wco81

Barciur

It's kind of a no brainer to use a credit card as a sole method of purchase if it gives cashback points on stuff, no? Why would I use my debit card if I have a credit card that does the same thing and gives me cash back on top of that?

RedLight2015

I hate to sound prejudiced but Debit users at grocery stores are people who generally are soccer moms, millennials, and and don't travel. They don't value things like airline miles and frankly literally don't know about them . Also everyone has to eat, so grocery stores have to serve all types of people, from all walks of life, including those with bad credit and can't get a credit card.

I for one, want as many SkyMiles as I can so I can savor the sweet sweet upgrades & lounge access.

storewanderer

WinCo is already accepting Credit in its Tulsa, OK area stores. Expect credit acceptance to follow in more of their newer markets because people are not "okay" with that in those new markets.

Arco already accepts Credit at the pump at virtually all of its stations in AZ and WA and also a few in NorCal and Las Vegas. And there are many more Arcos that will accept a credit card if you go inside through a stand alone terminal (probably try to surcharge you though). So again I guess people were not "okay" with that in those areas. And stations are leaving Arco for other brands by the dozen and part of the reason for that is because the stations do not attract customers in a lot of locations anymore because they do not accept Credit.

storewanderer

I see an awful lot of people using debit cards at grocery stores... definitely more than using Credit.

wco81

tmiw

Sure, but if it's causing merchants to throw a fit and potentially make cards more of a hassle and/or expensive to use, I'm not sure it's a good thing long term. Of course, capping interchange to EU levels has its own pitfalls (and possibly the same with any caps in general).

By "okay with it", I meant that customers would likely adjust if certain credit cards stopped being accepted, especially if it were made clear that it's due to fees. I remember reading about a survey a while ago that implied that most customers would support merchants over the networks, but I don't know who did the survey or in what context.

Also, it's definitely possible to be an Arco station and run credit cards on the "standard" POS/terminal/pump setup if one wanted to not be solely debit. I don't think this is the biggest reason why stations are switching brands.

scibot

Well I think Hy-Vee are doing real EMV but for some reason they don't have the chip info listed also Sprouts who also use NCR shows S for swipe as well but then they put chip info on the back. Hy-Vee just needs to add the chip info to the receipts. I'm sure Hy-Vee will also be supporting EMV contactless when its finally enabled.

I think Kroger will eventually support contactless but when that happens who knows. Most of Krogers competitors already have contactless so eventually they will have to support it as well. I'm thinking of England where Sainsbury's resisted like Kroger has but eventually Sainsbury's started to take contactless too.

rasheed

ARCO is interesting because they've done a fabulous job with contactless of all the major fuel chains I think, but they have kept the line in some regions on no credit at the pump. However, going back at least 15 years, ARCO has been selling SVC/gift cards that you can buy with credit at no extra charge (and sometimes a small discount). I think every grocery chain (including those that have their own gas stations) sell ARCO gift cards with no surcharge. So, it is just loopholes - if someone really wants to pay with credit, they have to get the gift card ($50 ones are likely most convenient). Is that enough to pacify the credit crowd, maybe.

I think this is where Kroger wants to get to, or at least only take credit for networks that give a lower discount fee rate. It is okay for me they want to resolve the fee issue before going Contactless (and I am just fine with my SPay option). As mentioned elsewhere, Winco also sells and recharges store gift cards with credit on their website that can be used at their debit-only stores. Aldi going to credit was a big change I feel (most of their outside the US stores have surcharges on credit if even accepted).

Lastly, I disagree on owners leaving the ARCO franchise because of credit. ARCO does allow stores to take credit. What happens is they end up having a not so competitive price point to other ARCO stations. The main reasons ARCOs were flagged to other brands has to do with how complicated the BP-Tesoro-Western Refining license/ownership situation became. It still is a mess because there were so many different legacy agreement out there. Western Refining is used to having stations that offer credit options as well (in their other flag brands). One example of this is USA Gasoline brand under Tesoro which takes credit (no surcharge). Some stores decided to not switch to ARCO even though arguably ARCO stations do much more volume than other Tesoro brands. So, I don't think ARCO under its many different operators will have a clear single payment pathway.

tmiw

As an update to my Chick-fil-A report, I inserted my Diners Club MC this morning. The screen stayed at the insert prompt for a second or so before going directly to "remove card" without a PIN prompt. cardpeek indicates that Quick Chip was used.

Points Scrounger

I'm not great at recognizing POS terminals as many of you other folks here are. However, in this case the link provided did not go through to an image.

As an aside regarding debit cards, I've seen reports from a folks who use their debit card for purchases, but absolutely do not want to use the pin, very strongly preferring either signing or no CVM, fearing that their pin for the bank account will be skimmed, with a massive drain to follow.

scibot

Hmm it looks like I can post the image directly and it works now: https://i.imgur.com/ipN66fG.jpg I'd imagine its the same as there were H Mart that supportted ctls for a while while others in CO looked like in my picture and it failed to work but it did say tap etc.

mia

The original link works as expected for me.

Points Scrounger

This time the link worked for me, and yes the terminal looks like the one I recall from the other day.

storewanderer

Kroger stopped selling Arco (and Shell) gift cards in the past six months or so for the very reasons you describe. I believe Safeway/Albertsons still offer them, along with most other Blackhawk resellers.

Also the only Arcos that support Contactless at the pump are the Tesoro/Western ones. The BP ones, for some mysterious reason, do not support Contactless at the pump. I am told BP actually does not support it for them at the pump for some mysterious reason. Despite the fact that BP was a very early Contactless in-store merchant in the US and brought Contactless in-store at Arco as well.

I know of some USA stations that switched to Arco... in order to avoid credit card acceptance. You could say they "switched back" as they are old Thrifty Stations which were also typically Arco-style cash/debit+.35 fee only stations back when Arco/BP supported the Thrifty brand. Also in Las Vegas a lot of Rebel Oil stations which are supplied by Tesoro switched to Arco and went to credit in-store for merchandise only (no credit accepted for fuel at pump or in-store).