nice to have a few dollars in your pocket for times like that.

nisegami 3y ago
I have literally called ahead to order food then arrive to pick it up and be told that the card reader has not been working all day. Had no cash so I just ended up leaving.
- dcow 3y ago
  Why not offer to leave your phone number and pay later when the system is back up. The food goes to waste otherwise…
  - nisegami 3y ago
    I live in a low-trust society, so they wouldn't have accepted something like that. Had they offered, I might have said yes and gone back later. But I was mostly just pissed they didn't mention it on the phone.
mindondrugs 3y ago
I dont think I have ever encountered this in my adult life honestly. A more common occasion is encountering a business that is cash only (usually small market stalls) and is infinitely more annoying as I have to go and take out a amount of money greater than the product I want to buy, leaving me with a rather annoying amount of loose change.
- assimpleaspossi 3y ago
  I used to own several restaurants. This happens far more often than most people may realize.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    It happens 100% of the time I've been in a taxi.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Agreed. Especially when there's no ATM for 5 miles. Plurality of payment methods is always more desirable and more robust. If one is serious about business, why would you not take, cash, cheque, credit and debit cards, contactless, NFT phone, and bitcoin? Even if some of those are suboptimal, a sale is a sale. The ability to negotiate and adapt is what makes the world go round. One example; I was caught in an emergency needing to get a taxi to an airport. On the way I explained the situation to the driver, and ended up negotiating the fare as a mix of US dollars, Danish Kroners, and a good bottle of wine, where the official expected currency was Euros. The problem comes with cashiers and managers who are not business owners and are terrified to do anything unusual. They are tied to procedural rote and unable to think dynamically. It's all about what they can't do even when evidently agreeable and favourable options are on the table.
  - blincoln 3y ago
    > If one is serious about business, why would you not take, cash, cheque, credit and debit cards, contactless, NFT phone, and bitcoin? Even if some of those are suboptimal, a sale is a sale. For some businesses, the overall cost of accepting some of those methods may be higher than the expected revenue from customers who won't use another method. Buying new payment readers. Having to convert the bitcoin immediately to currency to avoid losing money due to its constant price fluctuations. Higher per-transaction fees for some types of payment. Increased susceptibility to fraud (for cheques in particular). > The problem comes with cashiers and managers who are not business owners and are terrified to do anything unusual. They are tied to procedural rote and unable to think dynamically. You would be too if you were barely making ends meet, the expected outcome for "a customer asked me to accept an unusual form of payment" was almost always "it was a con, the 'customer' got the merchandise/service for free", and you'd most likely be fired as a result.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      > You would be too if you were barely making ends meet, the expected outcome for "a customer asked me to accept an unusual form of payment" was almost always "it was a con, the 'customer' got the merchandise/service for free", and you'd most likely be fired as a result. Just the millionth example of why trust is a critical component in society. Its presence allows things to be flexible and efficient. Lack of it makes things suck for everyone.
- Xorakios 3y ago
  This is common in Florida around hurricanes.
XorNot 3y ago
I have never needed to buy things so urgently that this would ever come up. If a store's CC reader is down, then I'm just plain not transacting their that day. That's fine: there are other stores.
semiquaver 3y ago
It used to be that many companies that accepted credit cards would have a backup carbon copy imprint machine to capture a rubbing of your card alongside your signature as an offline credit card capture mechanism that was reconciled later. They made a satisfying KA-THUNK sound. Now that many cards no longer use raised numbers I expect such mechanisms wouldn’t work as well.
kwhitefoot 3y ago
In most Norwegian supermarkets the card readers (chip and pin and contactless) still work even if disconnected from the network. In my local one they just print two copies of the receipt and ask you to sign one just in case the reconciliation process fails when the network comes online again. Some small stores have an account with Vipps so if their readers actually are down but the phone network is up then they just ask you to pay with Vipps (https://www.lifeinnorway.net/what-is-vipps/ https://www.lifeinnorway.net/what-is-vipps/).
delackner 3y ago
Fun anecdote: I walked into a Capital One (BANK) where they have a Café, and the gimmick is that if you pay with your Capital One card, you get a reduced price. They said their payment terminals were down so they could not take credit cards. I said oh... I don't have any cash, oh well no coffee for me. They said well... we can comp you one drink per person if you don't have cash. Neither I nor they considered the option of me walking over to the nearby bank ATM and withdrawing cash.

Have you never walked into a store and they said you can't use a CC because their reader is down? It is nice to have a few dollars in your pocket for times like that.

nisegami 3y ago

I have literally called ahead to order food then arrive to pick it up and be told that the card reader has not been working all day. Had no cash so I just ended up leaving.

dcow 3y ago
Why not offer to leave your phone number and pay later when the system is back up. The food goes to waste otherwise…
- nisegami 3y ago
  I live in a low-trust society, so they wouldn't have accepted something like that. Had they offered, I might have said yes and gone back later. But I was mostly just pissed they didn't mention it on the phone.

mindondrugs 3y ago

I dont think I have ever encountered this in my adult life honestly. A more common occasion is encountering a business that is cash only (usually small market stalls) and is infinitely more annoying as I have to go and take out a amount of money greater than the product I want to buy, leaving me with a rather annoying amount of loose change.

assimpleaspossi 3y ago
I used to own several restaurants. This happens far more often than most people may realize.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  It happens 100% of the time I've been in a taxi.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
Agreed. Especially when there's no ATM for 5 miles. Plurality of payment methods is always more desirable and more robust. If one is serious about business, why would you not take, cash, cheque, credit and debit cards, contactless, NFT phone, and bitcoin? Even if some of those are suboptimal, a sale is a sale. The ability to negotiate and adapt is what makes the world go round. One example; I was caught in an emergency needing to get a taxi to an airport. On the way I explained the situation to the driver, and ended up negotiating the fare as a mix of US dollars, Danish Kroners, and a good bottle of wine, where the official expected currency was Euros. The problem comes with cashiers and managers who are not business owners and are terrified to do anything unusual. They are tied to procedural rote and unable to think dynamically. It's all about what they can't do even when evidently agreeable and favourable options are on the table.
- blincoln 3y ago
  > If one is serious about business, why would you not take, cash, cheque, credit and debit cards, contactless, NFT phone, and bitcoin? Even if some of those are suboptimal, a sale is a sale. For some businesses, the overall cost of accepting some of those methods may be higher than the expected revenue from customers who won't use another method. Buying new payment readers. Having to convert the bitcoin immediately to currency to avoid losing money due to its constant price fluctuations. Higher per-transaction fees for some types of payment. Increased susceptibility to fraud (for cheques in particular). > The problem comes with cashiers and managers who are not business owners and are terrified to do anything unusual. They are tied to procedural rote and unable to think dynamically. You would be too if you were barely making ends meet, the expected outcome for "a customer asked me to accept an unusual form of payment" was almost always "it was a con, the 'customer' got the merchandise/service for free", and you'd most likely be fired as a result.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > You would be too if you were barely making ends meet, the expected outcome for "a customer asked me to accept an unusual form of payment" was almost always "it was a con, the 'customer' got the merchandise/service for free", and you'd most likely be fired as a result. Just the millionth example of why trust is a critical component in society. Its presence allows things to be flexible and efficient. Lack of it makes things suck for everyone.
Xorakios 3y ago
This is common in Florida around hurricanes.

XorNot 3y ago

I have never needed to buy things so urgently that this would ever come up. If a store's CC reader is down, then I'm just plain not transacting their that day. That's fine: there are other stores.

semiquaver 3y ago

It used to be that many companies that accepted credit cards would have a backup carbon copy imprint machine to capture a rubbing of your card alongside your signature as an offline credit card capture mechanism that was reconciled later. They made a satisfying KA-THUNK sound. Now that many cards no longer use raised numbers I expect such mechanisms wouldn’t work as well.

kwhitefoot 3y ago

In most Norwegian supermarkets the card readers (chip and pin and contactless) still work even if disconnected from the network. In my local one they just print two copies of the receipt and ask you to sign one just in case the reconciliation process fails when the network comes online again. Some small stores have an account with Vipps so if their readers actually are down but the phone network is up then they just ask you to pay with Vipps (https://www.lifeinnorway.net/what-is-vipps/ https://www.lifeinnorway.net/what-is-vipps/).

delackner 3y ago

Fun anecdote: I walked into a Capital One (BANK) where they have a Café, and the gimmick is that if you pay with your Capital One card, you get a reduced price. They said their payment terminals were down so they could not take credit cards. I said oh... I don't have any cash, oh well no coffee for me. They said well... we can comp you one drink per person if you don't have cash. Neither I nor they considered the option of me walking over to the nearby bank ATM and withdrawing cash.