People who don’t carry their bank cards with them

[Auburngal]

I was in Sainsbury’s this morning and systems are down. No contactless, chip n pin taking ages to go through. Unable to buy gift cards, mobile top up vouchers.

Systems going down like this happen not very often but when they do it’s awful.

On the self scan next to me a woman screamed at the manager on why she can’t pay on her mobile.

Why do many people don’t carry their bank cards anymore? The cards don’t weigh much. Plus if the contactless payment system goes down, hopefully their card will go through via chip n pin. Also they won’t look like idiots either. No sympathy for these.

Regarding contactless payments- sometimes your bank, NOT the retailer etc asks you to do a CnP payment as part of security. “I dunno my PIN”. You can change your PIN to any number you want (not 1234, 1111) at any ATM under PIN services.

I never know how much my shopping is going to be and it varies each week and last time I carried cash I lost it so not taking a chance again. Money is also the really unhygienic so I’ll rather not be carrying that around and touching it.

The issue in my local Sainsbury's today was the lack of communication about it. No signs or announcements, so very long queues with irate people who were unaware of the issue until they eventually got served. A bit of communication would have avoided a lot of annoyed people.

I think a software update on Friday night is pretty stupid really, as they should know that Saturday is the busiest shopping day, so it would be sensible NOT to do major software updates (which always carry the risk of failure) on the eve of the busiest day. Of course, there'd also be fewer management/head office staff working on weekends to help fend off all the complaints etc and maybe even fewer than normal IT support staff available on a Saturday.

Far more sensible would be to do it, say, on a Monday night as in the case of failure, there'd be fewer shoppers (on line and in store) inconvenienced on a Tuesday along with more managerial/HO support staff who are more likely to work weekdays than weekends.

Cyber attacks are a reality I don't get why people don't face up this reality.when Bank systems go down for instance it's always an outage the banks never admit to being got at.

@peakygold

It is completely idiotic not to carry cash, because when systems go down (banking/retail) you aren't going to be able to buy food, petrol or meds.

If there's a power cut and the shop is without electricity, it'll probably be closed as it can't operate without lighting, security, heating/cooling, tills, etc. When Storm Desmond knocked our city's electric supply for 3 days, everything was closed. Cash wouldn't have helped you. You can't run a petrol station without electricity!

But you touch packaging that's been touched by countless other people and realistically you can't avoid germs, bacteria in normal day to day living.

I always do. I shopped at Sainsbury's easily today.

I know. It’s so unreasonable. I think we should go back to bartering - much less complicated. And writing with a feather quill again.

Same thing happened to me this afternoon - sign on the door saying only cash or chip and pin. I've not carried my card since being pick-pocketed in Barcelona and it taking ages to sort a new card out in which time I had to rely on friends to pay for me all holiday and when I got home. It was a complete nightmare. As soon as I could I got the banking apps on my phone and left the card safely at home. Today when I saw the sign I turned around and went home - I don't often carry cash and I was only popping in for treats, so I'll save my waistline instead!

What is so hard about carrying cash? Some shops are cash only. If the payment system goes down like it has done today you are buggered. Imagine being stuck in a Tesco garage this morning with not enough fuel in your car to get to the next garage and you can't buy any because you only have a phone to pay with.

I have a little card holder glued to the back of my phone. They're available on Amaz*n.

I also carry a large bill in the card holder in case of complete system failure or to fob off thieves.

I think people mainly expect to be able to pay with their phones, and the remote possibility of a system failure isn't looming large on the list of contingencies to plan for.

Well, we don't know the reason for the update or how often they're needed.

FWIW, Tesco also went down on a Saturday, for whatever reason.

Glitches happen. 🤷‍♀️

its not half as bad as money. I never carry money and it’s never a problems the last time I carried it I lost £40 somewhere.

I always have my card on me anyway because I don’t like Apple Pay so the issue in Sainsbury’s wouldn’t have been a problem for me 🤷‍♀️

This!

@Gettingonmygoat If you've never had your purse stolen you possibly don't have a hang-up about carrying £100 for a full tank of petrol around with you?

Imagine being so disorganised you've let your car get that low. If you're that disorganised no way would you have thought to take cash out with you.

You're a dinosaur, op.

I haven’t carried cards nor cash for years now. I’ll risk systems being down, because it hasn’t happened to me as yet and if it did, it wouldn’t be a catastrophe. It’s an extremely rare event.

I am abroad at the moment and thought ‘I’d better take a card’ and it took me a day to find it!

It's a 40 minute round trip for me to the cash machine and I live in a city. All the local bank branches that had machines in them have closed. I think I can be forgiven for not always having cash on me especially as it's now the law where I live to be able to pay by card everywhere.

I've worked in places where contactless doesn't work on occasions, but chip and pin does. They work differently and independently from each other. I've ended up getting grief from people who only have their phones. That's their problem, not mine. There's a million and one more things to go wrong with phone based systems than card based ones.

"Gettingonmygoat · Today 16:16

What is so hard about carrying cash? "

As I've already said - local banks and their cash machines closing down.

Eh, what? Are you replying to the right list? I’ve not said anything about anyone not using cash or cards or whatever.

@Shopper727
Just want to thank you for the word 'crabbit'.

There is always cashback in shops.