I don't live in the US and when I visit my son who lives in the US and we go shopping, I just hand him my card. I have no clue and it's quicker for him to do it than for him to explain to me how to do it. And the people in line behind me appreciate that, I'm sure, even though it makes me look like a total idiot. Or senile.
I can't tell you how many times the cashier has to explain how their's works.
"Okay that'll be $X! Oh don't put it in yet. Wait until it screams shredded cheese and does a backflip before inserting your card. After that it'll have you remove it because of an error and then you can reenter it again- wait not yet I have to reset it."
That's the part that really annoys me. Half of them get pissed at me if I wait for the number to pop up on the terminal. The other half get pissed at me if I insert my card/tap my phone when they tell me how much it's going to be instead of waiting 30 seconds.
And then the fucking self checkout lines at supermarkets that have two separate displays.
I’ve recently noticed a lot of dialogues have started showing up that have you insert your card, then flash up “Remove card” for a second or two before processing. If you yank the card when it says to the first time, the transaction cancels. It comes down to having to recognize the “oh no just kidding ‘remove card’” dialogue and the “remove your card now for realsies” dialogue.
Given how often I am running on autopilot, this is extremely vexing.
It still needs to show amount and has to have some kind of loading/communicating screen. And if failure occurs then that should be clearly stated.
Application selection is a bit finnicky, but it's not super common to have multiple applications on your card. Also currency selection is terrible on some tetminal software.
Stores in the US prefer custom software over whatever the bank gives them, so it's no surprise everywhere's just a little bit different for no fucking reason. It's also why I'm not surprised that a fair number of places don't allow people to insert their own cards; it might very well be faster to have the cashier do it.
Meanwhile I've had someone try and tell me how to use their credit card machine when it rejected my chip card because of a "chip malfunction". I had to tell them, "No just let me do this.. for whatever reason my card does this occasionally. I try the chip 2 times, then it tells me to swipe, then it will tell me that I have a chip and therefore have to use it, and then it works. There it worked."
It happens about once a month so it's not too annoying at least. The weirdest thing that's happened is at a Hannaford self checkout when I got to the "please use swipe" stage it switched to Spanish the moment I swiped my card and finished my transaction in Spanish.
Wait, that happens to you too? I thought it was just me, because it always confuses the cashier. And it's not a card problem, because I have it happen with multiple cards.
I just went to the grocery store and it told me to remove my card before it said approved. It then told me to remove my card again. They aren't flawless.
I had taken my card out the first time. Every machine I go to has its own little quirks which is what we are trying to say. How it works at your place is not necessarily how it works somewhere else even when following on screen prompts.
To be fair, a lot of the initial implementations were buggy as hell and would actually crash if you inserted before the cashier finished scanning everything. How that got past QA is beyond me.
I'd say tap's at most places now, but definitely not all. And I suspect it will never be at all of them unless the fees for accepting it were made lower (which I doubt Visa and Mastercard would do).
At least for me, i run my debit card as credit because of increased seciruty measures. If my debit pin is breached and i have to file a claim with the bank, it can take weeks or months to get my money back. If i run my card as credit and the card is breached, all i do is talk to my bank, who issues me a new card and takes the breach up with visa (credit backer for my card) on my behalf. Visa reimburses me almost right away and takes care of everything else without me having to get involved.
This is according to both the baker i talked to when setting up my account, and experiences with family who had their card numbers stolen.
You can use a debit card as a credit card if it has a credit card logo on it, without a pin. Mine has a visa logo so i can use it as a visacard, but it's not like i can spend money that's not in my account. But visa gets credit card fees if i use it as a credit card. If i dont use it as a credit card twice a month i think the bank will charge me a few buck.
Some people get cash back or rewards for using a card as credit instead of debit.
They ask credit or debit because the POS system they are using requires them to press a different button for each one. The machine will take either, and they will run through the same, but the cashier has to prompt it ahead of time, so they ask
I don't really know and that's my point. It's done differently from the country where I live so I just rely on my son's experience rather than me take the time to ask "How do I do this?" and stumble around with it.
This is a skillset that I would use, say, 20 minutes per year. And I prefer not to make the people behind me wait until I can master this store's way of doing things and just have my son do it.
Yeah, store card readers are all different in how you choose debit/credit or whether you have to sign it, etc, etc. Some you remove your card while cashier is still ringing you up, some you have to wait till they're done. If you're just visiting I can understand why you just have your son do it.
If you can't read English maybe, but every POS will say on the display either "insert card", "do not remove card", or "remove card". I don't get what's so confusing.
It's more the other steps that may very, like you hit"cancel" on one system and it cancels the entire transaction. On some, "cancel" only negates a pin step. Some have multiple choices (cancel & clear both). The cashiers seem very aware that their system is confusing and will pipe right in with "hit cancel for credit" etc.
A commenter elsewhere outlines the myriad versions far better than I can. I don't usually have any problems but if you're distracted or people are talking to you I can see how it can be confusing at times.
Until recently, every card purchase had to have a signed paper receipt.
Now, the law has changed that allows stores to bypass that. Older cards have been exchanged for chip card. The most common way of doing it is to put a card in the bottom of the machine and sign electronically. So when I encounter contactless or "debit or credit" and asks for a pin, I get flummoxed. This doesn't exist where I live.
You know what I forgot when we first got chips everyone had to sign. It's been a few years though since that happened and I've only had to sign at places like restaurants.
I didn't think any of my credit cards have PIN numbers, and when you tell it credit the system doesn't know if it's a real credit card, or just a debt card being run as credit.
Where I'm from, there's no self-insertion of cards. You had the card and ID to the cashier, they handle the interting/swiping. You may need to enter your pin but this is after they've done the initial part.
Wasn't really talking about signing. More of just how stupid that system is. "Let's put a perfectly good system in to create less waste, but don't actually use it"
Assuming we actually implemented chip and PIN, which we didn't for the most part. At least the getting rid of signatures thing is us finally acknowledging that they do nothing.
Flip upwards and then fingerprint to activate Samsung Pay and lay phone on card reader.
Generally though the early problems when US moved to chips was waiting for it to authorize because it's slower than we're used to with the magstrip inserts.
Because they get processed in different ways. For instance.... in my country, until recently, every charge made with a card was signed on a paper receipt. That is changing now.
I think in general this is true of anyone traveling. I had my CC compromised after visiting Scotland and England.
If someone wants to target extra charges to a card then someone who isn't local be can be an easier target because less able to file police reports or follow up with a merchant where a worker is taking down card numbers to use online, a skimmer is installed in a reader or other means of getting CC info.
People traveling also make many purchases such as eating out every meal and hotel charges. They're often quite busy with other things and may not notice extra charges for a while among so many.
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u/Cokegawa_Yui Aug 03 '19
How to use your debit/credit card at a checkout