There are some businesses in the USA that ended during the pandemic and after the pandemic because these businesses did not have the money to upgrade their old credit card machines from 1980s.
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Major Retailers that Support NFC Payments
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If this is to be believed, that's still a small fraction of the million or so restaurant locations in the US (and would still be a pretty small number if we just count chain restaurants).
They might have adopted it more slowly than most other stores but many restaurants eventually did so. Note that a lot of the newer ones (which presumably just got chip-enabled stuff from the outset) still take cards away, at least in my experience.
I'm going to guess that's not the main reason why they went under considering that the knucklebusters and the square Verifone readers like the pictures posted above generally hadn't been a thing for close to a decade if not longer beforehand.
In Canada, most restaurants use tablets if you pay by card. You pay in the table.
When I visit the restaurants of USA, I always say if they accept Apple Pay to make sure that the waiters do not take my card.
When I use Apple Pay in the restaurants of USA waiter takes me to the kitchen to pay.
After that experience, I understand why the USA way of life is sometimes careless as compared to other developed countries.
It is like the song “This is America” by Childish Gambino can be used to describe USA society.
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This whole fear of giving your card to a waiter seems pretty overblown to me. Especially with modern day transaction monitoring and ease of filing for a fraudulent charge or transaction dispute, I don't even think twice about it. Plus, when paying by credit card, its not even your money at risk. I'd be more concerned with third party data breaches / exposures (entirely out of your control) than some network of unscrupulous waiters running a credit card fraud ring skimming and cloning magstripes on cards.
Maybe, but I still think pay at the table (even if it was just QR based) is a good idea to avoid mistakes transcribing tip (i.e. due to bad handwriting).
It is definitely not overblown in terms of being able to use and carry nothing but your iPhone when leaving the house. Thankfully at the very least I have seen QR code on the check becoming more and more normal. In places where they don't have that, I can usually walk up with the server to use Apple Pay, but its less than ideal, and prefer to do this at the table.
Fair point, it is convenient to not have to bring a physical card. But until all 50 states allow electronic ID/drivers licenses, bringing a card is just a part of life. Plus if the phone battery dies, youll have a backup plan instead of being relegated to washing dishes.
It’s still not a good idea by any standard to take cards away, besides it’s outdated. The rest of the world changed that for a reason, only the US refuses to evolve based on not very solid grounds. Talk about american arrogance.
IMO Apple should help standardize QR code payments for this purpose since apparently restaurants aren't adopting NFC anywhere near quickly enough. Plus, people would trust payment through a native iPhone UI more vs. through some website (even if the latter still uses Apple Pay).
Says who? I dont see the clear problem.
Perhaps its more inefficient but some people prefer to not have to the transaction occur at the table. I quite like being presented with a simple piece of paper and take my time prioritizing when I'm ready to sign the check and add/calculate gratuity. Especially when compared to being handed a clunky device with a bright screen expected to tap away while the waitstaff lingers there in wait.
Is that 'American arrogance'? You might be taking this too far.
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We gotta start somewhere though. My state (AZ) has both Apple Wallet ID for TSA and a visual inspection ID app (an app that shows your ID as if it’s the physical card). We also have an Apple Pay enabled transit app for the bus and the train.
One also could just leave a physical ID in the car.
Which allows me to leave the house with nothing but my phone, if I avoid the places that absolutely doesn’t have Apple Pay….which is thankfully very very little.
Only 4 USA states allow ID cards and driver licenses to be stored in iphones and Samsung phones: Georgia, Colorado, Arizona, and Maryland.
I don't think more USA states will follow this path. This is because, in the age of the Donald Trump and Covid pandemic in USA society, Americans are paranoid and skeptical on everything.
That's incorrect. 11 states already have ID's that can be stored on your phone.
AZ, AR, CO, CT, DE, GA, IO, LA, MD, MI, MS, OK, and UT. Some of these have their own app, instead of using the Apple Wallet.
In addtion, 20 more states are beta testing a Mobie ID, or have announced they are working on it.
AZ, AR, CO, CT, DE, GA, IO, LA, MD, MI, MS, OK, and UT. Some of these have their own app, instead of using the Apple Wallet.
In addtion, 20 more states are beta testing a Mobie ID, or have announced they are working on it.
I do agree that it’s a bit awkward having to do tip while the server stands there and watches over you. That’s why I favor the QR code on the receipt method. Do it on your own time.
I've had servers leave the device and come back for it before, but that's not common even among the places that do pay at the table (probably because they don't trust customers not to break it).
I prefer to have the tip already included in the total amount charged to my card instead of it being added sometime later. Besides, in most countries the waiters don’t just stand and watch, they process the payment right there for you instead of walking away with your card. All you do is sign the receipt at the end (or enter pin when required).
If it’s not arrogance it’s stubbornness. Or reluctance to change. Either way it’s bad.
I do not think most restaurants in other countries outside USA let you sign a receipt if you pay by card. In most times, you enter pin number if you pay by card in restaurants outside USA.
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I mean, if the receipt prints out and has a signature line, places outside the US will make you sign. They might not actually check against the back of your card or anything, but it's not like the rest of the world is basically cash only to Americans or anything.
That’s set up by the card issuers, though, not the merchants. In countries outside the US most people use pin because their local card issuer requires it. Americans traveling in those countries, however, still don’t need to use pin and will be asked to sign the receipt because US card issuers don’t require them to use a pin to authorize payment on credit cards.
Likewise, foreign travelers in the US will still have to use their pin at US restaurants when they pay with their non-US credit cards, as the restaurants won’t be able to bypass the requirement set by those non-US card issuers like they do with US debit cards.
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Nor does it mean that people from other countries will be pin-free while they use their cards in the US. How a payment is to be authorized is set up by the card issuers, not the merchants.
I went to a Lowe's today and apparently that location still doesn't accept contactless. (The original rumor was that all locations would have it by Black Friday.) Anyone else see it at theirs yet?
It could be a lie all this time by the corporate people of Lowe’s stores in the USA in that they will have contactless payments by end of 2023.
Or maybe they just meant that they would at least start enabling them by the end of 2023. When they’ve held out for so long and have so many stores it takes them a while to make the change in all the locations. Something similar is happening in Mexico with the Oxxo convenience stores, a local longtime nfc holdout.
I remember those 1980s credit card machine very well. There was no way those devices could check on the authenticity of a credit card. The restaurateur had to call in a number at the back of the credit card to verify, if they wanted to. More often than not, they wouldn't because of the volume of business they were experiencing.