Back from Paris
Sep 4, 2009 | 11:35 am
#16
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Redwood City, CA USA (SFO/SJC)
Programs: Various between 2p & 1K, currently Gold
Posts: 8,889
Sep 8, 2009 | 5:25 pm
#17
Join Date: Mar 2005
Programs: IHG Diamond Ambassador, Accor Plat, M&M FTL, BA Blue, QR Gold
Posts: 5,870
You're correct, I think of the standard card machine the clerks use as part of a point-of-sale system, and related my own experiences with those. But it is primarily an issue with unattended machines, exactly as you note, especially gas pumps. Had that issue myself returning a rental car and unable to get gas for it.
Sep 8, 2009 | 5:49 pm
#18
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Deep in the heart of...DL country.
Programs: DL GM
Posts: 3,838
This is not true! Many, if not most employed by some French establishments don't understand that their card readers have slots that a non-chipped card can be read by sliding it through. Sometimes it's on the bottom, sometimes it's on the side. But if they signed an agreement that allows them to take MC or Visa at all, they agreed to take non-chipped cards and swipe them on their fancy blue-tooth-enabled machines.)
I've talked quite a few of them through the process of "gliding" US cards.
Sep 8, 2009 | 6:15 pm
#19
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Redwood City, CA USA (SFO/SJC)
Programs: Various between 2p & 1K, currently Gold
Posts: 8,889
You're fortunate they were willing to learn! I had at least five encounters in which they had no interest in my non-chipped card whatsoever, and went to the "trouble" of plugging it in like it had a chip and giving me a dumb stare... as if they hadn't encountered this ever before. You would think the powers-that-be at M/C and Visa would crack down on this. As I said previously, it's a requirement that they take such cards when the merchants sign their contracts.
Sep 9, 2009 | 11:39 pm
#20
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: New Jersey
Programs: Credit Cards
Posts: 3,009
It was frustrating trying to use my AMEX and VISA cards at a French post office after buying some gifts with one of those cards, both were declined trying to mail them to the US.
Never got either one of them to work, had to pay cash.
Never got either one of them to work, had to pay cash.
Sep 9, 2009 | 11:59 pm
#21
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Berlin and Buggenhagen, Germany
Posts: 3,509
French postal money operations are even more surreal than German telecom operations and those are pretty bad already.
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