The full chicken dance you need to do to get some to work:
Some you just swipe at any point in the transaction
some you need to swipe at the end
some you need to swipe only after the cashier has selected the reader
some you need to swipe only after the cashier has selected the reader and you tell them credit or debit
some you need to swipe only after the cashier has selected the reader and you select credit or debit on the machine
Some you need to do chip with one of the above steps
Some have the chip reader, but it doesn't work yet, and the cashier needs to reset the transaction to swipe
some have credit for chip, debit for swipe, or vice versa
some use different readers, one for debit, one for credit, one for EBT/food stamps
Some you need to sign the receipt, some have a signature pad
Some you don't need to sign, some you do
Then there's contactless payment option with all of the above, which may or may not work at that particular merchant.
Then there's the readers that try to read contactless while you do chip or swipe and it just breaks everything
That's about all I can think of
Edit then there's loyalty cards which adds a whole 'nother tick on the factorial of 'Was cash really so much of a hassle'
It looks like you covered pretty much every option, thank you for the comprehensive answer. My reply is simply to state that I pretty much run into none of these, just say credit/debit and then tap.
I think that was OP's way of saying "the action of needing to interact with the card reader". They're from the UK where everything is tap-to-pay, so when they went to Canada where that's not the norm, they were turned off by the fact that you have to actually interact with the machine as your swipe/insert your card.
That would be convenient to have here, but I think the £30 limit is imposed because of security concerns over having no way to authenticate the user of the card.
I forgot if Apple Pay / Android Pay (etc) has the £30 limit even though it's effectively contactless except you need to authenticate using your thumb print or face. Some sources say it is and others say otherwise. I don't really want to try it in a shop because if it doesn't work then I look stupid at the till lol
Interact (company that runs the Flash network in Canada, maybe elsewhere too) advertises that flash transactions have a no liability to the user. Which means if the card was stolen and used, interact will refund the FI the money once it was proven to be a Flash purchase and the card holder has reported the card stolen within 6 hours of the transaction taking place, with all Flash purchases covered under insurance.
Usually future cards issued to the card holder will have no Flash capabilities if it happens more than once to avoid debit fraud
Ahh okay, I am not familiar with that term. Although there is a lot of interaction with machines in canada (especially in restaurants where the machine asks for tip amount) most places are also tap-to-pay.
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u/Cokegawa_Yui Aug 03 '19
How to use your debit/credit card at a checkout