You know how sometimes a credit card was rejected...

[Vice honcho room temperature]

.. on TV or in the movies usually in like the 80s or so and they would cut it up in front of them. Does that ever actually happen?

[Amazing Kitsune]

Well, when I used to work retail I'd go, "I'm sorry, the card was declined would you like to try it again or use another method of payment."

and people almost always act like I'm accusing them of lying or, even worse, being poor. *gasp*

"THERE'S NOTHING WRONG I JUST CHECKED!~"

We should cut it up in those situations. People get really defensive about it. I just repeat what the computer says, it's not like I independently do a credit check.

[BlackoutCreature]

Jul 24, 2014 20:38:20 GMT -5 Amazing Kitsune said:

Well, when I used to work retail I'd go, "I'm sorry, the card was declined would you like to try it again or use another method of payment."

and people almost always act like I'm accusing them of lying or, even worse, being poor. *gasp*

"THERE'S NOTHING WRONG I JUST CHECKED!~"

We should cut it up in those situations. People get really defensive about it. I just repeat what the computer says, it's not like I independently do a credit check.

When I was working in retail I would always get the person who's credit card got declined and then start blaming me saying I hit a secret button on the register that they couldn't see to cause it to be declined.

Ok, I did a quick Google search and discovered the answer is... sorta.

Basically back in the day before credit card readers and the like, the way stores used credit cards was by taking an impression of the card on a piece of paper and then having the customer sign it. The credit card companies would send books to these stores every so often listing credit card numbers that were either fraudulent, stolen or just plain owed too much money on. If a customer presented one of those cards, the store was to keep it and send it back to the credit card company. If the customer protested, then the store was supposed to cut it in half and return the pieces back to the customer.

For a short period of time after moving from the paper system to telephones, this continued in a way. Basically if the card got declined and the card number was on a most wanted list (basically they had to consider you performing some kind of pretty major fraud) the bank would phone the retailer and tell them to cut up the card. They stopped this pretty quickly when they realized that one, this is unnecessary, and two, this was pretty dangerous for the retailer.

Checking online there are apparently some retailers that will still cut up the card. This is not recommended by any credit card company nor apart of any of their policies when it comes to dealing with dodgy cards. Legally it's questionable as well.

[MC Blowfish]

I had my debit card rejected once and it's embarrassing. It wasn't even my fault, I had plenty of money, it was the credit card reader. The guy wouldn't run it manually. I had to use my credit card and panicked the entire time until I checked my balance.

I've worked retail and I've had cards rejected from customers. Most people are cool about it. I don't think I ever had someone ever freak out on me.

[Deleted]

I feel really bad for people who completely fall apart and lose their composure when their card is rejected or denied.

How low is your sense of self-worth that you get THAT upset over something so trivial?

Anyway - it happened to me once. One of my credit cards was rejected because of a security measure (I made a big purchase that was unusual for my account) and my other card was one they didn't accept (Discover). I was a little embarassed for holding up the line, but other than that I just paid in cash.