Are There Vending Machines That Take Debit/Credit Cards?

[Olentzero]

@Martini_Enfield

Not only have I seen vending machines that take EFTPOS/Credit cards, I saw some a few years ago that you could send a text message from your mobile phone (provided you were with a specific carrier) and the purchase price would be added to your phone bill and the machine would dispense your product.

Haven’t seen any of those around for a while, though, so I’m guessing they were largely experimental and that it didn’t work out.

waves at Martini from Post #16 Maybe not where you are! Over here they’re carrier-independent. Of course, while typing this I realized I paid almost $4 total for the privilege… :eek:

[lost4life]

The worst invention for my bank account was jukeboxes that take credit cards!

[Max_Torque]

@Meagan

Every vending machine around my university campus takes debit cards, but only because they were originally modified to accept “Dining Dollars”, a program which puts money on your student id specifically for food.

They had (and probably still have) a similar system at my college, called “Tech Express”. You or your parents could put some money on your ID, and you could pay by swiping it. They added the functionality to the vending machines on campus around 1993, I think, so they’ve been around a while. The system was so ubiquitous that even some off-campus vendors signed on to the Tech Express system and took ID-swiped payments.

[suranyi]

@Student_Driver

I could see them being in airports, but in Macy’s? I suppose it’s a way to sell merchandise while safeguarding against in-store theft, but that seems a bit odd.

Yep, as **Martini Enfield **said, they have them in Macy’s all over the San Francisco Bay Area now. I saw it at the one in Newpark Mall, in Newark, California.

[robert_columbia]

There’s at least one soda machine that takes credit cards at a rest area off of I95 northbound in Maryland. I can’t remember which side of Baltimore it’s on, but I think it was south of Baltimore.