Metropol

My current account card snapped in my back pocket on Thursday. Phoned my Natwest branch directly, and they said my new card would available for pick up today. 9.15am this morning, and they gimme a call saying my new card was ready for pick up!

HSBC on the other hand, kept me waiting 2 weeks for a new card. :roll:

I ordered a chequebook from a cash machine in Guildford, but that didn't arrive at all.

About 2 weeks later, I try another one in another location and in another town - and guess what - it worked. I got a chequebook within the week - the only snag being that they sent me 2 instead.

nodnirG kraM wrote:Because it can be. The only answer I've ever come across...

I haven't used a till since last June, but then at Tesco, Solo, Electron and Amex cards would not call up the PIN pad and would fall straight back to signature.

When I worked at M&S, chip & pin was really bad for the tills and tipped a few over the edge. The software they use is great - as they control the supply chain completely (ie. everything is own brand) they used the excellent Fujistsu GlobalStore software for everything. At the Point of Sale it was almost idiot proof (even down to touch screen photos of the cakes you buy loose). However, the hardware is letting them down. The tills are Pentium II machines on Windows NT - they are extremely slow (15 mins+ to reboot when they crash) and also pretty unreliable (mainly due to being full of dust and spiders due to being left of the floor for about 5 years).

Anyway, anyone know how Tesco is still getting away with the self service checkouts not requiring any form of identity confirmation? No signature needed, no PIN needed. Just a single swipe of the card and you're done. Scandalous!

scottishtv wrote:When I worked at M&S, chip & pin was really bad for the tills and tipped a few over the edge. The software they use is great - as they control the supply chain completely (ie. everything is own brand) they used the excellent Fujistsu GlobalStore software for everything. At the Point of Sale it was almost idiot proof (even down to touch screen photos of the cakes you buy loose). However, the hardware is letting them down. The tills are Pentium II machines on Windows NT - they are extremely slow (15 mins+ to reboot when they crash) and also pretty unreliable (mainly due to being full of dust and spiders due to being left of the floor for about 5 years).

Anyway, anyone know how Tesco is still getting away with the self service checkouts not requiring any form of identity confirmation? No signature needed, no PIN needed. Just a single swipe of the card and you're done. Scandalous!

I'm not surprised about the conditions their machines are in, given that no-one ever seems to give a second thought to cleaning out the spider's webs and dust from the venting grills until the whole lot dies from overheating or whatever. It's fairly common with a lot of computers - people don't bother to do basic maintainance and jump up and down and moan when it all falls over blaming the technology. I'm surprised they still use the ancient NT4 though - the whole shebang being nearly around 10 years old. Although at the time when they were introduced I think they must have been state of the art - 1997/1998.

Those self service chekouts you see in Tesco are heavily monitored by CCTV and there's always an operator at the end of the tills watching over with a monitor. I would have thought they would be C&P enabled, but even then, C&P is not foolproof - what's to stop a wife from using her husband's card if she knows the PIN - since checkout operators don't handle the card any more and won't be able to say "I'm sorry but you're not Mr XXXX, you can't use it". The software used on it is not completely idiot proof though and if you don't place your items in the bag on the scales, it moans continuously.

One gripe I have with using my debit card, is when shops enforce a minimum spend requirements on plastic transactions,
but you don't find out about this, until you're the till to pay for your goods, and the total amount has been priced up.

One example of that for me, was a few weeks ago. in a local off license and convenience store. Usually if I'm only buying
only a few quids worth of stuff, I'll pay for it by cash. Most other transactions go on my Visa Electron card. Except this
one time when I didn't quite have enough cash on me to pay for what I wanted, so I decided to use my debit card.

The total amount due came to £1.76. As soon as I got my card out, the assistant said there's minimum spend of £5 on
all debit/credit cards. I do realise shops have to pay for admin costs for plastic transactions, so to a certain extent, I can
understand why some shops, particularly the smaller independent shops do this. But what annoyed me about it, was
the fact there were no notices about minimum spend requirements on plastic displayed anywhere in the shop.

So, I had a choice to make. Do I go round the store trying to find an extra £3.24 worth of goods, or do I leave the
goods on the counter and go elsewhere? Well, since the other nearest similar store was about ten minutes walk
away, and the fact it was pissing down outside, I decided to buy some extra items to make up the difference.

I also made the decision that I wouldn't use that shop again unless it became absolutely necessary for me to do so.

IMHO, if shops wish to enforce minimum spend requirements on plastic, they should be legally obliged to display a
clear notice of this next to where they have the debit/credit cards logos at the entrance and/or the point of sale.

If you were ahead of me me at a til paying for £1.76 worth of goods on plastic, I would have made my feelings known - never mind the shopkeeper.

I can understand it when you have less than a tenner and can't withdraw from an ATM, but where possible people *should* have pocket change before they go into a shop.

And women: why on earth do you fanny about at a til looking for your purse when you have endless minutes in a queue to sort your friggin handbag?

And why oh why oh why do you take so long at cash machines??!! Why are you auditing your entire budget printing ministatements for every card in your purse when all I want to do is withdraw a tenner!!!

I have a headache now and need to lie down.

DJGM wrote:
IMHO, if shops wish to enforce minimum spend requirements on plastic, they should be legally obliged to display a
clear notice of this next to where they have the debit/credit cards logos at the entrance and/or the point of sale.

Why... if you're spending under £5 you can't have much anyway and most shops will put stuff back for you if you like. It's common sense. You're mad to pay less than £2 with a card, especially in a small chain/independent shop. Have you got any idea how much it costs to put these transactions through?!

Fireboy wrote:

DJGM wrote:
IMHO, if shops wish to enforce minimum spend requirements on plastic, they should be legally obliged to display a
clear notice of this next to where they have the debit/credit cards logos at the entrance and/or the point of sale.

Why... if you're spending under £5 you can't have much anyway and most shops will put stuff back for you if you like. It's common sense. You're mad to pay less than £2 with a card, especially in a small chain/independent shop. Have you got any idea how much it costs to put these transactions through?!

Up to 60p each time, depending on the amount of transactions you process.

It could go higher I imagine.

I've noticed Starbucks is particularly irritating when it comes to people with plastic. It seems, of the people who go there, about 40% pay by card - extremely high! If there's a long queue it takes an age.

i pay for things that are under a fiver on my card. I very rarely carry change and do not wish to walk over to a cash machine. plus the coop one is ALWAYS broken, and that's the only one close to the school

was much faster with chip and pin though.

Chris wrote:

scottishtv wrote:When I worked at M&S, chip & pin was really bad for the tills and tipped a few over the edge. The software they use is great - as they control the supply chain completely (ie. everything is own brand) they used the excellent Fujistsu GlobalStore software for everything. At the Point of Sale it was almost idiot proof (even down to touch screen photos of the cakes you buy loose). However, the hardware is letting them down. The tills are Pentium II machines on Windows NT - they are extremely slow (15 mins+ to reboot when they crash) and also pretty unreliable (mainly due to being full of dust and spiders due to being left of the floor for about 5 years).

Anyway, anyone know how Tesco is still getting away with the self service checkouts not requiring any form of identity confirmation? No signature needed, no PIN needed. Just a single swipe of the card and you're done. Scandalous!

I'm not surprised about the conditions their machines are in, given that no-one ever seems to give a second thought to cleaning out the spider's webs and dust from the venting grills until the whole lot dies from overheating or whatever. It's fairly common with a lot of computers - people don't bother to do basic maintainance and jump up and down and moan when it all falls over blaming the technology. I'm surprised they still use the ancient NT4 though - the whole shebang being nearly around 10 years old. Although at the time when they were introduced I think they must have been state of the art - 1997/1998.

Those self service chekouts you see in Tesco are heavily monitored by CCTV and there's always an operator at the end of the tills watching over with a monitor. I would have thought they would be C&P enabled, but even then, C&P is not foolproof - what's to stop a wife from using her husband's card if she knows the PIN - since checkout operators don't handle the card any more and won't be able to say "I'm sorry but you're not Mr XXXX, you can't use it". The software used on it is not completely idiot proof though and if you don't place your items in the bag on the scales, it moans continuously.

I'm sure they vary in differnet shops but the ones I've seen have a "digital" signature pad for conventional cards and pin processors for Chip and Pin cards. Plus over about £20 it wants confirmation from the cashier.