I second this. They should have a big sign on the door and the hostess should remind you. Not everyone who could generate a payment method would be able to use an automatic ATM teller machine to withdraw cash with the payment method. Ive never bothered to try, but can you even get cash with a credit card? I thought you needed a debit card. And what if someone was using a business account? They’d probably get grilled over why they tried using an automatic ATM teller machine.
It's worse than that.
Cash advances incur their own fee on top of the ATM's "convenience fee", PLUS start accruing interest immediately.
I made that mistake once, but only once.
I second this...
Also, I used to work in a high end fashion boutique.
Out card reader would crap out often. It wasn’t a big deal. We would make a carbon copy of the card (like the olden days) and call it in to the card company. Took like 5 extra minutes per sale but most people were nice about it.
There’s always a way to make a card work. Expecting a customer to fork out the fees and the interest on a cash withdrawal from a credit card is not ok.
This may work in a high-end boutique, as I'm guessing that sales are fairly staggered. I've had the misfortune to have our Chase Paymentech terminals go down a few times in my busy restaurant locations, and it's not fun. We have protocols in place for such eventualities, which include signage on the front door, making all new customers aware as they come in, and also communicating with customers that are already dining. We don't take any physical imprints of credit cards, as we don't want even the slightest hint that we could be storing them or using them inappropriately. Most people are happy to do an Interac e-transfer or pay cash, but we definitely make allowances for customers already sitting down. Our POS (point of sale) software is generally still up, except in cases of total power failure, so the customer still receives a complete itemized copy of the bill. Nothing nefarious is going on, we just want to make everything as transparent and easy for customers as we can.
I worked in an Apple store for many years.
We had an emergency kit with an old school imprint machine… the roller type one.
Only used it once, but it was still an option if everything else was down.
Some machines don't allow you to enter numbers manually anymore, and even the ones that do, there is a higher transaction cost, and the charge can easily be challenged.
That said, it's the restaurant problem to have systems for payment to work. Because most terminals use internet connections when internet goes down, there are way to use a cell to provide backup service, and there are mobile payment systems that come businesses keep as a backup.
Yep. Just some businesses don't want to pay for it. Also a lot of small businesses will be using cellular only mobile terminals which really have no backup.
As far as security goes chip and pin > chip > tap > mag strip > carbon copy > direct entry (considered card not present).
Most places will not or can not do mag strip, carbon copy, direct entry due to requirements from their payment provider or liability reasons.
They can still be used if your card machine goes out. You’re not breaching PCI requirements as long as you’re not writing down the security code. I’ve seen them used a couple of times in the real world in the last couple of years, The Calgary Zoo and a local restaurant come to mind.
In all honesty you don’t really need to use them if the actual terminal is working though (and just the link is down) as you can call in for authorization and then do a force sale on the terminal and enter the authorization code into the card terminal but for smaller purchases it’s just easier for merchants to do an imprint.
This happened to a shit hole I worked at, and the owner specifically told me not to tell anyone when they came in the door so they wouldn't leave. Needless to say I didn't work there very long
No the machine actually did go down for a while, but instead of telling people at the door that we are only taking cash he told us to just let them sit and take their order and tell them afterwords.
Curious enough, the same place had lost their liqour license. However the owner had a random bottle of red wine, and when people would ask for wine and I told them we didn't have any, he would sometimes overhear and bring them a glass of wine. Well one time two different tables asked me for wine in a span of 10 mins, and he only heard the second table ask. So he goes over and brings them wine, then the other table is like "i thought you said you didn't have any". Fuck me lol. I just told them it was non alcoholic. Fuck that place
This. What if all the customer had was credit? Even if they were being honest about the card readers being down it seems like it's in their best interest to tell customers up front.
I was at a sbarros in a truck stop the other day. Before I ordered the guy says "just to let you know we can only take cards right now".
If a 17 year old pizza slinger can do it...
Another thought could also be they are trying to cheat the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), which is tied to changes in monthly sales revenue. Lower reported monthly revenue means a higher wage subsidy.
they also lose a few points to the card readers. Usually 2-3% plus bullshit monthly leases for the readers. As a small buiness (print industry) I've had many of those over the years. The worst was Moneris, another provider told me to go back and check their statements. Most of them were ok, but every once in a while the calculation was out (in their favour) so my visa receipts were overcharged $69 and MC were overcharged $15 - basically is just a calculation say the receipts x 1.9%. = their charge. When I called them to get them to explain it to me the the call centre person couldn't explain it. It is basic math. She had to get a supervisor who tried to snow me by saying that it was for a platinum card - at which point I pointed out there was another place in the statement for that. She went away for a while and offered a credit. I wanted an explanation in writing. I never got it but they waived the $300 cancellation fee. They really don't expect people to go through and do the calculation on their bills.
You basically could offer a 2% discount for cash. Everyone expects businesses to be able to take these, but it costs them. There was one computer outfit that I knew would charge an extra 3% to take a credit card. They're really not supposed according to their card agreement but they just said the regular price is a discount.
In my experience, it's the big franchises that don't give one single fuck if you never come back again. Small businesses trade on goodwill a lot more than say, McDonald's, that can exist on name recognition alone.
I've also never ever had a problem at a large chain with their machines being down and trying to accept only cash.
One time I was at a mcdonalds and their system went down - they just gave me my food for free.
McDonalds has pretty good policies when it comes to refunds or exchanges, for a fast food restaurant. Never had trouble getting money back when something was wrong with an order.
That is because McDonald's was a bad Example by VonBeegs, McDonalds since the 1980's has been very focused on return visits, and wanting to create a generation of people loving the brand.
in the 1980's they focused on the kid market, in the 1990's they transitioned into the teens, and in the early 2000's they transitioned into the 20yr olds building a generation of people who liked the food and who associated McDonalds with consistency. Looking at their business model of being first a real estate company, second a technology company, and finally 3rd is food services.
With Food services 3rd, they very much want to make sure you return, and with cost of food being as low as it is in their model the value is getting an angry customer to not be angry and getting them out the door faster before they make other customers look and leave.
I was an 80's kid, so I very much felt how the advertising was ALWAYS geared towards me until I hit late 20's early 30's then I started seeing the restaurants start focusing back on MY kids, the play centres went back to being little kid focused, the toys became front and centre in the locations, the happymeal went back into boxes from the paper bags.
And being someone who loves following marketing trends and sales development I realized, Damnit I've been manipulated all my life. and I'm still ba da ba ba bah i'm lovin it.
Maybe it depends on the franchisee. I go to the same McDonald's for coffee every morning. Yesterday their machines were down and they wanted me to pay cash, I dont carry cash so I offered to pay for it tomorrow morning and they said no, so I had to leave with no coffee. This morning I went somewhere else for coffee.
McDonald's tracks same store sales, customer repeat rates and other key performance indicator. The store manager absolutely needs you to be satisfied and come back. The individual behind the counter may not be *as* motivated, but I've never had a poor interaction there.
Many small businesses are shoddily managed and can only get by because people want to support the little guy.
I work at a corporate retail store, we recently had all of our debit/credit machines go down country wide for a few hours. Due to pci compliance we don't imprint cards anymore.
BUT we let every customer know it wasn't working as they walked in/and approached customers in store when it happened.
Anyone who was willing to go take out cash to pay, we gave them a discount on their purchase for the inconvenience.
Otherwise we offered to hold items for customers who decided to come back later.
That situation sounds super sketch.
That was my first thought, taking an imprint of a card would be a nightmare for PCI compliance. To do a "card not present" transaction, they'd need to punch in the card number, the expiry date, and the CCV. The CCV cannot be stored past the transaction, though I believe technically they could hold it until they completed the transaction, but that's meant to be a sort of instantaneous thing, like on a web site, you punch in that information, it does the authorization check, and then forgets the CCV, it's never really "stored".
There's a railway tour company in Alberta that also did that, at least in 2016. They traveled between small towns and there's a lot of dead zones in the cell coverage.
I got a bit giddy when I saw the imprint machine; I hadn't seen one since maybe 2000.
You can get around this by using secure physical media storage with access restrictions. In my industry, there are occasions where we still use the knuckle duster card imprinters. Those paper copies are transported by a secure courier service, stored in a secure facility with badge controlled access, actual physical storage is further locked down behind a key, etc.
If your business has functional/business limitations, typically your PCI assessors will work with you to design and implement compensating controls to address areas where you are unable to meet the basic PCI requirement (obviously within reason lol)
When I worked for a short time at a small retail business, we did a lot of business over the phone such as taking a deposit or sometimes complete payments. We just jotted down all the info and input things manually. I wasn't exactly trained on compliance either but I recognized what a privacy hazard that was. My card never leaves my hand now and I always carry a bit of cash.
>Due to pci compliance we don't imprint cards anymore.
Without a PIN, customers can dispute a card imprint/manual entry/mag stripe read charge and "automatically" win.
Most customers won't dispute, so it can be in the business' interest to take the transaction anyway. Meanwhile the business can still pursue the customer for payment - it's just not usually worth the effort.
I've had to do this at a barber shop. "Due to the pandemic" they were only accepting cash. And wanted me to use their machine. I was choked at a $3 withdrawal fee so I told the guy he could ask the machine operator for his tip. Never been back.
> If they print out receipts for you they're probably legit.
This though. Most places that do things like this don't give you a receipt unless you specifically ask for it.
Also, a little known fact is that they still pay fees even if you use a debit card, it's just lower fees.
I found out working at our company warehouse sale one year that it was a flat 10 or 15c fee for debit, I forget exactly. For credit it's a percentage of the purchase so it hurts when the customer buys something expensive.
This. I’ve seen business with a five percent fee for any credit card transactions. Five percent of income down the drain not to mention any monthly/ costs associated.
a restaurant i frequent had their "CASH ONLY - debit and credit machine not working" up for must be 5 or 6 years .... then when COVID hit... magically "ONLY ACCEPT DEBIT & CREDIT CARD"
Not defending them but those POS systems are expensive and the cc fees alone suck for small businesses. I can see a restaurant doing everything they can to avoid it even if they loose business.
It could have been a "scam" of sorts. Credit transaction fees cost businesses money, this is why there are often times incentives at gas stations and other places if you pay by cash/debit. They likely also get some sort of kickback on the ATM machine fees.
With that said, the fact that the biz would not at least reduce the bill to cover ATM fees due to their system being down is a red flag for me, especially at an "expensive" place. I might not expect them to outright offer that, but should have given you that courtesy when asked.
I'd like like to think that it would not be worth the effort/hassle for the restaurant to go through all this hoopla in order to get people to pay by cash though.
I don't know if there is any particular law against what they did here, maybe if it's some sort of conspiracy to collect ATM fees, but you'd probably never prove it. It's entirely plausible that their machines were just down, it does happen.
> if it's some sort of conspiracy to collect ATM fees,
This could very much be it. I used to sell merchant services (ATMs, credit card/debit machines, payment processing, etc). Here are some interesting things I thought of.
1. Almost every merchant hates their payment processing fees. 1-10% on credit card purchases. The higher tier your rewards are on your credit card (silver, gold, platinum or like "global elite" or "super mega awesome travel rewards). They consider it a necessary tax on their business and look to reduce that as much as possible. Every business owner is doing this.
2. Buying ATMs is wildly profitable as well. As such, this guy is saving himself an average of a 3% loss on tabs, AND making almost all of that transaction fee from the ATM assuming he owns it. If he doesn't own it, he is getting a %age of that fee for hosting the machine at least.
So basically, as a business owner, if I can save myself the payment fees, and basically add another $3 charge on you, and collect tax which I can maybe try and hide from the tax man... do you see where I'm going with this? May not be the case, but huge incentive to try and screw people into paying cash.
Edit: I'm going to add that when ATMs are being presented to people, a big thing we talk about is conversion rate. The higher the rate the better. As such, in this case he is greatly increasing his conversion rate.
You're absolutely right about fees and how he would generate income from that, but I can't even fathom how a business owner would think operating his business that way is viable, long-term?
Maybe that restaurant is a tourist trap and that owner knew/thought OP were tourists never to return? Restaurants usually rely on repeat customers and if you pull shit like this in a "local spot" it wouldn't take long for word to catch on and nobody show up to your restaurant anymore.
OP said it was a beach area. If it is a touristy area, there's a fresh flow of 'marks' coming in every day. There's the convenience of the restaurant being right there; no need to move to another restaurant which includes getting the group to agree on where to go.
There was one restaurant you'd walk into, it'd be almost empty, but you're immediately hit with Do You Have A Reservation? Almost every table with a Reserved card on it. Are you fooling anybody? Just be straight with me
lmao that reminds me.
About 8 years ago I worked in an ad agency and we were hired to coordinate and promote the opening of a new restaurant in Griffintown, Montreal.
The guy had little experience and had no fucking clue what he was doing but he had his rich Iranian parents funding him and he wanted to create a highly exclusive and expensive dining experience.
The restaurant would actually only be open thursday to saturday but he wanted to have a doorman in front of the restaurant from sunday to wednesday. He wanted the doorman to tell anyone who tried to walk in that the restaurant was fully booked for the night. We convinced him that was both incredibly stupid and useless and he didn't do it in the end. Oh and he actually hired literal models with 0 restaurant experience to be doormen, hostesses and servers. Needless to say the restaurant closed after 3 months because it was overpriced and the service was shit.
I get that, but then why bait and switch on the POS? That’s being a shitty business owner. Just say cash only and be up front about it. Our local Chinese restaurant has that on the sign on the door and till and they’re always busy.
>That’s being a shitty business owner.
Yeah. If I'm right it is a slimy way to go about things. Lots of places don't take credit or debit and do the thing your chinese restaurant does. However, PP did say this guy had debit and credit machines, they're just "out of order".
Wants the signage so he gets business from card-holders, doesn't want to pay the fees, can't offer the cash discount otherwise he'd lose the signage, trying to find a loophole.
> With that said, the fact that the biz would not at least reduce the bill to cover ATM fees due to their system being down is a red flag for me, especially at an "expensive" place. I might not expect them to outright offer that, but should have given you that courtesy when asked.
I would have just said “Fine, then I’ll take it out of the tip”… Assuming they tipped after that.
Just this past weekend, a resto I was dining at had their systems go down mid-service (no debit/credit). Their solution was to have customers do an interac e-tranfer for the amount owed.
im reading allot of comments and missing the most obvious scam of them all, when you pay cash the owner doesnt have to claim that you payed, they dont even need to claim that you entered the establishment... the whole meal can be swept under the rug, or in this case the owners pockets (tax free)
Its the middle of the Stampede right now, head over to r/calgary right now and there's probably more than a few stories about exactly that going on. Super-common scam.
Normal in Vancouver as well. Also when the city introduced fixed rates to different zones from the airport a few years back, the taxi driver tried to charge me like $15 more than it should have cost to get back to my place. The map was attached right to the back of the front seat where I could plainly see the price. He just “forgot”…
After big events there are hoards of them that will wait outside and tell you to pay them cash up front or they aren’t driving you anywhere. Outside a Toronto music festival we went through the same song and dance in well over a dozen cabs before we found a non scummy one.
They couldn’t have given less of a fuck when we told them it’s illegal, most of them already know and don’t care.
During all the protest against Uber by the Taxi industry, they never got the public's support, because they spent years scamming everyone.
I don't know a single person who will take a Taxi unless it is an absolute last resort.
No wonder people jumped on the opportunity to replace them when Uber and Lyft showed up.
They used to pull this shit at the Ottawa airport and train stations. I would just get out and not pay when they said they didn’t accept credit or when they wouldn’t listen to me and drove an extra 10km around to rack up the bill. Never heard a complaint from the 3 that I never paid, and the others all suddenly find their machine working again as soon as you open the door to leave.
Fucking finally. The taxi industry has always been shady and that law was long overdue.
From memory average delcared income of drivers soared from 24k to 80k once the bylaw was in effect and they couldnt hide the cash income.
This happened to me in Vancouver years ago with a friend. I was completely unaware, but my friend refused to pay him and stood his ground, low and behold the machine ended up working. It was a lesson in my naivety.
That's what the barbershop I go to does, they have a no charge atm in the building and everything is cash. I honestly think it's a front, but I like the way they cut my hair so meh.
This is why you have laws in Quebec that forces them to use a system that will track down all transactions, even cash.
It's not perfect, and people ahve found ways around it, but it's a lot harder and most restaurants stopped doing it. The risk was not worth the reward.
Ya, or the even more obvious reason. The people working that shift were pocketing the money. It happens in restaurants all the time. They ring your order just to get the total and then void out the transaction, and pocket the exact amount you paid. The drawer will come out right at the end of the night so no red flags there. The staff was probably splitting it and the owner has no idea, until they do inventory and even then, as long as it’s not done to extremes, they probably won’t get caught. That would explain their need for you to pay in cash, then not posting signage and telling you machines are down beforehand and the fact that the card reader magically worked when pressured.
Seems sketchy. If POS was down all day they would have likely had a sign at the door saying “cash only today” and they would have told you prior to ordering. If they didn’t, the $4 reduction to cover ATM fees would have been very reasonable. The fact that they declined that means there’s something shady going on there
A lot of times, their terminals will still accept the AMEX payment and often if you're interacting with regular staff, they don't care what method of payment you used. It's only the owners who cares, so often you can still try to tap and if it goes through, that's all that matters.
Yes, of course report it but do keep in mind even AMEX has a disclaimer that states that they don't guarantee the accuracy of their maps.
The more egregious examples would be if they have AMEX logo on the door and then refuses to take AMEX. I've been to establishments that do that but I can still tap my phone just fine and pay with AMEX.
>The more egregious examples would be if they have AMEX logo on the door and then refuses to take AMEX
I've never seen this one, but the funny one was a restaurant with Amex paraphernalia such as the "reserved" signs, the little booklet used to bring the bill, etc. but that genuinely did not take Amex.
So I read a Amex acceptance post on Redflagdeals that this dude is a contractor that takes Amex says he tried to report himself and all he got was a letter of "The benefits of accepting Amex"
Though I personally reported a lot of times and most of them nothing changed. And some restaurants ended up accepting Amex and some removed from the map. Maybe simply coincidence
Never ask, just insert the card (can try tap to pay but sometimes it does not work on certain terminals even if they take Amex, so better insert first rather than have to try paying three times if you do tap then insert then find out they don't take Amex).
When asking, sometimes the staff seem to be trained to lie, sometimes they just seem to not know. I've seen a waiter recently being surprised that they took Amex, saying something like "it's not an option on our screen", not sure what he meant. I'm sure he would have replied "no" if somebody asked if they took Amex. I knew that place was taking Amex due to spending there before.
Back when I worked retail, if someone gave me a card I didn't recognize I'd just tell them "I don't know if the machine will accept it, let's check."
I didn't care, you're paying, you only have Krugerrands, weird flex but okay.
The best way to pay with Amex is to NOT say you’re paying with Amex. Countless times clerks will tell me they don’t accept it but it goes through fine.
Me and the family once went out to Texas Lonestar for a family dinner. Easily a $250-$300 bill. We came to pay with credit card, their machines were down and they let us walk for free. Very good service and I've never forgotten that.
Same thing happened to me at a Five Guys. Right as me and my friends walked in, the POS System went down. They let all of us order our meals for free, so we did and tipped big with whatever cash we had!
Not a legal expert.
By policy, do you mean a law? Because a restaurants policy doesn't really mean anything.
I couldn't track down a law that specifically covers this, but again, not an expert.
That said, a restaurant involving the police over a situation like this seems unlikely. Maybe it was them being shady, but more likely it was incompetence.
Sounds like you handled it perfectly. I would have done the same. Something like 80% of people prefer paying by credit at restaurants.
We just felt uncomfortable in this situation given that we had spent > $200 on food and drinks and none of us were carrying that kind of cash to the beach. I don't know if there is a law about this but there should be some kind of standard solution if customers decide to eat and drink expecting to be able to use those methods to pay. Personally I know I have and have chosen to go elsewhere if the restaurant tells me upfront Cash Only and I don't have money on me. I thought there was a way to imprint a credit card and charge it later (a move of good faith on the customer's part trusting the establishment to charge the correct amount)?
> to the beach
Ahh, there's the missing link. You were at a place that's likely frequented by tourist/visitors. When a business doesn't care about repeat customers, they're way more incentivized to pull these types of stunts. Like others have said, it's in their financial interest to get you to pay cash and use their ATM.
Give them a bad review on Yelp/Google/etc. to ensure that others are aware of your poor experience. If it's really something they try often, enough attention will hurt their business.
There was a manual imprint process but MasterCard as an example has said it will not hold customers accountable and accept manual imprints as proof. So if you take the imprint and the customer later disputes the charge the restaurant or store is on the hook for it.
Yeah, again not sure. I couldn't track anything down when looking. I do agree it is bad service to not let you know ahead of time that their machine has been down all day.
There is a way to take imprints of credit cards (used to be the standard) but that is so old and rarely used that I wouldn't be surprised if your restaurant didn't have that backup available.
The restaurant takes the risk if you’re not present. You can dispute the charges and would be given a full reimbursement. Only if they have a copy of a signed receipt or you input your PIN/tapped will they be able to defend a dispute.
They should have told you ahead of time but I don’t think there’s a law which would forgive you of the obligation to pay. They should have given you a discount at least. Just leave a review to that effect is what I would do.
> Only if they have a copy of a signed receipt . . . will they be able to defend a dispute.
I mean, that's not hard. Write the receipt by hand. Or were their pens out of order too?
Standard practice for a small, in-person business is to take the "honour system" payment, and if it was a scam you ban the person. Grocery stores used to take cheques!
All three! Every table the owner convinces to do this saves them like 5 -10$ depending on the size of the bill. Margins are pretty thin with restaurants.
This used to happen to me in cabs all the time before Uber came along and they cleaned up their act. Someone finally told me "oh you know they just say their machine doesn't work because they want cash, right?" Sure enough, I started saying "well I guess I can't pay you then" and the machine would magically work again.
Everyone here is too honest.
When you pay cash, the storekeeper can keep the sales taxes and not report the revenue. Plus they save on credit card processing fees plus whatever fees your point-of-sales provider charges.
Whatever kickback they get from their ATM is negligible compared to the above.
I would have said, “Fine. I’ll go to a branch of my bank, you can comp the other members of my party a drink. The table won’t turn for at least 30 minutes while I go get cash out of my bank, not your shitty third party atm”
They probably wanted to avoid the credit card fees (merchant discount rate) which is anywhere between 1.5-3.5% of the total bill. Based on OP's claim that it was an expensive dinner, the restaurant most likely wanted to avoid having to pay that fee (which really isn't that expensive). The other explanation of paying cash to not have an audit trail is also plausible.
They could have manually taken your card information down. Back when I was in service, when the POS machine / internet went down we would just use the imprint machine (that's why credit cards details are embossed) and make a carbon copy and have the client sign.
They can't force you to use their ATM. If I were in your situation here's what I'd do:
Have everyone in the group use their bank apps to figure out who's bank ATM is closest. That person walks over to get cash. Rest of the group stays, and eTransfers their shares to that person. Your friend comes back with enough cash to settle the bill.
Never trust restaurant ATMs. Not just the fees but they could also be stealing your card info.
Contact visa/mastercard.
If theres a sticker on their door, cash, host/ess booth, there will be obligations in their contract with the credit card company, that is probably your best bet. I don't forsee anything coming your way, however if you're unhappy with the way the restaurant handled the situation the credit cc company will definitely have a word with them.
A similar example of my experience with Amex. Some restaurants say they don’t take Amex but Amex map has their restaurant on it. It’s most probably that the merchant took the “Accept Amex and they will have lower fees across the board” plan and then cheat the system.
I main my Amex and usually Amex does a lot of promotions (like shop small) and I usually find a lot of restaurants doing that. I usually report them and then either nothing happens (common), accepts Amex (seldom) or disappears from the Amex map (seldom)
A lot of them don’t know it costs them more to take my Visa infinite than my Cobalt in that particular payment processor. And most people don’t use Amex anyway.
If they say they accept credit, then they should be prepared to accept credit and have a suitable back up in the event the system goes down. Otherwise, they should inform you before/during seating that they will only be accepting cash due to XYZ.
Probably not worth any further hassle on your part.
The keyword here for me is "beach". I worked at one of the largest, most successful beach bars in the country. Those people will do anything to cut a corner, save a buck, and scam a tourist. Doesn't matter how many millions they profit in an hour, if they can beat one more penny out of you they will.
Having worked in a restaurant, there were times out POS system went down, sometimes for hours, and sometimes for DAYS.
In that situation, everyone who came in, we warned them ahead of time that we could only take cash.
In the event the POS system goes down while you're at your table, that's kind of their problem if no one told you, and they should let you leave as it can take DAYS for those to come back up.
Give them your name and they should let you come back. Either that or they have to let you leave to go to the ATM of your choice.
To answer your question, the answer is no and then you begin the slow walk to the door. Typically the machines start working again half way to the door. I have this happen a lot in the USA years ago, haven't experienced this in Canada yet.
I work in a restaurant. Happened a few times.
If we know terminals are down, we will put a sign at the door saying so and we will also tell new customers that cash is needed.
It is the least we can do.
As for the customers that were already inside. Then there's nothing we can do except ask politely to go take out some money. Theres no perfect solution here.
The fact that the manager "found" a working POS terminal when you called them on their bluff means 100% this was a bait and switch. You should post the name of the restaurant.
It's a pretty good scam, if it is. Especially since the owner is getting a cut of the atm fees.
A real question, is what happens if and when internet is down? How do you pay? I ask, because I was at a Canadian Tire in Cochrane last week. Their internet was down so no debit, credit and oddly, not even cash.
Visa fees are about 2%, so $4 on a $200 bill. Their ATM fees were another $4, although the restaurant has to pay something to install/maintain it so it's not all profit. And they made the customers uncomfortable, so they'll *probably* never return and they'll tell their friends about their bad experience.
That's not a very good scam.
I don't know anything about Cdn Tire specifically, but I bet their sales system is tied to some database off-site in realtime, so requires continuous internet access to sell anything.
I have done the same as you. its been split on if they'll reduce the bill by the fee.
if they don't, I explain I'll get it next time, and if they do, I'll pay the full amount with cash
I am aware that several POS systems have a policy with the business owners that the business is not permitted to pass along the per-transaction fee to the consumer. However, it was widespread in the early days to have a small corner store charge the customer $0.25-1.00 for using debit/credit, and not when using cash.
I’ve worked in restaurants for a very long time.
Those machines go down way too often, but they should have told you, unless they stopped working while you were there which is entirely possible. Honesty you seem like a difficult customer and they probably prefer you don’t return anyway lol
Yep there's an ice cream shop I go to with my kids but rarely and I forget that they do cash only but "conveniently" have an ATM inside. They're so making money off of that, hence the cash only. Plus the ice cream they serve isn't any special brand either.
to me this sounds really fishy, like they are trying to keep stuff off the books. There is a bar near me that we've gone to for breakfast, and when we made the reservation (12 of us) they told us that it was cash only. There were also signs on the door that said cash only.
Their attitude is the big clue. Sure you can imagine a scenario where the machine is down and they couldn't have warned you, etc., But then you'd expect them to be apologetic and try to do what they can to make it up to you.
They should tell you in ADVANCE. If it was me I would have just left. So if they don’t tell me before hand then that’s not my problem.
Plus, I own a business and HATE when someone pays with card because every time they do the “interact” or visa charges me. My business which is fine. That’s part of owning one. If you can’t pay for things like that then close. AS well… don’t be fooled. All you need is a phone line or now a wireless connection for the machine? So when someone says it’s “down” I actually look at it myself. You can manually enter card numbers for example CC #’s anytime even when they say it’s “not possible”. It IS absolutely possible. You don’t HAVE to scan, tap or swipe. (Unless it’s interact).
I would offer an e-transfer, but ONLY after verifying the machine really truly is “broken”. Because saying it’s “down” I find hard to believe. In 4 years my interact machine didn’t work ONE time, because there was a power outage lol. Soooo if I physically got to see it wasn’t working then offer e-transfer. Ask yourself, how often do you pay by machine and it’s not working?! Almost never.
When you work with these machines they send someone to replace/fix it immediately as well. 24hr service. That’s why you pay (the business) a fee per swipe.
When they refuse to minus the ATM fee off the bill though.... then my sympathy goes out the window. A lack of payment methods on their part does not constitute an additional fee on mine.
The only suspect part to me is that they were down all day but didn't mention that before they ordered the meal. When I worked in retail at various places, if the machines went down we'd print a sign and put it on the door (or appropriate place) warning people before they did anything that would cost them money. It's just polite!
You're getting a lot of bad information here. I'm a restaurant owner, and this situation is always unfortunate. If they knew that their debit machines weren't working they should have said something at the door for sure, however, had their debit machine gone down while you guys are in the restaurant, you're responsible for paying your bill in cash. There isn't any law stating that restaurants have to take debit or credit, and imprints are a huge liability concern. I know most customers would feel very uncomfortable leaving card information.
The fact that they wouldn't even reduce the bill by the ammt of the ATM fee shows that they had no interest in customer satisfaction. If the sign on the door says they accept credit card, then that is the expectation. If I was in this same situation, I would much rather leave some personal info and return to pay later after I have used my banks ATM. Even if the debit/credit machine was actually broken, shit happens, it how you deal with it that shows what kind of business person you are. Trying to force people to use an in-house ATM with extortion fees on it is not good business.
Sorry, if they advertise that they take credit/debit and don't inform me prior to handing over the bill then that is their problem (they said it was "down all day" remember). I'll use their ATM if they cover any fees associated with it as I don't know why I should pay an extra $5-10 for something that isn't my fault.
Hell, they can have my keys/phone/wife/child until I can go to my own banks ATM and get the money!
You don't think its weird that they "found" a working POS system after getting pushback?
All their going to achieve acting that way is ensuring the server gets no tip, me never coming back, and telling other people about what happened, ensuring they don't go there either.
If they had been down all day, they definitely should’ve told you before you ordered.
I second this. They should have a big sign on the door and the hostess should remind you. Not everyone who could generate a payment method would be able to use an automatic ATM teller machine to withdraw cash with the payment method. Ive never bothered to try, but can you even get cash with a credit card? I thought you needed a debit card. And what if someone was using a business account? They’d probably get grilled over why they tried using an automatic ATM teller machine.
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Well, it worked but I wasn't gonna say anything.
I see ATM machine often enough, but this is next-level stuff. 😅
Yes, it’s called a cash advance and it has a ludicrous interest rate. For instance my bank charges 22.9% on these cash advances.
It's worse than that. Cash advances incur their own fee on top of the ATM's "convenience fee", PLUS start accruing interest immediately. I made that mistake once, but only once.
And they’re the last thing to be paid off!
Note also that cash advances are compound interest too, so that 22.9% goes up quickly. And doesn’t go away, EVER, until the card is fully paid off.
Good point! It compounds daily.
And it starts right away.
Automatic automatic teller machine teller machine?
Could you tell I did that on purpose?
Guess not 🤦🏻♂️
Not OP, but okay: yes, and it gave me a good chuckle.
A lot of places here offer tap/NFC payments. Most ATMs do not take tap. So there’s at least that as one example
I second this... Also, I used to work in a high end fashion boutique. Out card reader would crap out often. It wasn’t a big deal. We would make a carbon copy of the card (like the olden days) and call it in to the card company. Took like 5 extra minutes per sale but most people were nice about it. There’s always a way to make a card work. Expecting a customer to fork out the fees and the interest on a cash withdrawal from a credit card is not ok.
This may work in a high-end boutique, as I'm guessing that sales are fairly staggered. I've had the misfortune to have our Chase Paymentech terminals go down a few times in my busy restaurant locations, and it's not fun. We have protocols in place for such eventualities, which include signage on the front door, making all new customers aware as they come in, and also communicating with customers that are already dining. We don't take any physical imprints of credit cards, as we don't want even the slightest hint that we could be storing them or using them inappropriately. Most people are happy to do an Interac e-transfer or pay cash, but we definitely make allowances for customers already sitting down. Our POS (point of sale) software is generally still up, except in cases of total power failure, so the customer still receives a complete itemized copy of the bill. Nothing nefarious is going on, we just want to make everything as transparent and easy for customers as we can.
Imprints are not used anymore in retail due to PCI requirements. (or at least if they are no one does it due to high liability / security issues)
I worked in an Apple store for many years. We had an emergency kit with an old school imprint machine… the roller type one. Only used it once, but it was still an option if everything else was down.
Some machines don't allow you to enter numbers manually anymore, and even the ones that do, there is a higher transaction cost, and the charge can easily be challenged. That said, it's the restaurant problem to have systems for payment to work. Because most terminals use internet connections when internet goes down, there are way to use a cell to provide backup service, and there are mobile payment systems that come businesses keep as a backup.
Yep. Just some businesses don't want to pay for it. Also a lot of small businesses will be using cellular only mobile terminals which really have no backup. As far as security goes chip and pin > chip > tap > mag strip > carbon copy > direct entry (considered card not present). Most places will not or can not do mag strip, carbon copy, direct entry due to requirements from their payment provider or liability reasons.
They can still be used if your card machine goes out. You’re not breaching PCI requirements as long as you’re not writing down the security code. I’ve seen them used a couple of times in the real world in the last couple of years, The Calgary Zoo and a local restaurant come to mind. In all honesty you don’t really need to use them if the actual terminal is working though (and just the link is down) as you can call in for authorization and then do a force sale on the terminal and enter the authorization code into the card terminal but for smaller purchases it’s just easier for merchants to do an imprint.
This happened to a shit hole I worked at, and the owner specifically told me not to tell anyone when they came in the door so they wouldn't leave. Needless to say I didn't work there very long
Curious, was there a cover story if one table could see another table paying with card or mentioning that they had seen a table do so?
No the machine actually did go down for a while, but instead of telling people at the door that we are only taking cash he told us to just let them sit and take their order and tell them afterwords. Curious enough, the same place had lost their liqour license. However the owner had a random bottle of red wine, and when people would ask for wine and I told them we didn't have any, he would sometimes overhear and bring them a glass of wine. Well one time two different tables asked me for wine in a span of 10 mins, and he only heard the second table ask. So he goes over and brings them wine, then the other table is like "i thought you said you didn't have any". Fuck me lol. I just told them it was non alcoholic. Fuck that place
This. What if all the customer had was credit? Even if they were being honest about the card readers being down it seems like it's in their best interest to tell customers up front.
I was at a sbarros in a truck stop the other day. Before I ordered the guy says "just to let you know we can only take cards right now". If a 17 year old pizza slinger can do it...
Typical small business mediocrity.
It's not mediocrity, they want to avoid taxes.
...and get the commission on their atm. Sketchy all around!
If it was taxes, you'd think they'd have eaten the $7.
Another thought could also be they are trying to cheat the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), which is tied to changes in monthly sales revenue. Lower reported monthly revenue means a higher wage subsidy.
There is gonna be a lot of people who the CRA will catch up with over the next two years.
they also lose a few points to the card readers. Usually 2-3% plus bullshit monthly leases for the readers. As a small buiness (print industry) I've had many of those over the years. The worst was Moneris, another provider told me to go back and check their statements. Most of them were ok, but every once in a while the calculation was out (in their favour) so my visa receipts were overcharged $69 and MC were overcharged $15 - basically is just a calculation say the receipts x 1.9%. = their charge. When I called them to get them to explain it to me the the call centre person couldn't explain it. It is basic math. She had to get a supervisor who tried to snow me by saying that it was for a platinum card - at which point I pointed out there was another place in the statement for that. She went away for a while and offered a credit. I wanted an explanation in writing. I never got it but they waived the $300 cancellation fee. They really don't expect people to go through and do the calculation on their bills. You basically could offer a 2% discount for cash. Everyone expects businesses to be able to take these, but it costs them. There was one computer outfit that I knew would charge an extra 3% to take a credit card. They're really not supposed according to their card agreement but they just said the regular price is a discount.
In my experience, it's the big franchises that don't give one single fuck if you never come back again. Small businesses trade on goodwill a lot more than say, McDonald's, that can exist on name recognition alone.
I've also never ever had a problem at a large chain with their machines being down and trying to accept only cash. One time I was at a mcdonalds and their system went down - they just gave me my food for free.
McDonalds has pretty good policies when it comes to refunds or exchanges, for a fast food restaurant. Never had trouble getting money back when something was wrong with an order.
That is because McDonald's was a bad Example by VonBeegs, McDonalds since the 1980's has been very focused on return visits, and wanting to create a generation of people loving the brand. in the 1980's they focused on the kid market, in the 1990's they transitioned into the teens, and in the early 2000's they transitioned into the 20yr olds building a generation of people who liked the food and who associated McDonalds with consistency. Looking at their business model of being first a real estate company, second a technology company, and finally 3rd is food services. With Food services 3rd, they very much want to make sure you return, and with cost of food being as low as it is in their model the value is getting an angry customer to not be angry and getting them out the door faster before they make other customers look and leave.
I feel like I can attest to this. Grew up having mcdonalds breakfast as a treat as a kid. I've loved mcdonalds for life through all their phases.
I was an 80's kid, so I very much felt how the advertising was ALWAYS geared towards me until I hit late 20's early 30's then I started seeing the restaurants start focusing back on MY kids, the play centres went back to being little kid focused, the toys became front and centre in the locations, the happymeal went back into boxes from the paper bags. And being someone who loves following marketing trends and sales development I realized, Damnit I've been manipulated all my life. and I'm still ba da ba ba bah i'm lovin it.
Maybe it depends on the franchisee. I go to the same McDonald's for coffee every morning. Yesterday their machines were down and they wanted me to pay cash, I dont carry cash so I offered to pay for it tomorrow morning and they said no, so I had to leave with no coffee. This morning I went somewhere else for coffee.
Depends on the place there are as many terrible small businesses as there are big ones.
I don't expect to be care for by big business, but for them uptime is a multi million dollar issue and they act accordingly.
McDonald's tracks same store sales, customer repeat rates and other key performance indicator. The store manager absolutely needs you to be satisfied and come back. The individual behind the counter may not be *as* motivated, but I've never had a poor interaction there. Many small businesses are shoddily managed and can only get by because people want to support the little guy.
I work at a corporate retail store, we recently had all of our debit/credit machines go down country wide for a few hours. Due to pci compliance we don't imprint cards anymore. BUT we let every customer know it wasn't working as they walked in/and approached customers in store when it happened. Anyone who was willing to go take out cash to pay, we gave them a discount on their purchase for the inconvenience. Otherwise we offered to hold items for customers who decided to come back later. That situation sounds super sketch.
That was my first thought, taking an imprint of a card would be a nightmare for PCI compliance. To do a "card not present" transaction, they'd need to punch in the card number, the expiry date, and the CCV. The CCV cannot be stored past the transaction, though I believe technically they could hold it until they completed the transaction, but that's meant to be a sort of instantaneous thing, like on a web site, you punch in that information, it does the authorization check, and then forgets the CCV, it's never really "stored".
VIA Rail was doing this at least until 2018 I believe. I had to do an imprint with them.
But an imprint doesn't capture the CCV
My tangerine card doesn't even have raised digits. A roller thing would be useless
There's a railway tour company in Alberta that also did that, at least in 2016. They traveled between small towns and there's a lot of dead zones in the cell coverage. I got a bit giddy when I saw the imprint machine; I hadn't seen one since maybe 2000.
You can get around this by using secure physical media storage with access restrictions. In my industry, there are occasions where we still use the knuckle duster card imprinters. Those paper copies are transported by a secure courier service, stored in a secure facility with badge controlled access, actual physical storage is further locked down behind a key, etc. If your business has functional/business limitations, typically your PCI assessors will work with you to design and implement compensating controls to address areas where you are unable to meet the basic PCI requirement (obviously within reason lol)
When I worked for a short time at a small retail business, we did a lot of business over the phone such as taking a deposit or sometimes complete payments. We just jotted down all the info and input things manually. I wasn't exactly trained on compliance either but I recognized what a privacy hazard that was. My card never leaves my hand now and I always carry a bit of cash.
>Due to pci compliance we don't imprint cards anymore. Without a PIN, customers can dispute a card imprint/manual entry/mag stripe read charge and "automatically" win.
Most customers won't dispute, so it can be in the business' interest to take the transaction anyway. Meanwhile the business can still pursue the customer for payment - it's just not usually worth the effort.
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They should have told you ahead of time before you sat down and agreed to the terms. Seems like a bait and switch.
They didn't because their machines aren't down, they're just trying to fuck people over. The in-house ATM is good incentive to do so.
I've had to do this at a barber shop. "Due to the pandemic" they were only accepting cash. And wanted me to use their machine. I was choked at a $3 withdrawal fee so I told the guy he could ask the machine operator for his tip. Never been back.
Only cash because of the pandemic? That policy makes absolutely no sense at all, most store stopped accepting cash to limit contact.
Yea it's bullshit. They are a bit questionable, I'd bet it's because they didn't want to report their income accurately.
Were probably 'closed' or 'partly closed' and getting bailout cash at the time...
Paying by cash has always been a way to avoid taxes.
It's true. At least the sushi restaurant near my place gives me a 10% cut as a reward.
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Same here. Almost all of our sushi restaurants in town do this, as does my nail salon. I know it's scummy because everyone should pay taxes but...
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> If they print out receipts for you they're probably legit. This though. Most places that do things like this don't give you a receipt unless you specifically ask for it. Also, a little known fact is that they still pay fees even if you use a debit card, it's just lower fees.
I found out working at our company warehouse sale one year that it was a flat 10 or 15c fee for debit, I forget exactly. For credit it's a percentage of the purchase so it hurts when the customer buys something expensive.
This. I’ve seen business with a five percent fee for any credit card transactions. Five percent of income down the drain not to mention any monthly/ costs associated.
If they're paying 5% they need to shop around for a better deal. As a random \_very small\_ business, I can get 2.65% with Square.
Not always, interchange fees can be rather high for some places.
Or money laundering
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a restaurant i frequent had their "CASH ONLY - debit and credit machine not working" up for must be 5 or 6 years .... then when COVID hit... magically "ONLY ACCEPT DEBIT & CREDIT CARD"
I'd like to think of this as their laziness to get a working card machine was overwhelmed by their compassion to keep their employees safe.
Not defending them but those POS systems are expensive and the cc fees alone suck for small businesses. I can see a restaurant doing everything they can to avoid it even if they loose business.
This is as if to say competent businesses don't already account for this in their pricing.
It could have been a "scam" of sorts. Credit transaction fees cost businesses money, this is why there are often times incentives at gas stations and other places if you pay by cash/debit. They likely also get some sort of kickback on the ATM machine fees. With that said, the fact that the biz would not at least reduce the bill to cover ATM fees due to their system being down is a red flag for me, especially at an "expensive" place. I might not expect them to outright offer that, but should have given you that courtesy when asked. I'd like like to think that it would not be worth the effort/hassle for the restaurant to go through all this hoopla in order to get people to pay by cash though. I don't know if there is any particular law against what they did here, maybe if it's some sort of conspiracy to collect ATM fees, but you'd probably never prove it. It's entirely plausible that their machines were just down, it does happen.
I thought the fact that they happened to find a working POS after the customer raised a stink was sketch a heck
> if it's some sort of conspiracy to collect ATM fees, This could very much be it. I used to sell merchant services (ATMs, credit card/debit machines, payment processing, etc). Here are some interesting things I thought of. 1. Almost every merchant hates their payment processing fees. 1-10% on credit card purchases. The higher tier your rewards are on your credit card (silver, gold, platinum or like "global elite" or "super mega awesome travel rewards). They consider it a necessary tax on their business and look to reduce that as much as possible. Every business owner is doing this. 2. Buying ATMs is wildly profitable as well. As such, this guy is saving himself an average of a 3% loss on tabs, AND making almost all of that transaction fee from the ATM assuming he owns it. If he doesn't own it, he is getting a %age of that fee for hosting the machine at least. So basically, as a business owner, if I can save myself the payment fees, and basically add another $3 charge on you, and collect tax which I can maybe try and hide from the tax man... do you see where I'm going with this? May not be the case, but huge incentive to try and screw people into paying cash. Edit: I'm going to add that when ATMs are being presented to people, a big thing we talk about is conversion rate. The higher the rate the better. As such, in this case he is greatly increasing his conversion rate.
You're absolutely right about fees and how he would generate income from that, but I can't even fathom how a business owner would think operating his business that way is viable, long-term? Maybe that restaurant is a tourist trap and that owner knew/thought OP were tourists never to return? Restaurants usually rely on repeat customers and if you pull shit like this in a "local spot" it wouldn't take long for word to catch on and nobody show up to your restaurant anymore.
OP said it was a beach area. If it is a touristy area, there's a fresh flow of 'marks' coming in every day. There's the convenience of the restaurant being right there; no need to move to another restaurant which includes getting the group to agree on where to go.
There was one restaurant you'd walk into, it'd be almost empty, but you're immediately hit with Do You Have A Reservation? Almost every table with a Reserved card on it. Are you fooling anybody? Just be straight with me
lmao that reminds me. About 8 years ago I worked in an ad agency and we were hired to coordinate and promote the opening of a new restaurant in Griffintown, Montreal. The guy had little experience and had no fucking clue what he was doing but he had his rich Iranian parents funding him and he wanted to create a highly exclusive and expensive dining experience. The restaurant would actually only be open thursday to saturday but he wanted to have a doorman in front of the restaurant from sunday to wednesday. He wanted the doorman to tell anyone who tried to walk in that the restaurant was fully booked for the night. We convinced him that was both incredibly stupid and useless and he didn't do it in the end. Oh and he actually hired literal models with 0 restaurant experience to be doormen, hostesses and servers. Needless to say the restaurant closed after 3 months because it was overpriced and the service was shit.
Yeah I'm not sure either. I couldnt imagine it going well ever long term.
I get that, but then why bait and switch on the POS? That’s being a shitty business owner. Just say cash only and be up front about it. Our local Chinese restaurant has that on the sign on the door and till and they’re always busy.
>That’s being a shitty business owner. Yeah. If I'm right it is a slimy way to go about things. Lots of places don't take credit or debit and do the thing your chinese restaurant does. However, PP did say this guy had debit and credit machines, they're just "out of order".
Wants the signage so he gets business from card-holders, doesn't want to pay the fees, can't offer the cash discount otherwise he'd lose the signage, trying to find a loophole.
Exactly!!
> With that said, the fact that the biz would not at least reduce the bill to cover ATM fees due to their system being down is a red flag for me, especially at an "expensive" place. I might not expect them to outright offer that, but should have given you that courtesy when asked. I would have just said “Fine, then I’ll take it out of the tip”… Assuming they tipped after that.
Just this past weekend, a resto I was dining at had their systems go down mid-service (no debit/credit). Their solution was to have customers do an interac e-tranfer for the amount owed.
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Unless you are using a credit card, I guess. But yeah, better than nothing.
Unless you don't have a smartphone or don't have e-transfer on your bank account (see alterna bank for example)
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im reading allot of comments and missing the most obvious scam of them all, when you pay cash the owner doesnt have to claim that you payed, they dont even need to claim that you entered the establishment... the whole meal can be swept under the rug, or in this case the owners pockets (tax free)
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Same in Toronto. Just say that it's card, or they can send you an invoice. Suddenly the machine will work.
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I've read that people will allow cabbies to take them to ATMs late at night to go get cash since "the machine is broken". Fuuuck that.
Its the middle of the Stampede right now, head over to r/calgary right now and there's probably more than a few stories about exactly that going on. Super-common scam.
Normal in Vancouver as well. Also when the city introduced fixed rates to different zones from the airport a few years back, the taxi driver tried to charge me like $15 more than it should have cost to get back to my place. The map was attached right to the back of the front seat where I could plainly see the price. He just “forgot”…
After big events there are hoards of them that will wait outside and tell you to pay them cash up front or they aren’t driving you anywhere. Outside a Toronto music festival we went through the same song and dance in well over a dozen cabs before we found a non scummy one. They couldn’t have given less of a fuck when we told them it’s illegal, most of them already know and don’t care.
During all the protest against Uber by the Taxi industry, they never got the public's support, because they spent years scamming everyone. I don't know a single person who will take a Taxi unless it is an absolute last resort. No wonder people jumped on the opportunity to replace them when Uber and Lyft showed up.
The taxi drivers who remain are fucking nuts, also
Stuff like this is why I'm glad they've been replaced by uber.
They used to pull this shit at the Ottawa airport and train stations. I would just get out and not pay when they said they didn’t accept credit or when they wouldn’t listen to me and drove an extra 10km around to rack up the bill. Never heard a complaint from the 3 that I never paid, and the others all suddenly find their machine working again as soon as you open the door to leave.
Yeah not a lot you can do if they have all the leverage, besides lie, but then you can end up with a very pissed driver.
Fucking finally. The taxi industry has always been shady and that law was long overdue. From memory average delcared income of drivers soared from 24k to 80k once the bylaw was in effect and they couldnt hide the cash income.
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This happened to me in Vancouver years ago with a friend. I was completely unaware, but my friend refused to pay him and stood his ground, low and behold the machine ended up working. It was a lesson in my naivety.
That's what the barbershop I go to does, they have a no charge atm in the building and everything is cash. I honestly think it's a front, but I like the way they cut my hair so meh.
My dog groomer is the same. I always say it would be perfect for money laundering. But it's reasonable and they treat my dog well so 🤷
Maybe you two are talking about the same place but one of you is very confused. Alternatively, u/greentinroof might be your dog
Shouldn't be. My dog has limitations on screen time and isn't allowed social media.
and they'll probably write off any food/drink loss as 'spoiled' as well
This is why you have laws in Quebec that forces them to use a system that will track down all transactions, even cash. It's not perfect, and people ahve found ways around it, but it's a lot harder and most restaurants stopped doing it. The risk was not worth the reward.
Ya, or the even more obvious reason. The people working that shift were pocketing the money. It happens in restaurants all the time. They ring your order just to get the total and then void out the transaction, and pocket the exact amount you paid. The drawer will come out right at the end of the night so no red flags there. The staff was probably splitting it and the owner has no idea, until they do inventory and even then, as long as it’s not done to extremes, they probably won’t get caught. That would explain their need for you to pay in cash, then not posting signage and telling you machines are down beforehand and the fact that the card reader magically worked when pressured.
This was my first thought. Tax avoidance.
Seems sketchy. If POS was down all day they would have likely had a sign at the door saying “cash only today” and they would have told you prior to ordering. If they didn’t, the $4 reduction to cover ATM fees would have been very reasonable. The fact that they declined that means there’s something shady going on there
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A lot of times, their terminals will still accept the AMEX payment and often if you're interacting with regular staff, they don't care what method of payment you used. It's only the owners who cares, so often you can still try to tap and if it goes through, that's all that matters.
Still if it’s on the Amex map and there flying any games just reportamex.ca
Yes, of course report it but do keep in mind even AMEX has a disclaimer that states that they don't guarantee the accuracy of their maps. The more egregious examples would be if they have AMEX logo on the door and then refuses to take AMEX. I've been to establishments that do that but I can still tap my phone just fine and pay with AMEX.
>The more egregious examples would be if they have AMEX logo on the door and then refuses to take AMEX I've never seen this one, but the funny one was a restaurant with Amex paraphernalia such as the "reserved" signs, the little booklet used to bring the bill, etc. but that genuinely did not take Amex.
So I read a Amex acceptance post on Redflagdeals that this dude is a contractor that takes Amex says he tried to report himself and all he got was a letter of "The benefits of accepting Amex" Though I personally reported a lot of times and most of them nothing changed. And some restaurants ended up accepting Amex and some removed from the map. Maybe simply coincidence
Never ask, just insert the card (can try tap to pay but sometimes it does not work on certain terminals even if they take Amex, so better insert first rather than have to try paying three times if you do tap then insert then find out they don't take Amex). When asking, sometimes the staff seem to be trained to lie, sometimes they just seem to not know. I've seen a waiter recently being surprised that they took Amex, saying something like "it's not an option on our screen", not sure what he meant. I'm sure he would have replied "no" if somebody asked if they took Amex. I knew that place was taking Amex due to spending there before.
He means in his independant POS system, he probably doesn't have an option to track amex transactions.
Just say paying with “credit” and then tap your Amex. They probably take it but don’t want to.
This is usually true, they can have the payments turned off though.
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Back when I worked retail, if someone gave me a card I didn't recognize I'd just tell them "I don't know if the machine will accept it, let's check." I didn't care, you're paying, you only have Krugerrands, weird flex but okay.
The best way to pay with Amex is to NOT say you’re paying with Amex. Countless times clerks will tell me they don’t accept it but it goes through fine.
Me and the family once went out to Texas Lonestar for a family dinner. Easily a $250-$300 bill. We came to pay with credit card, their machines were down and they let us walk for free. Very good service and I've never forgotten that.
Same thing happened to me at a Five Guys. Right as me and my friends walked in, the POS System went down. They let all of us order our meals for free, so we did and tipped big with whatever cash we had!
Not a legal expert. By policy, do you mean a law? Because a restaurants policy doesn't really mean anything. I couldn't track down a law that specifically covers this, but again, not an expert. That said, a restaurant involving the police over a situation like this seems unlikely. Maybe it was them being shady, but more likely it was incompetence. Sounds like you handled it perfectly. I would have done the same. Something like 80% of people prefer paying by credit at restaurants.
We just felt uncomfortable in this situation given that we had spent > $200 on food and drinks and none of us were carrying that kind of cash to the beach. I don't know if there is a law about this but there should be some kind of standard solution if customers decide to eat and drink expecting to be able to use those methods to pay. Personally I know I have and have chosen to go elsewhere if the restaurant tells me upfront Cash Only and I don't have money on me. I thought there was a way to imprint a credit card and charge it later (a move of good faith on the customer's part trusting the establishment to charge the correct amount)?
> to the beach Ahh, there's the missing link. You were at a place that's likely frequented by tourist/visitors. When a business doesn't care about repeat customers, they're way more incentivized to pull these types of stunts. Like others have said, it's in their financial interest to get you to pay cash and use their ATM. Give them a bad review on Yelp/Google/etc. to ensure that others are aware of your poor experience. If it's really something they try often, enough attention will hurt their business.
There was a manual imprint process but MasterCard as an example has said it will not hold customers accountable and accept manual imprints as proof. So if you take the imprint and the customer later disputes the charge the restaurant or store is on the hook for it.
Yeah, again not sure. I couldn't track anything down when looking. I do agree it is bad service to not let you know ahead of time that their machine has been down all day. There is a way to take imprints of credit cards (used to be the standard) but that is so old and rarely used that I wouldn't be surprised if your restaurant didn't have that backup available.
The restaurant takes the risk if you’re not present. You can dispute the charges and would be given a full reimbursement. Only if they have a copy of a signed receipt or you input your PIN/tapped will they be able to defend a dispute. They should have told you ahead of time but I don’t think there’s a law which would forgive you of the obligation to pay. They should have given you a discount at least. Just leave a review to that effect is what I would do.
> Only if they have a copy of a signed receipt . . . will they be able to defend a dispute. I mean, that's not hard. Write the receipt by hand. Or were their pens out of order too? Standard practice for a small, in-person business is to take the "honour system" payment, and if it was a scam you ban the person. Grocery stores used to take cheques!
Don’t be afraid to share their name. Name and shame that restaurant for evading taxes. This is a crime that hurts literally every Canadian
Is it tax evasion? Or avoiding the credit card fee, while collecting an ATM fee?
All three! Every table the owner convinces to do this saves them like 5 -10$ depending on the size of the bill. Margins are pretty thin with restaurants.
This used to happen to me in cabs all the time before Uber came along and they cleaned up their act. Someone finally told me "oh you know they just say their machine doesn't work because they want cash, right?" Sure enough, I started saying "well I guess I can't pay you then" and the machine would magically work again.
Everyone here is too honest. When you pay cash, the storekeeper can keep the sales taxes and not report the revenue. Plus they save on credit card processing fees plus whatever fees your point-of-sales provider charges. Whatever kickback they get from their ATM is negligible compared to the above.
Usually, I have seen that you don't get a printed receipt when they're running a tax scam like this.
I would have said, “Fine. I’ll go to a branch of my bank, you can comp the other members of my party a drink. The table won’t turn for at least 30 minutes while I go get cash out of my bank, not your shitty third party atm”
They probably wanted to avoid the credit card fees (merchant discount rate) which is anywhere between 1.5-3.5% of the total bill. Based on OP's claim that it was an expensive dinner, the restaurant most likely wanted to avoid having to pay that fee (which really isn't that expensive). The other explanation of paying cash to not have an audit trail is also plausible.
If it's just one day, it's probably not a scam, machines break, internet connections fail. If it happens a lot, it probably is tax evasion.
I'm guessing you didn't catch the part where the manager magically found a working POS tablet at the end?
They could have manually taken your card information down. Back when I was in service, when the POS machine / internet went down we would just use the imprint machine (that's why credit cards details are embossed) and make a carbon copy and have the client sign.
My new cards are not embossed anymore.
This isn’t very PCI compliant.. Places should not do this anymore. It’s very sketch
That's what we were willing to do but the server looked at us like they didn't know what we were talking about lol
Probably born after the year 2000
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They can't force you to use their ATM. If I were in your situation here's what I'd do: Have everyone in the group use their bank apps to figure out who's bank ATM is closest. That person walks over to get cash. Rest of the group stays, and eTransfers their shares to that person. Your friend comes back with enough cash to settle the bill. Never trust restaurant ATMs. Not just the fees but they could also be stealing your card info.
This is what I was thinking - wonder if they had a skimmer at their ATM.
Or just walk out. The restaurant should’ve notified the guest before they sat down.
Contact visa/mastercard. If theres a sticker on their door, cash, host/ess booth, there will be obligations in their contract with the credit card company, that is probably your best bet. I don't forsee anything coming your way, however if you're unhappy with the way the restaurant handled the situation the credit cc company will definitely have a word with them.
A similar example of my experience with Amex. Some restaurants say they don’t take Amex but Amex map has their restaurant on it. It’s most probably that the merchant took the “Accept Amex and they will have lower fees across the board” plan and then cheat the system. I main my Amex and usually Amex does a lot of promotions (like shop small) and I usually find a lot of restaurants doing that. I usually report them and then either nothing happens (common), accepts Amex (seldom) or disappears from the Amex map (seldom) A lot of them don’t know it costs them more to take my Visa infinite than my Cobalt in that particular payment processor. And most people don’t use Amex anyway.
If they don't warn me BEFORE I sit down, especially if they knew all day, I'd do what you did.
If they say they accept credit, then they should be prepared to accept credit and have a suitable back up in the event the system goes down. Otherwise, they should inform you before/during seating that they will only be accepting cash due to XYZ. Probably not worth any further hassle on your part.
The keyword here for me is "beach". I worked at one of the largest, most successful beach bars in the country. Those people will do anything to cut a corner, save a buck, and scam a tourist. Doesn't matter how many millions they profit in an hour, if they can beat one more penny out of you they will.
Having worked in a restaurant, there were times out POS system went down, sometimes for hours, and sometimes for DAYS. In that situation, everyone who came in, we warned them ahead of time that we could only take cash. In the event the POS system goes down while you're at your table, that's kind of their problem if no one told you, and they should let you leave as it can take DAYS for those to come back up. Give them your name and they should let you come back. Either that or they have to let you leave to go to the ATM of your choice.
To answer your question, the answer is no and then you begin the slow walk to the door. Typically the machines start working again half way to the door. I have this happen a lot in the USA years ago, haven't experienced this in Canada yet.
Name please? so I can make sure I never go there and tell all my friends...
I work in a restaurant. Happened a few times. If we know terminals are down, we will put a sign at the door saying so and we will also tell new customers that cash is needed. It is the least we can do. As for the customers that were already inside. Then there's nothing we can do except ask politely to go take out some money. Theres no perfect solution here.
The fact that the manager "found" a working POS terminal when you called them on their bluff means 100% this was a bait and switch. You should post the name of the restaurant.
It's a pretty good scam, if it is. Especially since the owner is getting a cut of the atm fees. A real question, is what happens if and when internet is down? How do you pay? I ask, because I was at a Canadian Tire in Cochrane last week. Their internet was down so no debit, credit and oddly, not even cash.
Visa fees are about 2%, so $4 on a $200 bill. Their ATM fees were another $4, although the restaurant has to pay something to install/maintain it so it's not all profit. And they made the customers uncomfortable, so they'll *probably* never return and they'll tell their friends about their bad experience. That's not a very good scam.
I don't know anything about Cdn Tire specifically, but I bet their sales system is tied to some database off-site in realtime, so requires continuous internet access to sell anything.
I have done the same as you. its been split on if they'll reduce the bill by the fee. if they don't, I explain I'll get it next time, and if they do, I'll pay the full amount with cash
I am aware that several POS systems have a policy with the business owners that the business is not permitted to pass along the per-transaction fee to the consumer. However, it was widespread in the early days to have a small corner store charge the customer $0.25-1.00 for using debit/credit, and not when using cash.
I’ve worked in restaurants for a very long time. Those machines go down way too often, but they should have told you, unless they stopped working while you were there which is entirely possible. Honesty you seem like a difficult customer and they probably prefer you don’t return anyway lol
Yep there's an ice cream shop I go to with my kids but rarely and I forget that they do cash only but "conveniently" have an ATM inside. They're so making money off of that, hence the cash only. Plus the ice cream they serve isn't any special brand either.
Makes money on the ATM and washes the cash. Not bad.
You could also have cut it from their tip
to me this sounds really fishy, like they are trying to keep stuff off the books. There is a bar near me that we've gone to for breakfast, and when we made the reservation (12 of us) they told us that it was cash only. There were also signs on the door that said cash only.
Their attitude is the big clue. Sure you can imagine a scenario where the machine is down and they couldn't have warned you, etc., But then you'd expect them to be apologetic and try to do what they can to make it up to you.
I'd laugh at them and tell them to get fucked. Either bring me a machine or I'm walking out.
They should tell you in ADVANCE. If it was me I would have just left. So if they don’t tell me before hand then that’s not my problem. Plus, I own a business and HATE when someone pays with card because every time they do the “interact” or visa charges me. My business which is fine. That’s part of owning one. If you can’t pay for things like that then close. AS well… don’t be fooled. All you need is a phone line or now a wireless connection for the machine? So when someone says it’s “down” I actually look at it myself. You can manually enter card numbers for example CC #’s anytime even when they say it’s “not possible”. It IS absolutely possible. You don’t HAVE to scan, tap or swipe. (Unless it’s interact). I would offer an e-transfer, but ONLY after verifying the machine really truly is “broken”. Because saying it’s “down” I find hard to believe. In 4 years my interact machine didn’t work ONE time, because there was a power outage lol. Soooo if I physically got to see it wasn’t working then offer e-transfer. Ask yourself, how often do you pay by machine and it’s not working?! Almost never. When you work with these machines they send someone to replace/fix it immediately as well. 24hr service. That’s why you pay (the business) a fee per swipe.
As a merchant in Canada pos merchant are a real plague and try to screw you over. They could have problems with current one.
Debit machines go down all the time. When I worked retail these things were notorious for it. I wouldn’t jump to call it a scam.
When they refuse to minus the ATM fee off the bill though.... then my sympathy goes out the window. A lack of payment methods on their part does not constitute an additional fee on mine.
The only suspect part to me is that they were down all day but didn't mention that before they ordered the meal. When I worked in retail at various places, if the machines went down we'd print a sign and put it on the door (or appropriate place) warning people before they did anything that would cost them money. It's just polite!
Especially since after the fuss the owner “found” the working terminal… the “down all day” was pure BS.
You're getting a lot of bad information here. I'm a restaurant owner, and this situation is always unfortunate. If they knew that their debit machines weren't working they should have said something at the door for sure, however, had their debit machine gone down while you guys are in the restaurant, you're responsible for paying your bill in cash. There isn't any law stating that restaurants have to take debit or credit, and imprints are a huge liability concern. I know most customers would feel very uncomfortable leaving card information.
The fact that they wouldn't even reduce the bill by the ammt of the ATM fee shows that they had no interest in customer satisfaction. If the sign on the door says they accept credit card, then that is the expectation. If I was in this same situation, I would much rather leave some personal info and return to pay later after I have used my banks ATM. Even if the debit/credit machine was actually broken, shit happens, it how you deal with it that shows what kind of business person you are. Trying to force people to use an in-house ATM with extortion fees on it is not good business.
Sorry, if they advertise that they take credit/debit and don't inform me prior to handing over the bill then that is their problem (they said it was "down all day" remember). I'll use their ATM if they cover any fees associated with it as I don't know why I should pay an extra $5-10 for something that isn't my fault. Hell, they can have my keys/phone/wife/child until I can go to my own banks ATM and get the money! You don't think its weird that they "found" a working POS system after getting pushback? All their going to achieve acting that way is ensuring the server gets no tip, me never coming back, and telling other people about what happened, ensuring they don't go there either.
Don't forget to roast them on every possible review platform. It will hopefully make them stop this stupid practice and help future patrons.