Credit Card Scanner Mystery

Something always puzzles me about the credit card scanners at our local Wal Mart. In fact I’m not even sure if that’s the correct term for them, but for the purpose of this post, it will suffice.

What always gets me is that the scanner knows when you’ve swiped a debit card, and it proceeds on accordingly. However, when you swipe a credit card, you are prompted to let the cashier know that you swiped a credit card.

I always hate saying, “hey that was a credit card.” I don’t know why. It just seems awkward and unnecessary to me. My goal in checking out is usually to check out as quickly as possible, and having to take that extra step, even though it seems small, seems unnecessary to me in 2008. Seems like we should be able to make a scanner that doesn’t require letting the cashier know that you just used a credit card.

I also learned a couple new things about credit card scanners this past week.

1.) Apparently they are a pain to use for left handed people. Never really thought about that before, being right handed and all.

2.) What happens to the copy of your signature that is entered into the system and shows up on your receipt? I would like to think that Wal Mart wouldn’t use my signature for nefarious purposes, but you never know.

Credit card scanners at Wal Mart – one of the great mysteries of my life.

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