But I have money!

[ShootMePlease]

This has happened to me personally quite a few times. Rather than get sucky, which I don't have to be as I know I have money in my account, I either call the bank or have them hold my transaction and I go to the ATM and get money. It's certainly not the cashier's fault the credit system isn't working. Just the other day a lady yelled at a concessions girl at the Bon Jovi show because the system was too slow. Other folks in line told her to shut up I just waited the less than 5 minutes it took for my credit card to get run through to get my shirt. Why be an asshole ?

[Shalom]

Funny thing is sometimes it isn't really a decline (I work for a cc company). Sometimes the charge never even get sent to the CC company (not the cashiers fault, the machine just doesn't really send it).

This happens to us sometimes, but the error message is different: if it's a decline, it says specifically "DECLINE, PRESS ENTER"; if it's a problem at the switch, be it a 502, a time out, or what have you, it could say nearly anything else. (There's a third possibility, which is that the register has fallen off the LAN; this was much more common before we wised up and put our router and all our 10BaseT hubs on a UPS. Now it generally means that someone pulled out the Cat-5 from under the register.)

The giveaway, on our system at least, is that if an error comes back from the credit card issuer, it's always in ALL CAPS, whereas our switch sends back errors in Mixed Case.

(Generally this is followed fifteen minutes later by an e-mail from the switch telling us that there are problems processing credit cards. Thanks, geniuses, I figured that out already.)

[bean]

This happens to us sometimes, but the error message is different: if it's a decline, it says specifically "DECLINE, PRESS ENTER"; if it's a problem at the switch, be it a 502, a time out, or what have you, it could say nearly anything else. (There's a third possibility, which is that the register has fallen off the LAN; this was much more common before we wised up and put our router and all our 10BaseT hubs on a UPS. Now it generally means that someone pulled out the Cat-5 from under the register.)

If the register falls offline, at least with us, it still approves credit/check transactions and stores the info to be sent later. Debit and food stamp customers are SOL, so are employees for their employee discount.

Normally, declines are "Decline Authorization" or "Insufficient Funds". If it's a decline, sometimes trying credit (or debit) gets it to go through. If it's a time out on credit or check approval, then a message pops up saying something along the lines of "OFFLINE APPROVAL, CHECK ID" and it's stored for later.

Also, if we're working through a power failure, there's no authorization going on. I'm not sure why the server is on the generator, but the DSL modem didn't even get a UPS....

[Shalom]

Also, if we're working through a power failure, there's no authorization going on. I'm not sure why the server is on the generator, but the DSL modem didn't even get a UPS....

Aid of Rite did you one better, back when I worked there (circa 2001).

We had a power failure (along with the rest of the town, it wasn't just us). While the front end personnel evacuated the customers and slid the doors shut, I shut down the pharmacy terminals and the computer that ran our ScriptPro robot, and then went to the front office to shut down the server (I think an RS/6000 or similar IBM equipment). This last was not technically my job, but I knew nobody else was gonna do it, and if it crashed hard, I wouldn't be able to bring my terminals back up until they fixed it. When I got up there, I found that the genius who'd configured the system had plugged the server into the UPS...

...but the monitor was plugged straight into the wall.

No way was I going to even try to shut that thing down without seeing exactly what I was doing. I shrugged and walked back to the pharmacy, took off my white coat, rolled it up, put it on the floor for a pillow, and took a nap until the lights came back on. Not my problem.

(Oh, yeah. I went out to my car to get my cell phone so I could call the main office and let them know we were in the dark, our phone system being down because it needed line power to operate. They said they'd send us an electrician. I told them not to bother, all he was gonna do was say "Yup, you've got no electricity, that'll be $35 please". So she gave me instructions as to what to do until the power came back on, basically to get all the customers out of the store and the doors secured, and then comes up with the Question of the Year.

"When will the power be coming back on?"

I stared at my phone for a moment, then said "Do I look like God? How am I supposed to answer that question? Ask PSE&G, I have no idea." She said in a much lower voice, "Yeah, I know, dumb question, but $BOSS told me to ask you, so I hadda ask.")

[TheRedHeadOFDoom]

From my experinces, if it declines debit/credit and the person protests, and keeps up the protest... it is a direct connection to how much money they DO NOT have in their account. This was consistantly backed up by watching them go to the ATM, and still fail to withdrawl any monies what so ever. After awhile it was no longer a dreaded activity to inform them. It just became almost sport like.

My favorite times were when they would say it was my machine, and then 3 people behind the person would run cards and have not a single problem. 100 point bonus if they had their girl friend with them.

[Geek King]

Just call the number on the back of the card. How hard is that?

At the Ren Faire out in the middle of nowhere, with no cell reception--surprisingly hard.

I had bought a computer the day before (Sat.) with my debit card and tried to pay the entry fee on Sunday with the same card. Apparently, stupid bank only allowed $900 per day, and counted the whole weekend as one day. Fortunately, a buddy of mine floated me some cash until I could pay him back.