@CantSayNo: please see @Antediluvian

PS "wont" is not Engrish!

As I am wont to do?

Uh... wut?

Can someone translate this into non-Engrish for me, please?

That being said, I haven't carried cash in so long, I haven't even had an ATM or Debit card in 4 years. The subway I referenced earlier - first time it was ever a problem, and because I didn't carry cash, I got free food. Win-win!

Get ready for a lot more disappointment-- The plan is to turn America into a "cashless society".

ATM fee? You seriously pay ATM fees? Thats just another part of the slavery - paying to use your own money.

So, if you're like me, and don't carry cash, a $5 purchase w/ cash turns into a larger ordeal. You have to go to an ATM, pay the fee unless you are a member, get out a minimum of $20, then carry change around that would otherwise be in your checking/debit account.

So, a quick $5 purchase on a debit card has now cost $5 + $2 (atm fee) + what 20 minutes of your time is worth + whatever you blow the last $15 dollars on.

That's right, I don't carry cash to save myself money on frivilous purchases. Plan works great. Can't believe how much money I save.

This is why I have gone back to paying with cash. On top of easier money management (I KNOW how much I can spend in a week) you don't succumb to the pitfalls of non-working credit machines or demagnetized CCs.

@jmschn:
No. Are you kidding? What is that supposed to mean?

One time this happened at Costco. Their debit/credit card machines were down so you could only pay with check or cash. There were so many angry customers--a long line around the manager's office. I think they were trying to complete credit/debit transactions via 3rd party. My cashier was frazzled dealing with all the upset people. When it came to me, my total was a little under a 100 and I handed him 5 twenties. The cashier told me I was his favorite customer of the day. (I sometimes carry cash to Costco in order to prevent me from spending too much there).

Who expects an electronic device is never going to fail? Carry some cash.

If the nukes all come out one day forget about your cash and credit cards. Bottled water, canned food and weapons will be the items of value.

While we are airing gripes another pet peeve of mine is the stupid old ladies that try to use the self checkout lanes and cant figure out how to use the damn things. You should have to have some kind of certification to use those showing that you can scan at least 30 items per minute so you dont hold up the line. They are supposed to be convenient not a family day out like the moms who let their 4 kids scan everything in the heaping cart taking 30 minutes to check out a cart I couldve doen in about 4 minutes. Or the stupid old people that cant figure out how to use a gas pump/atm/post office vending machine/anything with more than 2 buttons. Just because they dont have anything to do doesnt mean the rest of us do. That is why they have regular lanes for those kind of people.

Yes I know you said a LAW but my point was that these guidelines aren't even mandated by the government--get mad at your retailer for agreeing to the terms of the agreement.

But you obviously seem like you know how life works so we better start passing laws to appease your gripes. Information regarding the 5 cent increase to 30 cents is in a October 2003 Wrigley press release.

Better go outside so you can yell at those kids to get off your lawn!

I was at Checker's/Rally's once and they couldn't get their credit card system to work, so they gave me my food for free. :-) One reason I love Rally's. ha

I went to McDonalds one morning and ordered breakfast, I arrived at the window, handed my card and she said "the machine is down, do you have any cash"? I said no, and she said "Your food is free then, have a nice day." Pretty Cool I thought.

First off, at least where I live you can still get a 5 stick pack of Juicy Fruit for 25 cents, second I didnt say stores should make a mimimum purchase amount I said there should be a LAW that makes a $20 minimum purchase to use a card, thereby skirting the merchant agreement BS. Its just as bad being behind someone wasting time paying for a pack of gum with a card as it is for the little old lady writing a check for it, when you can just flip a quarter on the counter and walk out.

Welcome to 2007, where 5 stick pack of gum costs 30 cents (most gum comes in packs of 12-15 and cost at least $1) and 20oz soda bottles cost at least $1.25.

As for the minimum purchase requirement, that's against merchant agreements, not the law; the stores agree to not charge a minimum if they want to accept visa/mc. Cards are much faster than checks at least.

@anyanka323: A minute? Is your grocery store in Soviet Russia? Everywhere I go takes 5-10 seconds, tops.

This happened to me at a bar last week. The CC machines crashed right at last call. They had an ATM, but it too was broken. I just tipped with what little cash I had and left, not my problem.

When I was in college, I went on a long field trip for a class. For some reason the fleet cards didn't work at the pay-at-the-pump and sometimes didn't work being swiped inside either. Gas station attendant after another refused to believe he'd have to write up the ticket by hand until he had swiped the card a couple of times. (We also ran into one that didn't believe that the vans with a university logo on the door had state government tags. He had to check himself.)

I keep a tiny bit of cash hidden in my car.

Oh, and try having a cart full of groceries and having the card system not work, only the cashier isn't aware that it's not working all over the store and she refuses to then take a check from you for the groceries, because if the machine refuses to let your card go through, then CLEARLY it's because you don't have any money.

Thank God I found a manager, who verified that other card machines were not working (the grocery store was not crowded and I was the only customer in line). I even had a check card for that store, so the check itself was not a problem. I was so angry, not over the inconvenience of the card system (I always keep a spare blank check on hand too), but because of the comment from the cashier, verbatim, "Well, if your card's not working, I'm certainly not going to accept a check from you."

@Consumerist Moderator - ACAMBRAS: Ouch - quoting Beavis and Butthead gets the verbal slapdown!

@hollerhither: are you kidding?? so demanding! a sign of the people who shop at WF...

I worked in retail after high school while I started college and our system would allow you to do an override if the credit card system was down. Are general rule of thumb was anything over 50 dollars we had to call in if the system was down. Anything less then that we just do a manaul approval. When the system came back up it would process the cards it had on file. We would also imprimt the card when we had to do this.

Not sure why the store doesn't have an imprint machine as a backup. Whoever they use to process cards should have a phone number to process cards. Between that and the imprint machine they are set. For small sales like the one talked about you just imprint and be done with it. Out of the 50 people you imprint and process later what are the chances of more then 1 of them having the card not go through?

Hell if they really wanted to play it safe call in every order or call in orders say over 20 bucks.

Ever since my wallet was stolen (containing my return train ticket) in downtown Chicago, I routinely keep a $20 bill folded up in my shoe.

In the event of a nuclear attack, I think the lack of functioning credit card machines will be the least of your problems.

@Consumerist Moderator - ACAMBRAS:
If I have to start moderating my own comments for the sake of cat people, I'm not going ot be very funny
[checking profile for "ban" symbol]
so we're still cool?

Hey, it happens.

I went to a Dunkin Donuts and got an iced coffee and a croissant for breakfast, the made the coffee and packed everything up.

I handed her the ATM card and she told me "Oh....our machine is down."

"I see...so now what? I have no cash."

"We have an ATM over there."

"That ATM has a $3 surcharge, I'm not going to take out $20 at a cost of $3 to pay for my breakfast that's under $4...see ya later then...I guess."

At that point, shouldn't she have at least offered me the coffee for free? I mean, it was made already, what are you going to do with it? Throw it out? She did just that.

After [we] swiped [our] card, [we] watched as a blue bar status bar creeped across the cashier's screen....
---------------------
FTFY,* Ben.

*Can Gawker's commenting system please add STRIKEOUT as a style?

@liquisoft: I feel similar about the minimum purchases. I won't stand for it with any larger store, but I'm not willing to stick a Mom & Pop with anything charged unless it's >$5. Even then, I prefer to hold onto the plastic until I'm up to $10 or more with the Mom & Pops.

There was a movie theater in my college town that was the worst place you could go. It was ghetto to the power of 10. Anyway, their CC machines were always broken so you had to walk across the shopping center parking lot to get to the Bank of America to use their ATM, which charged an arm and a leg. But you wanted to see your movie, what could you do? I went there twice and vowed never to return.

Those minimum purchases are a pain in the ass and wrong, except for the rare occasion where I'm buying something from a tiny mom&pop store that is unfranchised. In those situations, it's understandable that they would ask for a minimum purchase amount since the charges they get from the card companies are so ludicrous that they couldn't possibly cover all of them with $1 transactions.

This actually has saved me more times than I care to count.

@jamesdenver:

You crazy! You would rather loose money than a credit card.

If you loose your card, its a 2 minute call to cancel it and get a new one in about a week.
Then you might spend 5 minutes updating any automatic charges online.
You loose no money when you loose your credit card.

The only drawback is that it takes a week to get a new one and your stuck using cash or worse using checks for a while.

@Cassifras:

Eeeww. Some of your fellow commenters were grossed out by this. I don't think the cat would be too pleased by it either.

@IndyJaws:

Haven't gotten any flags on this, but I imagine I will in 3...2...1...

The worst is when a parking garage does not accept credit.
I never carry cash and the last time I was in Indy, I parked in a garage.

Upon leaving I hand my card and the ghetto woman gives me attitude and says they do not take credit in a mean way.

I was lucky to have toll money in the glove box, but damn. This was the parking garage for the circle center mall and the only place within 3 miles that did not take credit was the parking garage.

It was very unprofessional for that mall.

Why were you at the gym and not at home working?

Sort of makes a mockery of the VISA commercials. Be great if the US Treasury did a competing ad showcasing Ben's experience.

And Ben, exactly what were you doing last weekend that the Monday after required rolls of toilet paper and selzer water? Buying those off-market X-Lax tabs from friendly strangers at Crobar?

Next time, remember: it's X-TC not X-Lax. Jeez.

Finally, the cat - whose hindquarters are being approached with a very large (tho, recyclable - good job!) bottle - looks very worried.

@the_mdg:

It's called the VAN ANDEL Museum now? Jeez. I hope they don't rename the Ford Museum the RICHARD DE VOS GERALD FORD Theatre. Anyway sorry off topic comment from a former GR local :)

href="#c2806379">DashTheHand: I would consider security or monetary loss as a reason not to carry cash. I carry less than $100 around, which usually gets me through the week as spending cash. If I'm robbed of my cash the loss of my green is the least of my worries - which brings me to the same situation as the writer: Needing some TP.

I think I'd RATHER lose $20-$40, than lose my CC and have to call in, wait for it, change the numbers on all my online accounts that use that CC. If you consider then time it's better to lose a small amount of cash.

I am Cornholio! I need TP for my bunghole!

(sorry, couldn't resist...)

At least our main grocery chain had lots of those roller card imprinters so they could still sell food.

So yea, the big ISP in the region sold their business service to most of the businesses in town and at the same time their NOC was too stupid to update their windows servers and did not have sufficient backups to restore all of their data after they reformatted the servers.

... or try another store? :P

I accompanied my wife to an event at Van Andel Museum in downtown Grand Rapids, MI. We are also among the group of people who rarely carry cash (I tend to spend more if I have it with me . . . no self-control). Anyway, there was a $5 charge to enter. We asked if it was cash or check only since there were no signs of any kind. The girl said 'We'll take credit cards as a last resort.' I was pleasantly surprised since it was pouring rain, although we had to WRITE our card info on their receipt form. I guess my point is this: if a small event is able to manually accept CC and process them after-the-fact, why couldn't a large chain o' stores?? I mean, the whole purpose of a store is for someone to buy something. I agree, why wouldn't they put up a sign on the door? What a concept. Idiots.

The Whole Foods near me had a system-wide cash register failure two Saturdays ago. First they were going cash-only, then they ran out of cash and had to shut down the store, I literally had to walk away from my cart full of food. The employees were just standing around. It was crazy.

Emailed a complaint letter to WF HQ a week ago and NO response yet. I want a)an apology and b)a coupon, at the least.

On the bright side I discovered a great little privately-owned natural foods grocery the next town over. Maybe I won't need that coupon after all.

you could always wipe your butt with your cat

I was in Panera recently and their CC machines were down -- they couldn't accept CCs or debit cards -- cash only (and no ATM nearby). I don't know exactly how many people left empty-handed, but it seemed like Panera missed out on a lot of sales that night.

@protest:
Even with the signs you would not believe how many people still try to swipe their cards. I've taped a 8x10 letter paper over the keyboard in both English and Spanish saying "The card reader is out of order, please pay inside or select another pump" and I watch between 3-5 people a shift remove the paper and swipe their cards then come in miffed it dosn't work for them.

I was also too busy coming up with excuses for not carrying cash to grab either cash, or a debit card.

Just kidding, Ben. You're right, though. this is exactly what the credit card companies have been training and brainwashing us into - the only way to pay for purchases is with a _____ Card.

Don't be a slave to them. Carry cash. Seriously, TP and Canada Dry? Thats like $5?

"You're $20 bill is never going to give you a connection error."

Unless you are trying to buy an iPhone.

i walked into my local CVS to get some stuff and was told at the register that they were not accepting any CC's at that time. so i had to do that incredible walk of shame out the door with the people behind me probably stiffling their laughter. couldn't they have, oh i don't know, put a sign on the door or something?
new rule: if CC machines break down your purchase is free.

Bow to the TP gods, as you have angered them this morning.