Credit cards in the 1970s?

[LordGarmadon]

Watching a show on Netflix ... the police are investigating a cold case and said that a credit card was last used in a pub in 1978.

So, a question for the more mature MN user, could you use a credit card in a pub in the 1970s? Was it a done thing?

I remember my parents only having cash or cheque well into the 80s.

Oh, brilliant, I didn't realise there was a series 2 (&3).

I'm maintaining skepticism that a young man used a credit card to buy a drink in a back street gay bar on New Year's Eve 1978 though.

Was it a pub or was that cover for a lap dancing club or something where you might find people spending more money?

I don't know the series, is it fact or fiction?

Oh I remember cheque guarantee cards from my first job! Most of the time the debit card doubled up as one. We didn't take cheques for very long after I started work (2004). Once Chip and pin came in, cheques were out.

You weren't allowed to process a return for something until 3 days after purchase in case the cheque didn't clear!

Most debit cards were also cheque guarantee cards.

I remember one place I work used to print the cheques. You took the cheque and put it in this slot and it filled in the company name and amount

I think youre probably right about the young lad using a credit card to buy a drink. (Not the only thing far fetched in that series really...) i loved how everyone had a story and was both "good" and "bad." And it kept me guessing...

I got my first Barclay card when I turned 18 in 1974, because my car needed expensive work for its MoT and I wasn't going to ask my parents to help. Boyfriend and I often ate out at the local Berni Inn and I remember using it there.

I remember one place I work used to print the cheques. You took the cheque and put it in this slot and it filled in the company name and amount

I did this too, later on! It was always awful if the machine chewed it and I'd have to ask for another one!

This sub-thread is bringing back all sorts of memories!

People also used to get really pissy if I had to change a till roll too, as if I was doing it on purpose (ok sometimes I was!)

I remember thinking those cheque printers were "neat" and I'm a child of the 80s!

Before cashpoints were widespread, think the first ones were about 1978?, paying for something in M&S and taking it back half an hour later .

MIL will still not use the cashpoint. She is 83!

And M and S until relatively recently would only take their own cards.

I got my first Barclaycard at 17 in 1979. Limit of £200 I was away at college it was for emergencies like travel. I remember my Aunt telling me it's not for a new outfit for going out or eating in a restaurant. She got me to apply.
I still have that same Barclays CC (updated obviously)

DH was working at Access HQ in 1978. He says it wasn't unusual for young people to have a card with limits as low as £150. Whilst there was regular usage by businessmen in nightclubs and restaurant he doesn't think that it was possible to use it in a pub at that time, certainly not for just drinks, mainly due to the fees the retailer would have to pay.

My parents had Diners Club cards - am I reading too much into the name or was that specifically for restaurants etc initially?

I think they were just for restaurants, and then maybe became more widely used ?
Charges on credit cards were high, even in the late 80s/ early 90s most retailers had a minimum spend for this reason. I absolutely do not believe a small backstreet pub would have taken a card for a few drinks in 1978.

I’m reviving an old thread, I realise- but watching the same series I googled it and found my way here... I’m enjoying the series too, but there are a few factual inaccuracies that have distracted me enough to pick up the phone and Google stuff because it REALLY didn’t sit right.

On the bank card thing, aside from the fact that it is pretty unlikely that anyone would be allowed to / choose to use a credit card on New Year’s Eve in a pub in 1978, the user was also a student nurse. Highly unlikely to qualify for a credit card. Credit was not as easily available then as it is now.

And then a couple of scenes on a priest mentions ‘paying’ for a young pregnant girl’s abortion. This would have been on the NHS, it was not a paid-for service... again, it doesn’t ring true- a 15 year old organising her own treatment in secrecy going private?

I know I’m coming across a bit over-obsessive about the detail, but once one glaring mis-step crops up I start questioning other bits, and the suspension of disbelief falls like a house of cards.

Ooh I found this interesting. On cheques they were still used inyo the 90s. DM used to pay for shopping and cigarettes before she had money in the bank as they took3 days to clear. Occasionally she would time it wrong and get a call from Tesco to say it had bounced.

@OhTheRoses

Access, Barclaycard, American Express, Diners.

I remember credit cards being used in bars in the late 70's. I was offered and accepted a Barclaycard in 1979. Had a £300 limit. Rarely used it.

I had an American Expess and a fucking gold barclaycard when I was 18 and making £500 a month, if that, as an ad hoc temp. This was 1998.

I couldn't pay rent and eat one month so I lied on the forms and said I earned 24k and they gave me them.

Shit quoted wrong post sorry

I remember the 'Your Flexible Friend' ads for Access in the 70s and had a Saturday job in a department store in the early 80s; most payments were still by cash or cheque and guarantee card. Credit card payments still involved the hand-pushed machine with carbon copies and were relatively unusual. People did pay for meals with credit cards in posher establishments but cash and cheque were still king. I really can't imagine a pub taking a credit card payment in 1978 unless it was for a meal (gastropubs weren't really a thing then so probably more of a scampi-in-a-basket or Bernie Inn type set-up!)

Yeah- ‘98 was a different time with lessons yet to be learned about easy credit, and banks offering all kinds of irresponsible crazy deals.
I was a student with no more income than my loan, and was given 2 credit cards with thousands in credit. Nuts.
But back in the 78’s it was pre-Thatcher, pre-yuppies... that kind of ‘easy credit’ was at least a decade away.

I read the op and instantly thought 'Unforgotten!'

Enjoy, op. All the series are great.

Oops I didn't realise it was an old thread . I do hope you enjoyed it, op!

I remember Access, Barclaycard and if you were rich American Express or Diners. My mum banked with Barclays and I distinctly remember her getting her first debit card (google tells me it was called Barclays Connect) sometime in the 80's. It was advertised as something new and novel.

I got my first Barclaycard in 1979 I was 17 and in college god knows why they let me have one.
I still have that same barclaycard account all these years later.
I used it for train tickets, clothes, meals out, but not in pubs.