I was in an antique shop in Minoqua today on my way home from Bayfield. I collect tintypes, cabinet cards, cartes de visite, pretty much any photograph from before 1910. It’s fun, and it’s exciting to find a cool photo that’s a bargain. I spent 25 minutes digging through the piles of pictures there until I found two good ones - one from Mercer, Wisconsin of a young woman in full traditional Finnish dress, and one from Tomahawk of two young men posing with their shotguns. I go up to the register and the woman rings me up and asks me for $15.83. I hand her my debit card and a look of total revulsion comes over her face. “We don’t take plastic for anything under $20,” she says.
Now, this is where reading the Dope came back and bit me in the butt. I remember reading more than one thread here on how merchants aren’t permitted to have a minimum amount requirement, so I blurted out to her, “But isn’t that illegal?” Wrong thing to say. Firstly, because it’s not illegal as in the cops are coming for you, it’s just in violation of their agreement with Visa. Secondly, because crazy antique shop lady wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. She starts sputtering, “How dare you threaten me in my own store! Out! Out!” And when I say sputtering, I mean that I had to wipe the spittle off my forehead. She grabbed the photos and threw them behind the counter and stared at me til I left, huffing indignantly the whole time.
Honestly, I hope Minoqua’s amateur theater group knows about her. A first rate performance.
But I’m still pissed I didn’t get my pictures.
Wow, I’m sorry that happened to you too. Totally annoying.
For what it’s worth I have found that a lot of antique dealers are generally crabby no matter how much money you’re willing to spend. I don’t know why! Ditto for a lot of flea market vendors. I am currently a semi-regular seller at a large weekly indoor/outdoor flea market and I honestly try to go out of my way to NOT be crabby to people.
I don’t know about the debit card policy thing in antique stores as I’ve never run into that antique shopping (watch, it’ll happen the next time I go! :eek: )
Retaliate by reporting her to your credit card company. Either Visa or MasterCard will do, probably. Here’s Mastercard’s merchant reporting webpage, one of the boxes at the bottom reads “In order to make a MasterCard purchase, the merchant/retailer required a minimum or maximum amount.”
I understand, but I bet if you had played your cards right, you could have gotten three photos for $20.
A Doper awhile back suggested using cash when in shops like this (i.e. individually owned), as they’ll often offer a discount without you even asking. Buying more stuff than you would have otherwise might have the same effect (getting the discount, but you’d have to ask).
A lot of the ones with good stuff are complete misanthropes from years of letting collecting and trading dominate their lives.
A lot of the ones without good stuff harbor deep self-loathing about all the overinflated price tags and dishonest descriptions they’ve put over through the years.
Okay, I’ll buy that! It’s as good an explanation as any. I’m still intimidated by antique dealers, though. And what’s the deal with the little dishes of candy all over the stores? I’ve always thought that was weird.
By the way, I love the word misanthrope. Cracks me up for some reason.