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> For a single transaction, is it even possible to make a transaction with a credit card when: - The chip/card reader fails? - The network connection is down? - There's a power outage?

I use cards for 99% of my payments. For me, this simply hasn't been an issue in actual reality. In fact, I've had far more issues getting cash into and out of the handful of ATMs in my area that work with my credit union.

I keep about $100 in each car and $1000 in my house in case I find I desperately need cash. The car money comes in handy sometimes if there's a cash discount for gas or I drive someplace and realize I've forgotten my wallet.

Why would a gas station offer discount for cash for any reason other than to avoid it going through the books and hence avoid obligations like paying tax or their staff a proper wage?

Card payment processors charge the merchant some premium. Usually their contract with the merchant prevents passing the fee along to the customer. A cash discount could be a way to get more customers to pay in cash, which avoids the credit card company's cut. This is probably violating the terms of the merchant/card company contract, but I dunno, hard to resent the merchant here given the power imbalance between them and the card processors.

How would using cash would be an effective way of denying the gas station's staff a proper wage? I suspect most gas station staff is hourly, rather than... I dunno, tipped or commission.

Cash could certainly be a way of avoiding some taxes.

To save on the credit card fees. Gas stations are one of the few businesses which are allowed to offer cash discounts in their merchant agreements.

A lot of places do this, whether it is "allowed" or not. But my understanding is that after much push and pull between merchants and processors, most processors do allow it.

Interesting! Any idea why that is?

Because the margins on gas are tiny.

The gas stations would have never had any credit card uptake without it and people have to buy gas and are extremely price sensitive so would have continued shopping at cash only gas stations.

Unlike say a clothing store where the convenience of credit overcomes the price sensitivity, you can defer the purchase and the merchant has higher margins.

For a cash transaction is it even possible if the store does not have matching change on hand?

That is actually a common annoyance here in Germany, where bakeries will complain or even refuse a sale if you try to pay with a "too large" bill, e.g. 20 for 4.50.

>For a single transaction, is it even possible to make a transaction with a credit card when: - The chip/card reader fails? - The network connection is down? - There's a power outage?

In the power outage situation, the merchant won't be able to handle any transactions and they may not be able to legally open their doors even if they could. I don't think I've ever encountered the other two scenarios ever. I would imagine that CC payment systems have resiliency for a network failure and most businesses have at least two card/chip reader terminals for transactions.

> I don't think I've ever encountered the other two scenarios ever.

Chip readers fail to read all the time; One failure, reinsert, try again.

Connection from the reader to CC service outages also occur.

I run into this a few times a year.

I’ve also had to change my credit card number a few times due to number theft (self-service gas station).

So many points of failure and headaches.

I still use my credit card a lot to build and maintain my credit history; convenience in physical stores isn’t one of them.

I've been reading through this thread and trying to figure out what the disconnect between you and everyone else, I think it's probably your poor experience with chip readers. I had the same deal, it was frustrating, and not as convenient as cash. It made me resistant to the tap system because I felt I really did not need more faulty bullshit. Now for whatever reason I have a card that has a chip and the tap, and crucially, most of the places have systems where the tap consistently works (except one that is faulty and uses the chip read and reminds me how little I liked that). It's like always having exact change but faster.

Anyway, not trying to change your mind (pay with checks and bottle caps for all I care), but you seemed suspicious in some of your responses and I thought it might be helpful to share that perspective. I would also be suspicious if it sounded like people were recommending something that I personally knew to be a consistent frustration.

Others have already acknowledged independently that each of my edge cases have happened to them in some respect.

So I’m not sure why you think it’s suspicion or a disconnect of myself versus everyone else (it’s not).

I’ve just consolidated the edgecases for a topic that frequently comes up again and again: That is, cash is a pain; electronic/credit-only is great.

I bought from a computer store during a localized power outage about 15 years ago (not the great blackout of 2003). I paid cash, the clerk hand-wrote a receipt on a pre-printed form, and presumably they kept a second copy of the receipt to input electronically when the power eventually came back.

> In the power outage situation, the merchant won't be able to handle any transactions

They can handle cash transactions just fine, that's the beauty of cash. It is entirely self-contained.

Having lived in areas where power goes out often, that's the norm. Cash only while there is no power.

Even here, California, every so often various local convenience stores become cash-only for the day whenever their network connection is down.

So I’ve worked retail during a power outage, granted it was roughly 15 years ago, at a Blockbuster. We used a pen and paper list of transactions (literally a cash register) along with necessary info (membership number, movie purchased or rented) and entered them by hand when power came back.

> For a single transaction, is it even possible to make a transaction with a credit card when: - The chip/card reader fails? - The network connection is down? - There's a power outage?

Imprint machines still exist, and maybe half of my cards still have raised numbers. If all else fails, the merchant may be willing to write down name, phone number, and amount and either ask the customer to come by later to make it right (and call if not) or write the card number down to run the charge later and call to confirm, etc. There's ways to get network redundancy and power redundancy, if it's of value to the merchant.

Sometimes the merchant doesn't have the right change for cash (or would prefer not to take a large bill), or may not be able to open the register if power is unavailable (usually there's a key, but it might not be onsite).

You don't need to review charges on a daily basis, monthly is sufficent to keep your rights (at least in the US)

There's also such a thing as offline transactions, for when the internet is down. As I understand it, most POS terminals do support that.

Power outages are indeed an issue, especially when the business is in a small town or rural community with a flakier power grid.

Where I work, when the power is out, we rely on cash or writing down the customer's name and amount they owe, and add that to their account when the power's back.

Hold on... did you just describe "not having exact change" as the *worst-case* scenario for paying with cash?

First off, not having exact change is the typical scenario, not an outlier.

Second, there are much worse cases. Getting mugged outside the store, for one. The store not being able to make change, for another.

Regardless, the scenarios described by parent were the typical, most common scenarios.

I already mentioned this in the following if you read the rest: > In the case of a stolen wallet with cash, what I lose is what I withdrew. There's a very simple and hard ceiling to the loss.

I was responding to the very narrow use-case of already being at the register and starting to pay, in order to keep the objections relevant.

As you widen the scope to all the negative possibilities and edge-cases, credit cards and electronic payment has more negatives; and I say this as someone who almost exclusively does transactions with credit cards because it's indeed convenient 99% of the time.

But that 1% is what can get a person in real trouble, if they find themselves cashless.

> For a single transaction, is it even possible to make a transaction with a credit card when: - The chip/card reader fails? - The network connection is down? - There's a power outage?

yep. for all three, they write down your cc number