How to get a card reader to read a CC

[KMinAF]

I hate it when a customer comes into the shop, hands me their credit card and the reader wont read it because of scratches, "weak" strip or what ever. It seems everyone has their own way of getting it to read i.e. breath on it rub the magnetic strip on the desk top etc. What are your tricks?

 

[DwightS]

Try wraping it in a plastic grocery bag. That seems to work whenever shops have had trouble with my cards.

 

[Stuey]

I hate it when a customer comes into the shop, hands me their credit card and the reader wont read it because of scratches, "weak" strip or what ever. It seems everyone has their own way of getting it to read i.e. breath on it rub the magnetic strip on the desk top etc. What are your tricks?

Ask them to request a replacement card from the issuing bank?

Or maybe upgrade your card reader to the latest and greatest model.

Anyhows, putting the card in a plastic grocery bag and then swiping worked for me when I was a supermarket cashier back in high school.

 

[HMCFab9]

grocery bag trick works every time

 

[Junkman]

Ask them to request a replacement card from the issuing bank?

Or maybe upgrade your card reader to the latest and greatest model.
Anyhows, putting the card in a plastic grocery bag and then swiping worked for me when I was a supermarket cashier back in high school.

Unfortunately, when you upgrade your card reader, it actually gets worse. The plastic bag trick worked well for us in the past, however, the new credit card processing machine that was delivered last month, isn't phased by the plastic trick, and it just won't read these cards. We have to ask people for another card, or they pay with a check. It has been our policy for many years now, that we don't hand enter the credit card number into the machine, since it is very easy for the card holder to dispute the charge. If you hand enter it, you have to have an old fashioned imprint machine to take a imprint of the card, and have the customer sign that. If they dispute the charge, it comes off your statement immediately, and you have a short time to contest the charge back, and send them a copy of the imprint. By then, it isn't worth the hassle of jumping through the hoops, so you just give up, and let the customer have the merchandise for free. All the protections are in place for the customer, and the retailer has to jump the hoops to get paid, if you don't follow the rules exactly.

 

[Hydro3]

Many years ago when I was a cashier I found using some receipt paper instead of the grocery bag. Not sure how it is down in the US now but virtually all credit cards and debit cards here in Canada use chip and pin so mag stripe issues are a thing of the past.

 

[Shadowdog500]

+1 on plastic grocery bag and a piece of recipt paper on the brown stripe side of the card.

Chris

 

[JakeKohl]

The engineer in me begs the question; why don't they build the grocery bag polyethylene surface into the magnetic strip reader?

But...seriously...the plastic film dulls the signal the reader gets from the card and helps to eliminate noise caused from scratches or dirt in the card. A piece of scotch tape mounted over the magnetic strip will work to extract a little more life out of the card too.

 

[Stuey]

Unfortunately, when you upgrade your card reader, it actually gets worse. The plastic bag trick worked well for us in the past, however, the new credit card processing machine that was delivered last month, isn't phased by the plastic trick, and it just won't read these cards. We have to ask people for another card, or they pay with a check. It has been our policy for many years now, that we don't hand enter the credit card number into the machine, since it is very easy for the card holder to dispute the charge. If you hand enter it, you have to have an old fashioned imprint machine to take a imprint of the card, and have the customer sign that. If they dispute the charge, it comes off your statement immediately, and you have a short time to contest the charge back, and send them a copy of the imprint. By then, it isn't worth the hassle of jumping through the hoops, so you just give up, and let the customer have the merchandise for free. All the protections are in place for the customer, and the retailer has to jump the hoops to get paid, if you don't follow the rules exactly.

I suppose that makes sense, thanks for the explanation!

 

[clarkebd]

Type it in. Or is it true what I've heard is that it costs the vendor more to do this?

 

[Conor]

I hate it when a customer comes into the shop, hands me their credit card and the reader wont read it because of scratches, "weak" strip or what ever. It seems everyone has their own way of getting it to read i.e. breath on it rub the magnetic strip on the desk top etc. What are your tricks?

are you using a cheap reader? or maybe one of those mobile types from Paypal or Square etc.....

My square one kinda *****.

the professional machine for my store front works awesome on all cards.

If your machine ***** talk to you CC processor rep. Ours is a rental fee per month which covers the machine 100%

 

[srmofo]

The engineer in me begs the question; why don't they build the grocery bag polyethylene surface into the magnetic strip reader?

But...seriously...the plastic film dulls the signal the reader gets from the card and helps to eliminate noise caused from scratches or dirt in the card. A piece of scotch tape mounted over the magnetic strip will work to extract a little more life out of the card too.

At the shop we usually cut a piece of tape and stick over someone's magstrip to keep it from working. Great little prank if your coworkers give you a CC when you're getting lunch.

The last time we got the boss he ordered a new card after several days of frustration.

 

[Vegaman_Dan]

I put a piece of tape over the mag stripe on new cards to protect against scratches. It works well for me.

Newer cards are no longer bidirectional, so they only swipe one way. Weird, but that seems to be the way they are now. The older card readers won't work on them.

 

[ChevyEFI]

Always bent the card while swiping so there would be a curve for a bit more friciton than an un-curved card.

 

[KRB52]

Type it in. Or is it true what I've heard is that it costs the vendor more to do this?

From what my boss at the hardware store tells us, yes, they do. They get a fee per transaction, a percentage of each transaction, and there is some sort of charge for each manually entered card. And some people grouse because we won't do the plastic for under $5.00 US.

My boss was at a local chain pharmacy a few weeks back and his card would not swipe. The kid tried the plastic bag about two dozen times, no luck. My boss is standing there telling him, "just type it in manually." They had to get another clerk and a manager to come up to finally decide to enter it manually. It might have been better had he just paid cash.

 

[Punchwood]

"The last time we got the boss he ordered a new card after several days of frustration."

Yeah. That's hysterical.

 

[RbrtAWhyt]

+1 on plastic grocery bag and a piece of recipt paper on the brown stripe side of the card.

Chris

I wonder what they will do when those become obsolete?

 

[srmofo]

"The last time we got the boss he ordered a new card after several days of frustration."

Yeah. That's hysterical.

Pull the tampon out Sally.we all thought it was funny including him once he was told. Some of you guys must be a blast to hang out with

 

[ddawg16]

What, no one takes hot checks any more?

 

[fourjeepin]

Keyed transaction do cost the retailer more money - higher percentage rate.

Not sure about the card having to be swiped one direction. I think that is a misconception.

And to the Europeans and Canadians on this board, yes, we are behind the times. Chip & pin has been in the works for a few years now and I think a few deadlines have come and gone.

 

[Lippyp]

Hell, we've been using chip and pin here for years, we also do contactless for small transactions, i I think up to £15 now. You just wave it close to or tap the card on the reader. Get with the programme guys. No one takes cheques here in the UK any more apart from odd small businesses that still don't take cards and they're talking about getting rid of them completely sometime in the next five to ten years.

 

[Punchwood]

Pull the tampon out Sally.we all thought it was funny including him once he was told. Some of you guys must be a blast to hang out with

Listen keyboard commando, first of all, you don't know me. I love breaking balls more than anyone, and yes, I have no problem taking it as well.

However, screwing with someone and messing with someone's financial stuff are two very different things. What you did and letting it get to the point where the man had to order a new card isn't funny. Period.

You're probably that type of "man" that also thinks it's ok to screw with a man's vehicle as well.

Some things just aren't funny. Grow up.

 

[LigouriRd]

The engineer in me begs the question; why don't they build the grocery bag polyethylene surface into the magnetic strip reader?

But...seriously...the plastic film dulls the signal the reader gets from the card and helps to eliminate noise caused from scratches or dirt in the card. A piece of scotch tape mounted over the magnetic strip will work to extract a little more life out of the card too.

I found that 90% of the time, swiping the really fast would get a scratched card to read. Makes sense now why it worked.

 

[Fishplate]

If you hand enter it, you have to have an old fashioned imprint machine to take a imprint of the card, and have the customer sign that.

Take a picture of the customer holding the card?

 

[srmofo]

Listen keyboard commando, first of all, you don't know me. I love breaking balls more than anyone, and yes, I have no problem taking it as well.

However, screwing with someone and messing with someone's financial stuff are two very different things. What you did and letting it get to the point where the man had to order a new card isn't funny. Period.

You're probably that type of "man" that also thinks it's ok to screw with a man's vehicle as well.

Some things just aren't funny. Grow up.

Oh Im a keyboard commando because youre a stick in the mud and I called you on it? WAHH he had to go inside and pay for his gas...oh noes The world is gonna end.

Look , you obviously have a very limited sense of humor, and regardless of what you say probably cant take a joke either. Ive worked with guys like you, they love to dish it out (by your own admission) but get their ******* in a wad when it comes full circle.

I once put a small blob of black grease on the black phones up front, you wanna cry about that one to? or how about the time they plastic wrapped my 65" tool box with a full roll while simultaneously hiding every single cutting utensil in the shop? to which I filled all of their carts with packing peanuts? We have a good time, we laugh, we get even. It has never gone too far because we are grown ups and we do understand there are some boundaries which are not to be crossed (like banging someones wife)

As far as the car things goes, the worst that has ever happened was a long zip tie was a put on a drive shaft so that it clicked. I made less of a fuss about it than you did here (it was on my truck). I did get the joy of handing the guy 4 valve cores and watching him run out into the lot expecting 4 flats. It was just extras we had laying around, but it was funny watching him whine and cry about it till he figure it out.

Like I said earlier, lighten up, we're not all old prudes that hate to have a little fun with their co-workers.

 

[Falcon67]

I work with cards a lot because I'm the SysAdmin for our university card system. I just got 5000 new cards
1) they swipe in both directions. But then these aren't credit cards, just ID cards, pretty much same difference. I just swiped my new Conoco card in the reader on my desk, works both ways.
2) the swipe works off the gauss of the mag stripe - too much junk foils the read. Also bending the card does zilch unless you happen to be grinding the grit off a $1 card on your $400 swipe. Or $1200 swipe/NFC reader.
3) IMHO you won't see a lot near field cards issued in the US because we're all about profit and NFC, RFID, etc cards costs big $ to issue.
4) I've personally held CCs that only worked in certain readers around town. The technology gets iffy with worn cards.

Most likely most of that will end up in Smart phones - Android phones already carry a NFC chip. If Apple embeds on the next iPhart device that may push things some. We are also getting software for our card system that lets the user scan a location identifier and receive a text auth number or barcode, which is then presented to the register to verify the transaction. Kids lose cards - they are 9 times less likely to lose a cell. So the world is not that far from scanning something at POS and getting a auth code from the bank via text.

"What if I lose my cell phone!?" Well -you should lock it with a passcode or pattern. Our software will force the user to lock the phone if they want to use the text auth service. And you should have a log in to your wireless/telco provider that lets you wipe the device remotely. I'm pretty sure I can do that on my Android products via Google. Beats the heck out of calling 15 card companies to put a watch on your lost cards.

 

[csp]

After all of these posts I'm still trying to find a correlation between a card that won't swipe and garages/garage based discussion.

In before the mods move this thread to free parking....

 

[PugetDude]

Oh Im a keyboard commando because youre a stick in the mud and I called you on it? WAHH he had to go inside and pay for his gas...oh noes The world is gonna end.

Look , you obviously have a very limited sense of humor, and regardless of what you say probably cant take a joke either. Ive worked with guys like you, they love to dish it out (by your own admission) but get their ******* in a wad when it comes full circle.

I once put a small blob of black grease on the black phones up front, you wanna cry about that one to? or how about the time they plastic wrapped my 65" tool box with a full roll while simultaneously hiding every single cutting utensil in the shop? to which I filled all of their carts with packing peanuts? We have a good time, we laugh, we get even. It has never gone too far because we are grown ups and we do understand there are some boundaries which are not to be crossed (like banging someones wife)

As far as the car things goes, the worst that has ever happened was a long zip tie was a put on a drive shaft so that it clicked. I made less of a fuss about it than you did here (it was on my truck). I did get the joy of handing the guy 4 valve cores and watching him run out into the lot expecting 4 flats. It was just extras we had laying around, but it was funny watching him whine and cry about it till he figure it out.

Like I said earlier, lighten up, we're not all old prudes that hate to have a little fun with their co-workers.

srmofo, sounds like you work with a great bunch of guys. Years ago when I was working as a nozzle jockey at a service station (remember those?) paying my way through college, we had a cop that always stopped by for a donut on Sunday morning... so one Sunday we made sure there was only one big fat *********** left in the box when he showed up- we'd shot it full of grease with a needle gun... He snatched it up "last one!" it, took a big bite... and got a faceful of Texaco's best Marfak Chassis lube... we were howling until he maced the service bay on his way to the restroom to get cleaned up. Great memories.

Sorry for the threadjack...back to our regulary scheduled programming..

I thought that discussing plastic grocery bags was banned on GJ? But not if you wrap your credit card in one first?

 

[Punchwood]

Oh Im a keyboard commando because youre a stick in the mud and I called you on it? WAHH he had to go inside and pay for his gas...oh noes The world is gonna end.

Look , you obviously have a very limited sense of humor, and regardless of what you say probably cant take a joke either. Ive worked with guys like you, they love to dish it out (by your own admission) but get their ******* in a wad when it comes full circle.

I once put a small blob of black grease on the black phones up front, you wanna cry about that one to? or how about the time they plastic wrapped my 65" tool box with a full roll while simultaneously hiding every single cutting utensil in the shop? to which I filled all of their carts with packing peanuts? We have a good time, we laugh, we get even. It has never gone too far because we are grown ups and we do understand there are some boundaries which are not to be crossed (like banging someones wife)

As far as the car things goes, the worst that has ever happened was a long zip tie was a put on a drive shaft so that it clicked. I made less of a fuss about it than you did here (it was on my truck). I did get the joy of handing the guy 4 valve cores and watching him run out into the lot expecting 4 flats. It was just extras we had laying around, but it was funny watching him whine and cry about it till he figure it out.

Like I said earlier, lighten up, we're not all old prudes that hate to have a little fun with their co-workers.

You assume a lot without knowing me. Typical keyboard commando mentality. Remember as far as your little shop/ workplace is concerned, there is always that chance that you are laughing it up and everyone is smiling. Then when you're not around they say, "what an *******." That would be my bet.

 

[dirttracker18]

And to the Europeans and Canadians on this board, yes, we are behind the times. Chip & pin has been in the works for a few years now and I think a few deadlines have come and gone.

We are always surprised when we visit that is still not adopted. That and the metric system

On a similar note no one accepts checks in Canada anymore. Once in Minneapolis we found that no one would accept our Canadian currency including the banks. Oddly enough almost all were happy to accept a check