Every time I'm in the US I'm amazed that I have give my card to the waiter who gets the card to some place and gets its back after few mins.

Don't people have wireless terminals in the US like the rest of the world?

Tabs work just fine in europe where mag stripe payments have been phased out. You pay at the end in the pin terminal.

And in Canada. 99.9% of the time if the machine asks you to use the magstripe period there's something wrong and the payment isn't going to process regardless.

Originally I was thinking they could handle an open tab like a gas station — place a hold on the card for $X for an open tab. But then, the more I thought about it, I’m not sure I want to be the bartender that has to explain why there was a hold of $100 on a college kid’s debit card.

Sorry you can’t buy lunch, but the hold will get released in a few days, so it’s ok!

There’s got to be a better way…

You could just prepay $X. Then extend it every so often. Any remainder gets refunded at the end. Honestly, in Australia I have not swiped my CC in over a decade.

In some ways we are pretty spoiled here in Australia, with regards to fintech adoption. The local farmers markets either take cash or contactless (or both depending on the stall). Its the literal only remaining place that I visit that takes cash-only at some stalls. Everywhere else is all contactless, all the time.

I suppose so. But it still blows me away that doing basic everyday payments in the largest economy in the world is still so poor and their physical money is terrible.

> Sorry you can’t buy lunch, but the hold will get released in a few days, so it’s ok!

I've bought gas in France with a Monzo card and the pump was able to hold and release money immediately - ~150EUR hold initially, as soon as I put the pump down it adjusted to the real amount.

Seems like the tech to make this happen does exist, it's just a matter of not using a shitty bank.

If the merchant is closing out the preauth correctly, the remainder of the hold is released on the spot.

Do you not give them the card, then they swipe it once at the end and you get it back? How does a stripe affect that?

The whole "giving your card away" thing is so foreign to me (German). Fuck no, I’m not giving you my card. In restaurants and bars they either come by with their handheld terminal, or you go to the machine at the register and simply pay like in any other place.

America having invented the dining (later credit) card, we have some customs remaining from when they worked analog.

I understand why Germany, a poorer country which was late to electronic payments, wouldn't do this; I don't understand the hostility to it. But then, I'm American, we've been doing this longer than you've been alive.

> I understand why Germany, a poorer country which was late to electronic payments, wouldn't do this; I don't understand the hostility to it. But then, I'm American, we've been doing this longer than you've been alive.

You mean payments between banks that take two to three days within the country instead of a regulated maximum of 15 seconds across borders?

It's a shame you're so salty that the rest of the world has far overtaken the US. You may have been doing it "longer", but you've absolutely failed to iterate and are still stuck with obsolete technology that's rife with fraud, for which a more appropriate feeling than saltiness is shame.

Hey, if you are proud of your security issues, good for you :)

The chargeback is always there, in the background, keeping people honest, broadly speaking. I generally wave my watch at something and carry on with my day, due to the innovative work of Americans. I mean probably a few Germans at Apple, but they're Americans now, and that's what matters.

But having a clunky thing at home you stick your debit card in is okay too! I guess.

There are a large number of “smart” tab systems in use in US bars where the system retains your magnetic stripe data for the duration of your visit. You pass off your card, it is swiped and immediately returned. If you don’t settle your tab, it’s automatically settled with a pre-set tip using the stored track data. It’s convenient for bar owners and patrons as the bar doesn’t have leftover cards to deal with and the patron doesn’t have to retrace their steps to recover their forgotten card the next day.

Interesting, I haven't encountered such a system at UK bars/pubs. Either it's entirely pay-as-you-go (easy when everyone has contactless), or, at fancier places, they'll trust you to run a tab without taking a card up front.

> There are a large number of “smart” tab systems in use in US bars where the system retains your magnetic stripe data for the duration of your visit.

What a security nightmare.

More or less a security nightmare than a drawer or tray full of physical credit cards behind a busy bar at night, which is the alternative at US bars? I'd argue that time-shifting card data is actually safer, even if it is often against the merchant agreement.

I really haven't heard of much trouble caused by these systems - of course, they require magnetic stripes in general, which are a massive attack vector, but the bar use case specifically doesn't seem to cause additional issues that I'm aware of. There are so many lower-tech and easy ways to steal magnetic track data, like skimmers, that I don't think compromising bar-back point of sale systems is a particularly high priority for most criminals.

Anyway, this is probably just a small snapshot in time regardless, since once swiped-card transactions finally go away US bars will have to switch to the mobile terminal pay-as-you-go method anyway.

>Once swiped-card transactions finally go away US bars will have to switch to the mobile terminal pay-as-you-go method anyway.

Now you get it.

>> It’s convenient for bar owners and patrons

LOL. It's convenient for bar owners. Patrons doesn't give a shit about that.

Speak for yourself, I can't tell you how many times I've left my card at the bar because of an open tab. Nowadays I'll favor places that give me my card back when I open a tab.

When the alternative is “hold onto the card” and you have to track it down or order a new one, sure it’s more convenient for the customer too…

This is incorrect. All the bars here in maine have no trouble opening a tab, no matter what payment method you have, including cash.

Some establishments take your card as collateral, some actually swipe it into their system to keep track, but that's not that common.

>If you go anywhere where they hold a tab open, such as a bar, you can't do that with tap/chip

???

Yes you can. At least the bars around me have no problem with holding a tab with chip and/or tap. Maybe they just use newer terminals.

So many people here extrapolating a one time issue they once experienced to cover the whole 50 states of the union and all 330 million of us.

Why is that? Due to older machines used or something else?