People that pay by phone and don’t have cards on them.

[cheesefest]

This morning, contactless went down in my store and a few other shops down the same road.

People who pay on their phones with Apple or Google Pay were moaning that they don’t carry their cards anymore.

Why?

Contactless can go down anytime and some shops don’t do contactless.

These people have got only themselves to blame for being stupid.

I’m being practical

 

[cheesefest]

I never carry cash or cards now. Apple Pay only for me.

What do you do if contactless goes down like it did this morning?

Relying on contactless limits you to £100, these days that doesn't even fill the car with diesel.

Noticed the other week, the pay at pump allowance has gone to £120.

You don’t pay contactless on pay at pumps

 

[cheesefest]

Whose fault is it when contactless is down and people only have cards on their phone?

It’s NOT:
. The shop’s
. The cashier’s

It IS:
. The person themselves

If people have lost their physical card, using their card on phone isn’t a good idea. Actually when had problems with a bank card, as I had card on Apple Pay, Santander were able to change card details on Apple Pay straight away. Though had to wait 3-4 days for card to go through. Able to use card on Apple Pay in shops. Couldn’t do any online shopping as didn’t have the 3 numbers

In that situation you would just nip round the corner and find an ATM. Not sure if ATM's have backup power supply though.

They don’t. Worked for a bank and had a power cut (strong winds). ATM was down too.

Then a few years ago we had a bad storm and that knocked out the ATMs.

Some ATMs may have a back up power supply. These ones didn’t

 

[cheesefest]

I meant it’s the person’s fault for stupidly having just card payments on their phones, not having any physical cards on them.

I was in a shop a few weeks ago and their contactless was down. A woman in her early 20s kicked off with the cashier big style, as she only had her phone on her. I said to her, if you carried your actual card on you, there would be no problem and wouldn’t be shouting at the poor cashier.

The woman couldn’t think of anything to say.

 

[cheesefest]

Also get people when contactless is down or their bank selects that payment to be chip n pin. The latter is a security feature. They moan about not knowing their PIN. This isn’t the shop’s fault, again it’s you.

You don’t need to keep to the PIN your bank randomly generated when you got the card. Can change it to any rememberable number - childhood phone number, eldest two children’s birthdays in the month. Please don’t do 1234, the last 4 numbers of card or same number 4 times (3333). Go to any ATM and change PIN under PIN services.

Don’t write PIN on card with a Sharpie. As found cards at work with 4 numbers written onto card.

If contactless and swipe goes down, how are you supposed to process a new debit card? You cant use those embossing machines as the new cards do not have raised numbers.

Probably have to write the number down along with name and exp date!

 

[cheesefest]

Do shops even have those these days? I don't recall seeing them for a very long time. I've not worked in retail since the 90's so cant say for sure.

We do. They have been used once in my 14.5 years at my work. It happened when I was off sick recovering from eye surgery.

 

[cheesefest]

I know these things fail, it's part of my job at the moment to kind of monitor them. Payments go through about five different companies to happen. If any one of them have an issue, the payment isn't going to happen.

My point is, it's not a customers fault if this failure happens and I would suggest it's not realistic to expect people to always cover these situations that are generally 1 in 200, maybe 300 or more situations.

I would suggest it's also not acceptable for a shopping mall carpark, busy money making place, to have cash only in 2022.

A hospital here has coin only pay n display ticket machines. Yet there's an ATM and change machine in the entrance. If I know I have an appt there, I make sure I have enough coins to cover. Just get something from work paying with a note.

What about if places don't have contactless option to pay? When I had MOT done at garage around the corner from me, there's no contactless available.

Pre-christmas whinge that starts on Boxing Day in cheesefests's case

It's the awful Christmas music my colleagues have to endure. Even customers hate it. No other time of the year are so few songs played to death.

Customers are in an hour a week - me, 35 hours! I try to block it out but when a customer mentions the music, I can hear it! Even plays at night. Night shift take turns to put their phones on to the tannoy mike on a streaming app.

Just want to play something like Anarchy in the UK to see the customers' reactions

 

[cheesefest]

I admit I mostly pay via Apple Pay, however the huge dangers of a cashless society are also not lost on me.

We must always keep cash in our society.

Still 1.2m adults that don't have a bank account. How do they cope without one now? They are paying more for utilises, insurance (as many cheaper companies don't want to know about those without a bank account) etc.

 

[cheesefest]

That brings back memories! Back in 1996 I was working at the local Co-op and the same process was used there when there was a power cut.

I worked for Yorkshire Bank in a Leeds branch in 03/04 and had no system for 5 hours on Monday! The only day in the week where customers queued outside! Could pay in money, withdraw money, pay bills and cancel DDs. Unable to check balances and what DDs, account credits have been applied. Had to get the paper slips out and write the account numbers and transactions done. If customer paid a bill - write the info on slip attached to bill. With things such as cancelling DDs, we wrote account info with the DD(s) that needed to be cancelled (energy, mobile network etc). Branch closed at 4 or 4:30pm. Took 2.5 hours to do the backlog, updating customers' accounts. Had to text my ex saying I wouldn't be home to cook evening meal, as he got home at 5:30pm.

If the system went down any other day of the week, it would taken just under an hour

 

[cheesefest]

Yes but since when did the rich/torys care 1 jot about poor people? they don't, when they try and force a cashless society on us, they won't care about those 1.2m people, they will just be 'collateral damage' to them.

Eventually, the govt want people to get pensions and other benefits via a bank account. I see elderly customers with about £200 in cash inside their purses as been to PO to get pension out. No wonder they are prime targets for pickpockets. A combination of large amounts of cash and slow response.