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My first Discover card last October was the blue circle one, but I decided to get a normal silver one back in July. I stopped for gas within a few days of getting it and the pump rejected it, so I just swiped the old one still in my wallet. A couple of days later I used the silver one at Jiffy Lube and it worked fine, so I took the old one out of my wallet.
Sure enough I was at Sam's Club and the card would not work. The cashier was very rude, and one customer piped up with "Yeah, those new cards don't work sometimes." I was so embarrassed. I called Discover and they sent me a replacement card and it works just fine. I shredded the old defective one. The next time I went to Sam's I asked the cashier if she could manually enter the card number, and she said, "No, but a supervisor can." If the number had been entered manually, it would have worked.
Silly me for not thinking of that before.
it could have been their machine or the strip on the card. i'd use it again, since you can rule out the strip being damaged if it works elsewhere.
I know this is kind of a "duh" thought for a lot of us, but if someone is new at using credit cards or doesn't use them often, I think it's good to point out that this is a good reason to carry more than one card if you have it.
We are teaching our 16 y/o daughter to responsibly use (our) credit cards. She's an AU on our accounts. This kid is so shy that I'm sure she would want to fall through the floor if her card was ever rejected. She would not know how to handle this. We tell her to get out another card to use and then tell us ASAP so that we can contact the cc company if there is a problem. People new at credit don't always intuitively know this. This is especially important overseas where things can get really funky at times. We're dealing with technology here, and there's lots that can go wrong anywhere along the line.
@jaysdad2k wrote:My first Discover card last October was the blue circle one, but I decided to get a normal silver one back in July. I stopped for gas within a few days of getting it and the pump rejected it, so I just swiped the old one still in my wallet. A couple of days later I used the silver one at Jiffy Lube and it worked fine, so I took the old one out of my wallet.
Sure enough I was at Sam's Club and the card would not work. The cashier was very rude, and one customer piped up with "Yeah, those new cards don't work sometimes." I was so embarrassed. I called Discover and they sent me a replacement card and it works just fine. I shredded the old defective one. The next time I went to Sam's I asked the cashier if she could manually enter the card number, and she said, "No, but a supervisor can." If the number had been entered manually, it would have worked.
Silly me for not thinking of that before.
The merchant's transaction fees are different (higher) if the card info is manually entered.
LynetteM wrote:
I know this is kind of a "duh" thought for a lot of us, but if someone is new at using credit cards or doesn't use them often, I think it's good to point out that this is a good reason to carry more than one card if you have it.
We are teaching our 16 y/o daughter to responsibly use (our) credit cards. She's an AU on our accounts. This kid is so shy that I'm sure she would want to fall through the floor if her card was ever rejected. She would not know how to handle this. We tell her to get out another card to use and then tell us ASAP so that we can contact the cc company if there is a problem. People new at credit don't always intuitively know this. This is especially important overseas where things can get really funky at times. We're dealing with technology here, and there's lots that can go wrong anywhere along the line.
@creditwherecreditisdue wrote:
@jaysdad2k wrote:My first Discover card last October was the blue circle one, but I decided to get a normal silver one back in July. I stopped for gas within a few days of getting it and the pump rejected it, so I just swiped the old one still in my wallet. A couple of days later I used the silver one at Jiffy Lube and it worked fine, so I took the old one out of my wallet.
Sure enough I was at Sam's Club and the card would not work. The cashier was very rude, and one customer piped up with "Yeah, those new cards don't work sometimes." I was so embarrassed. I called Discover and they sent me a replacement card and it works just fine. I shredded the old defective one. The next time I went to Sam's I asked the cashier if she could manually enter the card number, and she said, "No, but a supervisor can." If the number had been entered manually, it would have worked.
Silly me for not thinking of that before.
The merchant's transaction fees are different (higher) if the card info is manually entered.
I did not know that!
I have noticed that the receipts usually say "swiped".
I did have backups. Sam's only takes Discover, Mastercard and debit cards. So Amex and Visa won't help. Although they have an ATM machine right there.