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.
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.
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.
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/).
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.
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.
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.
mindondrugs|2 years ago
assimpleaspossi|2 years ago
nonrandomstring|2 years ago
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.
Xorakios|2 years ago
kwhitefoot|2 years ago
semiquaver|2 years ago
Now that many cards no longer use raised numbers I expect such mechanisms wouldn’t work as well.
nisegami|2 years ago
dcow|2 years ago
delackner|2 years ago
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.
XorNot|2 years ago
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.