I work in a store owned by Chassidic Jews. We can stay open and sell anything on Sundays, being exempt from the county’s blue laws. It’s been an easy day. Then a big beautiful black woman tries to pay with her American Express card.
Me: We only take Visa, Master Card and Discover
Her: Well, all I have is American Express
Me: We don’t take it.
Her: You don’t take it. Why not?
Me: It’s store policy. I’m sorry.
Her (getting loud enough to attract attention and bring the manager over to my register and the workers out of the aisles): Well, all I have is this card and you are going to take it.
Me: I’m sorry, but I cannot take American Express.
Her (screaming) YEAH, YOU WON’T TAKE IT FOR A N****R, BUT I BET YOU TAKE IT FOR ALL YOUR FUCKING JEW FRIENDS.
At that point I have to clamp my lips to keep from laughing. The manager comes over, cancels her sale, and says in a very quiet voice “Please leave the store and do not come back.”
I look at the manager and ask “Where is the Jewish button on the register?”
Yee Gods, I always hated dealing with assholes and their credit cards.
Had to take them over the phone for one job.
I can’t MAKE it take your card.
There’s no special code I can put in to make it take your card.
I can’t override the decline on your card.
Look lady, there’s nothing I personally can do here. I don’t work for VISA, I can’t modify their computers to make your card work. There is quite literally NOTHING I CAN DO.
Your sob story is interesting, but there’s still nothing I can do to make it take your card.
Wow. You know, if you’d screamed obscenities at the start and told me you had CANCER, I could have pushed the little “be nice” button and made it take your declined card!!! :eek:
I believe AmEx charges retailers 3% or so on purchases, maybe more. There’s a small but significant number that don’t take it for that reason. Consumers with the card should be used to this by now, unless they’re very new members.
According to this, something like 3.5%. Unlike most credit cards, Amex makes its money from merchant fees and annual fees to the cardholder, rather than relying on interest charges.
At the grocery store I work at, we don’t accept any credit cards - cash, check, debit or EBT only. The chain has never taken credit, and in fact only even started taking debit about a decade ago or so. There’s a big sign at the front door that explains this and why (service charges, as noted above) and smaller signs at all the registers.
We still have to have an argument about it once a day or more.
Even worse… I used to accept AmEx at my business because exactly two people wanted to use it.
After a while, AmEx informed me that my sales volume was so low that they would start assessing a $5.95 monthly fee on top of the 3.5% transactional fees.
Guess who doesn’t accept AmEx anymore at all? (Even my Jewish friends are out of luck).
Huh. I thought I was the last Jew (okay, okay, half-Jew, ethnically/culturally speaking) in the world to have an AmEx card, and even I switched to Visa like 20 years ago.
Yeah, I always thought that AmEx was a goyisher card. I have one as my work card, but never for a personal card. You pay a fee, you have to pay it off, and relatively few places take it. Yeah, that’s the card for me.
I’m surprised that the woman in the OP has never run into this before.