I'm doing a revealed shop tomorrow and need to take a picture of the credit card machine with the info on the machine. The problem is I haven't seen a machine like that in at least 10 years. I just looked it up and found they are still in use in the US but not other countries. [blogs.wsj.com] I'm in Canada. I'm concerned I will not be paid for the shop if they don't have one of these. I just emailed the company. The instructions mention several times that you need this picture. I know it is logical that if they don't have it then I can't take the picture, but we've all done shops where we did everything possible then did not get paid. Just wondering if anyone has been in this situation before.

I would suggest visiting a sister store and see how they handle credit cards. The article does not say the machine is going extinct, it says---------->"Beginning later next year, you will stop swiping the credit card. Instead, you will insert your card into a slot, just like people do in much of the rest of the world, where the machine will read a microchip, not a magnetic stripe. You’ll still be signing for the time being, but the new system also enables the use of PIN numbers, if card issuers decide to add them to their cards." Key words----STOP SWIPING to WILL INSERT.

In an age of cellphone "pay system", this machine seems to invite the person who still needs credit cards to buy or pay for there service. How do credit card carriers in Canada pay for services? When you take your picture, make a remark to the effect of saying----->"Let me take a picture of this, I thought the type of machine went the way of the Gremlin car"

Or take a picture of whatever credit card machine they do have. Maybe the Client wants to know if they are compliant with the "new" machine.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2015 12:14PM by sojo917.

I should not have posted that link at 4:34 am. It is not showing the type of machine that shop was looking for. They were looking for the OLD kind that just makes an imprint, where you would use carbon paper and get a sort of print of the raised numbers on the card. They wanted the picture of the raised imprint from that. I think those are kind of antique. I mentioned it to the clerk and she said that some places still have them, places that can't afford an electronic one. There was one where I worked 16 years ago. I just took a picture of the debit machine. It's all anyone could do. Very odd that they would be looking for the old kind.

Those are affectionately called "knuckle crushers." It's possible they are required to keep one of the knuckle crushers around in case of power outage; you can still take the credit card imprint and there may be a way to input the data by telephone after the power comes back on. I'm the treasurer for a 501c3 that operates a thrift store and that's what we used when we first opened four years ago. The manager would dial in at the end of the night and input the information over the phone. But the fees were ridiculous and I found Square. It was cheaper to get them a cell phone and plan for $45 a month and pay the 2.75% flat fee than to pay all the merchant fees for calling them in (around $90 a month).

(Gotta wonder what Square is going to do with the new technology. Their devices are "swipe" based and about an inch square and a quarter inch thick. No way to insert a card all the way to the chip into one of those.)

Since it's a revealed audit, you should be able to ask them if they have "one of those old manual credit card things to use if the power goes out" and they'll probably haul one out from under a counter somewhere that you can take a picture of. But also get pics of their electronic readers in case you should have pics of both. (The Autozone I've been working at still has a knuckle crusher under the counter and they just upgraded some of the electronic keypads recently.)

It actually was a thrift store, but they didn't have one, even after I asked for it. I had never heard them them called "knuckle crushers" before.

I think the guy at our bank called it that, LOL.

If they don't have it, you can't take a picture. Just explain that they didn't have one. If they don't accept that answer, please come back and tell us who the MSC was so we are warned not to take those shops.

When Books-A-Million went to the new machines we were ordered by the home office to return the "knuckle crushers" so they could be destroyed. We also had to return the forms that went with them.