Sugah, you know I’m kidding.
Here, have one of Granny’s tea-cakes. It takes the grumpies out.
My debit card has a long number at the bottom, entitled “Card no.” Which is apparently NOT the number retailers want when they ask for my “card number”. They want the big number typed across the middle of the card. I have learned over the years which card number they want, but I sympathise with people who don’t know which number they mean.
I remember having one which said “Card number 1”, which was the number to be entered when a form asked for “issue number”. (The ‘issue number’ thing is possibly unique to some UK debit cards)
I’m a HS chemistry teacher. My theory is that people overall haven’t gotten dumber, you just are noticing more because now you’re trying to teach everyone real academics. When my dad was in HS in the fifties, only the real nerds took chemistry, but now half the school or something does.
I have a student who does NOT belong at our very academic school. He tests extremely low for auditory comprehension, and his parents don’t seem to know or care, which it is is debatable. Fifty years ago he’d take metal shop and checkbook math, and eventually he’d be a grocery checker or something, but now he’s required to pass chemistry at a very good HS. He can’t. He gives me answers that are so far off the mark that I can’t figure out how he got them.
It’s unreasonable to ask 50% of the population to become competent at stuff like that at the rate we’d like them to progress.
“Half the population is below the median intelligence.”
Years ago, my Dad was president of the board of an independent local store. His store card was number 2 (the store manager had card number 1).
I would have expected a lot of “1234567812345678” or “12 34 56 78…” and things like that, guess it’s my pessimistic view of the general public coming out.
I used to work at a call centre. The contract I was on received calls from American subscribers to Time Warner cable, internet & telephone. I thought we all spoke the same language but apparently not …
At least 50% of those calls were regarding a recently received TW bill that they wanted to dispute.
“I’d be happy to help you with that. What is your account number?”
“Uhhhhhhhhh account number?”
“Yes, the account number is printed in blue.”
“Blue? I don’t see no account number.”
“Do you have your bill in front of you sir/ma’am?”
“Yeah but there’s no account number on it.”
“Midway down the page there should be a number printed in blue ink - do you see that?”
“Yeah.”
“Well that is your account number - could you read it to me please?”
“All of it?”
“Yes, sir/ma’am - all of it.” :rolleyes:
“But I just have a question about my bill.”
“Yes, but I need to be able to look at your bill online to help you with your question.”
“Well I just want to know why it’s so much.”
“Could I have your account number please, and I’d be happy to help you with that.”
And so on …
Super frustrating because we had to be polite, cheerful and helpful. The frustration in trying to explain a basic cable bill to someone who couldn’t even figure out how to find their account number, was excruciating. And it had to be done in less than 3 minutes or you lost marks on the call. When a minute and a half is used up helping some dumb-a$$ figure out what the blue numbers are, whew … the pressure was on.
God I miss that job - NOT!!!
Still an example of poor design.
If it’s so important, why isn’t it printed in large friendly letters at the top of the page rather than hidden halfway down?
Why can’t you use something the person does know easily as a lookup value, like the phone number associated with the account?
This is the corollary problem to the one offered above, processes that serve the business at the expense of the customer.
The phone number could change your conversation to:
“May I have your account number?”
“Account number?”
“…or your phone number, please?”
“Ah, 123-456-7890”
“Thank you.”
…better yet, do a Caller-ID lookup of the calling user there’s a good chance their call would arrive at your desk with the screen already loaded with their info. Only lookup their account if they called from an unassociated source number.
I missed the last 4 digits of my credit card the first time I read it out. As mentioned by others, it was because it was obscured by the hologram. Quite possibly the guy on the other end thought I was an idiot, but probably not as much as the woman who I accidentally read out my internet banking password to.
No way, dude. What happens when your cable/internet/voip goes out and you call from your neighbor’s phone, and your neighbor also has the same service? All sorts of confusion, is what.
Indeed. What if you’re calling from work, the only place you can be in normal office hours? What if you have a new phone? What if you’ve had the account for 15 years and changed your phone number eight times?
Nice idea in theory, but not realistically practical.
Another thing that confuses me is the additional three digits that is supposed to be protection against fraud. Which it certainly isn’t if someone else actually has your physical card.
Anyway, it is sometimes called a CVV Number, sometimes a Code Number, sometimes a Security Number, and sometimes the number they’re actually after isn’t printed on certain brands of card and the form/account won’t accept your details without it. Not to mention PIN numbers, expiry dates, and serial numbers, all or none of which may be printed, embossed, or invisibly associated with your card.
Argh!
I always figured this happens for pretty much the same reason computer people group binary digits in groups of four – it’s easier to deal with small “chunks” of numbers. And spaces are a lot easier (closer to reflex) to type than dashes.
Of course, in the case of binary digits, I’d say that the primary reason for the grouping by four is the technical facilitation of conversion to hexadecimal. But chunking is helpful when attempting to reduce transcription errors.
The extra whatever-you-call-it number on the back is mainly meant for Internet transactions, and it’s meant specifically to insure that you DO have the physical card. Remember that there have been a large number of electronic thefts of credit card numbers (in the thousands or millions at a time) from various databases over the last few years. These numbers aren’t very useful (to the criminals) at physical merchants, but they’re great for use on the Internet – until you add the extra digits that are on the physical card.
Physical card theft is an issue, too, of course. But at least only one person can have your physical card at a time, and it’s likely you’d notice it missing. The number alone can come from a database, a store receipt, or any number of other places, and you’d never know until the bill came.
That works great until enough idiots start storing it in their database along with the card number. You know they will, even if the card issuer says to never do it.
Brilliant! This wins my award for “Funniest Thing I’ve Read On The Boards All Week”… you’ve cheered me up no end. 
Personally, I am amazed how many people cannot work an EFTPOS machine. They’ll say they want to pay for their purchase with their EFTPOS or Credit Card, and I’ll tee up the transaction and then say “OK, swipe your card through the EFTPOS terminal there on the counter and follow the prompts on the screen.”
They just stare at the unit blankly then look at me. “What do I do?” they ask.
:smack:
For fuck’s sake, EFTPOS has been around for 20 years or so. EVERYONE who has a bank account has an EFTPOS card. It’s not “New Technology”. It’s not rocket science. You can work an ATM, right? EFTPOS is the same thing. n00bs. :mad:
Me too. A hijack…
I just entered data into a complain form for Pizza Hut and received an error message, “Use only alphabetic and numeric characters.” So I stripped out all commas and periods and tried again. Same message. It took several tries before I found out that it disliked was lower case characters. :rolleyes: Cheesh. The programmer not only didn’t consider that someone would use those (he could have converted them all to upper case with a single command, regardless of language), but didn’t supply a useful error message.
How much testing did this routine go through before being sprung on the public?
I interpret that as meaning “We don’t really want your complaints and you have to go through this test to make sure you’re really serious about it.” Or “We don’t want to spend a lot of money developing a complaint form.”
If EFTPOS is like Interac, then every store has a different machine depending on what bank they use… one bank will issue a machine where the swipe area is across the top, black stripe facing you, another one will require the stripe to face away, and then the next store over will have the swipe area down the side, either stripe facing left or right, and they all have little post-it-notes giving instructions or a weird little pictograph that requires five minutes holding the card in your hand to see if it’s in the orientation matched by the drawing, and by the time you figure it out, the cashier has grumpily taken the card from your hand and swiped it for you.
It is a lot easier for a cashier… who uses the machine every single day and knows how to orient the card in his/her sleep… to do the swiping than it is to expect every single customer to figure out this machine, which is different from the other 6 he/she deals with more regularly. Also, some stores place the machines in odd places, so you have to take a second to look at everything on the counter to find it (keeping in mind that they don’t all look the same, so at a glance, its location might not be immediately obvious) and still others have them oriented towards the cashier, so the customer would have to reach over, turn it around and then use it, which just seems impolite!
As for following the instructions: some machines have buttons that say “CHECKING” or “SAVINGS” and others have “CHKNG” and “SVNG” and others have buttons that are above or below or next to arrows which point to a screen that gives the account options, and then the “OK” button is never the same colour or in the same place, etc. And since 99% of people have their Interac set-up with their checking accounts, then the checking button is usually faded away and unidentifiable other than the fact that it’s the same colour and next to the savings account button. You hope.
And if the customer had opted to use a credit card, then all the swiping would be done by the cashier, and all they have to do is sign a piece of paper at the end.
I can very easily understand why some people would be uncomfortable with doing it themselves when you, the cashier, are there and know how to do it and can get it done a lot faster.
I still wonder how stores think that absolutely every single customer, of varying ages, experiences, country of origins (not all countries have systems like this!), eyesight, dexterity, social anxiety and any other number of reasons why using these machines themselves would be a bit tougher, should be able to do it themselves. As a cashier, it doesn’t take a lot of time to take the card, swipe it, hand the card back, and tell the customer what to do, and guide them through it if they need it.
Just to clarify: I’m 27, I have been using Interac as my primary source of paying for just about anything and everything since it came out, and I am quite comfortable using various Interac terminals. But I have witnessed very rude, frustrated and aggressive cashiers dealing with customers who take a few seconds longer to sort out how to use the terminals at their store, and it just astounds me.
My favorite is when the automated phone system asks you to key in your account number to speed up processing or whatnot, and then when it transfers you to a human operator, the person asks you for you account number again. Why in the fuck was I directed to key in my number in the first place, if the person I get transferred to doesn’t get this information passed along?