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Comment by wil421 | Hacker News Reader

That’s hilarious. I’m pretty sure every grocery store and most restaurants keep the old carbon copy credit card machine thingys to take payments when the power/computer/internet is down. Years ago I had to use one to take a payment during an internet outage.

http://www.cashandcredit.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=31...

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I can't imagine those working too well these days. None of my cards have raised numbers, they'd make a completely blank impression. They have probably been completely phased out in the UK.

You write the number down with a pen on the carbon paper. The swipe isn’t required.

They may have them, but that's no guarantee the staff will be willing and able to use them.

Some years ago, I went out for coffee with a friend. The coffee shop's card terminal was down for whatever reason. I could see an imprinter and a stack of the slips on a shelf behind the counter. I even offered to show the barista how to use them, but she...ah...declined.

When I worked in restaurants they would force us to use them. It was rare but it happened a handful of times.

Hah. I had an amusing situation when an employee of Domino's couldn't make a swipe with my card. It didn't had a chip and it was back in 2016.

I can bet $50 the total of 'carbon copy machine' in the whole country is the double digit number, only because some biz older than 20 y/o are still in the biz and they have it somewhere in some closet.

Edit: ah, yes, imprinter

I'm in the US. Since 2000, I've only had my card used in an imprinter once. (And I'm not sure if it ever happened in the 1990's either.) I remember who did it, it was the Days Inn on the north side of Disneyland.

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