Safeway Credit Card Readers

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storewanderer
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by storewanderer »

I thought Walgreens had RFID readers in the past. I've never seen one at Arbys; Arbys is strange in northern Nevada with Lunan of Chicago holding the franchises for Reno, Sparks, and Fallon; Loves Travel Stops holding the franchise for Fernley; and individuals holding the franchises for Minden and Carson City. They all have different pricing, promotions, hours, etc. Occassonally they will run a unified coupon offering but the coupon offering sometimes excludes Fernley and sometimes excludes one of the Lunan unis that is inside a casino.

If you look at the new Walgreens pinpad, the bottom/side of it that faces you may have a small slot. This small slot is where you will put a credit card once (or if) "Pin and Chip" is enabled in the United States. Wal Mart has been moving to those readers too. I think Kohls also has them. It is very hard to sign the screen due to that plastic cover that goes over the pinpad. I have noticed some variants of that plastic cover being a foam that makes it much easier to sign the screen.
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by Alpha8472 »

"Pin and Chip" will probably not come to the US anytime soon. Banks shudder at the cost of equipping all credit cards with expensive smart chips. Merchants would also freak at the cost of replacing all of their pin pads once again.

Arby's restaurants are owned by many different owners. Each individual store owner seems to be able to set their own prices and choose the type of cash register and pin pad. McDonald's is different. They make sure that every single McDonald's franchise accepts credit cards and has RFID readers.
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by storewanderer »

I'm sure it is very simple with "pin and chip." The cost to install all this stuff, reissue cards, etc. simply does not pay off for them in preventing card fraud so they are dragging their feed on it in the US. Still, more and more countries are moving to this. Eventually, the US is probably also going to have to. It will cost more to install all this than the fraud savings that they project to realize.

I've also heard the transaction time with "pin and chip" is quite a bit longer than the signature based cards; it takes longer to process since the customer has to enter a pin and also supposedly takes longer to authorize for some reason.

I did notice yesterday the post office has installed card readers that are pin and chip enabled.
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by Alpha8472 »

Kmart has installed credit card readers just like the Walgreens ones with a slot for the pin and chip credit cards. I am surprised since Kmart seems like they are dead anyway. Why bother spending any money at all on new equipment? Kmart previously used credit card readers that were just like the old Longs Drugs ones before CVS came along.
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by krogerclerk »

The new Kmart readers are adaptable to signature capture, though at present a signature slip is printed. Sears is in need of new card readers more than Kmart. Sears was one of the pioneers with signature capture, and the signature area is worn out from pen usage and utilizes older technology than other signature capture card readers.

Now that Walmart has adopted signature capture, the rest of retail is following suit. In part the manufacturers are forced to produce readers in a quantity suitable to Walmart, which ultimately means it's becomes what's available to the rest. Also, it means the signature capture is now the norm once it's found in Walmart.

It would make sense to go ahead and utilized pin and chip readers as they are going to be coming down the road, rather than go through another round of reader conversions in a few years. It's almost like planned obsolescence in automobile design.
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by Alpha8472 »

Finally, after many months new credit card readers have been installed in more Safeway stores. These Verifone credit card readers are just like the ones that have shown up at the recently converted CVS stores, but without the Paywave or PayPass attachment.

I like the key pad because you can press buttons to type in your phone number for the club card program. The screen is smaller than the older credit card readers, but it is now in full color with graphics. The old card readers were really scratched up from all of the poking on the cheap plastic screen.

I assume that they will install these readers in the rest of their stores very soon.
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by tesg »

I believe the reason you're seeing so much new equipment coming online now is new regulations from the major credit card companies (some of which have been made law in certain states) requiring retailers to use readers that comply with new PCI (Payment Card Industry) regulations.

I don't have the clear story, but it seems some of these regulations are mandatory effective July 1.
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Re: Safeway Credit Card Readers

Post by storewanderer »

The PCI compliance deadline has been extended two years. It involves mainly debit card transactions. Either you install compliant equipment or you stop accepting debit cards. Some payment processing companies have continued with the original deadline of this year and that is one of the reasons why we are seeing a surge of new equipment. Many retailers were complaining about the costs to install new equipment. if the new equipment costs so much then quit accepting debit cards and just accept credit cards and see how much more that costs. Of course then they just go on and on about that the processing costs are too high. No win. This new equipment still can't take a very legible signature. Someone really should have worked on that before all of this installing took place.
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