For these cases I keep a tiny bag filled with colourful pieces of paper and metal discs in various sizes. Strangely the cashier seems to accept them as means of payment.
I tried this once. security kicked my ass and told me to not come back with monopoly money again.
jokes only people who’ve been broke and struggling will understand.
Not strictly true.
If you have a card long enough (several years between issue and expiry, say) and you use it often enough, the magnetic strip can start to fade and transactions can fail. More and more often. Edit: It might have been a chip problem rather than a magnetic strip problem. I can’t remember now, but it makes no real difference to the story.
And sometimes there might be weeks with no trouble and then you’ll get that one card reader that’s particularly finicky and there’s a cold sweat moment as you realise you don’t have enough cash. “Try it again. It’s done this before.” Please work. Pleeease.
This usually happened to me in the supermarket, so that scene from InnerSpace was playing on loop in my head.
After the third or fourth time, I called the bank and they sent me a new one ASAP.
Definitely used to be big issues with the magnetic strip. Some cashiers who deal with it enough even had tricks to help the card be read. Like using a pizza slice baggy.
Or just shitty cards readers.
Chips and contactless are so much better
Magnetic strip? Is that still a thing? All terminals I’ve seen in the last decade or two use the smart card or the NFC. Magnetic strip is insecure.
Magnetic Stripe is still used in the US as a backup because some places still don’t have the chip nor rfid thing in their transation terminals.
My card doesn’t even have a mag stripe
It actually might. The strip doesn’t have to be visible to work.
It doesn’t. They’ve been phasing them out here for a couple of years.
This was a long time ago. I think the replacement card I got was the first I got that had a chip in it.
Or I’m misremembering and it was the chip on the card that was acting strangely. Either way, the card was basically worn out.
My chip is a couple years old and has started to cause issues on occasion with the more finicky readers. I just tap when that happens, but it’s still annoying when it does.
The little chip contact on my debit card started getting flaky with certain machines. Finally, it wouldn’t work at all, and I had to use my credit card to pay for groceries. I never use my credit card, I wasn’t even sure it still worked. Then I had to remember to pay my credit card before the end of the month.
The only other time I replaced a debit card is when I lost one. When I chose the “lost or stolen” option from the dropdown, my card was immediately canceled, and I got the message I’d get a new one in the mail in a few days. I had to use my coin stash to put gas in my car, and I ate from the back of the pantry till the card showed up. Cut it close there, I didn’t know that was going to happen, and didn’t plan ahead.
Two comments for you:
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Using your credit card for all that incidental stuff and paying it off in full each month is a good way to build a good credit history/score.
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If you lose you card again, remember that you can withdraw cash without it by going into the bank.
Also gets you credit card rewards. I’d rather not have those transaction fees baked into prices but it they already are you may as well benefit and take back some of the fees they charge.
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i always use the nfc, and the chip only as a backup. then i have a little cash for backupbackup
Why I always carry cash too.
This comment here reminded me that I actually have cash in my wallet. Thank you!
The other day the payment wasn’t approved for me (broke AF). The terminal beeped, the checkout counter went to a “Please wait for a representative” screen and the tower next to my checkout station went blinking green.
Luckily a very nice lady from the store yelled from her workstation if I needed help. I said I didn’t, just broke and needed to use another card. She reset my counter with her terminal and I was good to go. But it definitely feels like you did something really wrong.
Not as bad as running through the checkout without paying tho. I saw a man with his daughter of about 5 or 6 I think. She had one of those kid carts and tried to run out as the father was trying to pay for the sandwiches they were buying. All of the alarms went off, flashing lights, beeping gates, audible alert, the whole shebang. The kid got really scared as everyone just laughed as the father said: Hold on honey, we actually need to pay. The staff could easily disable the alert, but had to manually reset the gates. They needed to call it off on their headsets as well and two times staff came running to check if everything was alright. That’s not a mistake the kid will make in the future I bet.
the fact that it locks the terminal on failed payment is just bad UX. I’m sure there is some reason fraud wise to do that but, I’ve never had a self check lock on me due to it. I would likely shop elsewhere if it ever did.
I’ve never not seen that happen? It’s probably to prevent fraud and a lot of the time it’s just old people who fumble the payment and need actual assistance?
As long as the store person there can reset it remotely for me it’s fine, then I don’t have to wait and they don’t need to come over.
I think it’s different when the payment times out, I’ve had that happen when the payment terminal crashed for no reason. Then it automatically resets back, so you can try again. But a failed payment is different from a rejected payment.
That’s weird to me, the self checks in my area will say payment declined or payment rejected and then ask for an alternative. I’m not sure the benefit of locking the terminal for it. Like sure flag the host in case assistance is needed but, I don’t see the need to lock it.
For me it’s more the people in the queue behind me.
No doubt. There could be 4 or 5 random people with glocks behind you rather than just one highly trained cashier and an agent.
👀
I always check my account before going to pay just to avoid this. I don’t even leave my house to buy something before I’ve made sure I have enough money.
People don’t think it be like that, but it do.
Back in the old days the cashier would have a booklet with valid credit card numbers. Sometimes they’d have to call the bank, and occasionally, the bank would tell them to confiscate the card.
I do some fistpumps when it clears now, i’m spending my money, on stuff I want, LETS GOOOOO
u/lawrence - you have the most bland, vanilla sense of humor! You probably think watered down ketchup is too spicy.
thanks for making the community dull and unfunny - ban yourself or change the community name to comicstrips_for_9_year_olds
I would have just moderated this as ‘not polite’, but the comment was so strange that the admin banned the guy.
Did you make this account just to be a dick?
For the record, yes there are people that do this. They get banned so have to make a new account every time they want to be a dick.
It hurt you didn’t it?
I wonder where your username could have come from.
One of life’s great mysteries.
most useless novelty account. 0/1, blocked and moved on.
You are whats wrong with the internet
Thanks for, at least, trying to make this place less boring by making such interesting comments. You made at least 1 person laugh.
