CASH TALKS BS WALKS

Currently the US credit card system is down. It has been down for 45 minutes. No one without cash can purchase gas, food or any other necessities.

95% of our customers in the last hour have not had cash.

Gun sales - 0
Ammunition sales - 0

Just remember in the future - CARRY CASH!

UPDATE !!!!!!!!!!!!18:32 HRS
85% of the US visa is down.
40,000 transactions/minute are not going thru.

UPDATE - 20:10 HRS
VISA is still down.

I always carry at least some cash. Burger King doesn't take ATM cards. Neither do vending machines.

But there's a limit to what I'll carry. I'm not going to walk around all the time with enough cash to buy a gun.

Think of it as pent-up demand ... that is what the automotive business is hoping is happening right now - though of course the vehicles will likely be a bit smaller.

Seriously, as a business-owner that has got to be VERY frustrating.

I just heard about a new credit card scam being pulled on gas stations around here.

Credit card thieves climb on the roof of a gas station, use aluminum foil to cover an antenna used to send/receive credit card info, the credit card readers stop working, gas stations start doing manual credit card transactions which allow thieves to use stolen cards without being discovered, and by the time a repair person arrives and finds the foil-covered antenna the thieves are long gone with cars full of gas.

One of the first jobs I had I used to get a ride into work with a coworker who always carried $2000 to $3000 in cash on him or locked in his car. This was back when minimum wage was a bit more than $2 an hour. His claim, borne out by his successes, was that if you came across across a deal you had leverage if you could act right then, in cash, and dazzle the seller with a fan of dead presidents.

One day coming back from work we saw a boat for sale. He asked I minded a short detour. Figuring I could learn something I agreed to a stop. We stopped, looked over the boat and carefully read the sign. Emphasizing the cash-and-carry nature of the deal, a deal that could be concluded -cash in hand- in the next five minutes gave him a lot of leverage. When he fanned the fist full of crisp, new dollars the owners eyes bugged out.

The owner wanted $1500 but after seeing the cash and understanding the boat would be gone immediately he settled for $1000. Writing a check and having to delay the conclusion of the deal wouldn't preclude bargaining. But I doubt it would have had so much impact. The deal-no deal, make the call now nature of the deal favored cash and gave him tremendous leverage.

Five minutes later we backed up the car and dragged off the boat. This boat was sold a week later for $1800. A quick $800 profit back when $800 was better than two weeks wage at a good job.

He made a good bit of extra cash buying boats and guns and tools and vehicles. Always making a good profit by using the leverage and power of cash money and the offer of a deal concluded Now.

Money talks. People listen.

The whole US credit card system is NOT down...

My work is closely tied to the cc industry and I can tell you right now that it depends on where you are located and who you as a business are relying on as your cc processor.

40,000 transactions per minute is a literal drop in the bucket and many of these transactions are duplicates as people keep retrying to auth the same card.

If you are using First Data services which processes Envoy, Nabanco, CES and a couple of others, yes their system is down and should be back online shortly.

All other cc processors are online and working fine......

But WHY was it down?

Sue

Sorry guys, guess I should have been more careful.

I'm willing to bet he can't answer that any more than I can say why the systems I support go down. Privilaged information, half the time it comes back up without explination of what happened from up top.

That being said, a dollar per mile to get home, in small bills, is always with me. A second such packet is hidden in my car.

I used to work with a guy who kindasorta did the same thing. He would find someone who ran out of gas and had no funds, but did have a Coleman stove or something that would be swapped for some cash for gas. Old Ben got a lot of good gear cheap that way.

I always have a couple of hundreds tucked away in my wallet, I have been there done that where a credit card just wouldn't work...

The system came back up late last night. Many travelers were stranded without gas or food.

The last time this happened a few months ago it was the 800 lines going down.

The customers who use credit cards not only pay a higher price for their products, they are also running a risk.

It is just a heads up on the value of cash.

I am about the same as OBG, I keep $100 to $200 in my wallet and am a believer that cash does really help "Seal the Deal". I also keep $25 in my other wallet (Credit Card / Work ID Wallet) just in case I loose/forget my main wallet.

The problem I have is that my DW never carries much cash, so when she needs some, she just takes it from my wallet (which is stored on top of the fridge). I usually know when she has done this (she never closes it correctly) but it can leave me short at times.

We have coins in Canada now up to $2 and I usually spend this at coffee shops. Last Christmas my son bought me a swipe card for use at my favourite coffee shop (Tim Hortons) I keep it on the visor of the truck and it is much easier than digging for change when using the drive thru.

Mike

In our house we one Credit Card to buy almost everything from stores, the reason is the "Rewards" program. Almost one percent of our purchases is rewarded back in points, I convert these points into Registered Retirement Savings Program products at our Bank, then claim the deduction on my income tax (kind of a win/win I think).

I should also add that we do not carry a balance on the cards so there is no interest charges.

But it does need electricity and the Credit Card system to be running to function, so I carry cash also.

Mike

Retailers don't give discounts for cash any more (at least up here), so just about everything goes on the credit card. Like Mike, I either get Air Miles points or 1% back, so it's a better deal (I pay off the entire balance every month).

A lot of gas stations still have manual card machines for backup, despite the fraud risk. I've never been stuck yet. Interac would be another matter.

If I'm travelling anywhere, I'll have at least $100 and preferably $200 in cash. I avoid using Interac in fast food places etc. because of the amount of double-swiping that goes on.

I also keep $20 hidden in each car for emergency gas / coffee / food should I or DW lose our cards or wallet. I should bump up that amount -- twenty bucks doesn't buy much gas any more.

The only place i know that still gives discounts if paying by cash are chinese restaurants, mainly in north america. East to West of Canada and the USA, 90%+ of chinese restaurants i've been to will give you a discount if paying by cash.

Why just them, no idea... but a few more people will pay by cash if this option is avaiable (not the ones living off of credit cards, but the few of us out there that see an opportunity to save a little coin)... I know I would.

I have always found that cash has a way of clarifying things...

John E

"...I also keep $25 in my other wallet..."

I forgot all about the $20 bill I keep in the little pocket in my Tilley hats (one of which I wear all the time), for the very same reason...

I don't work for the company I mentioned above however you are correct, they do not always volunteer as to why their network went down...bad publicity.

Sometimes we get lucky though and their rep will tell us it was caused by a number of reasons such as a software upgrade gone south, a critical switch bit the dust, server(s) meltdown, DNS problems and many more reasons.

Do you have a verifiable and reliable source for this? I would be interested in reviewing such information....

I also saw this in the news. Crazy guys. All that trouble for a tank of gas? Well...filling up your fullsize pickup can be mighty painful these days.

Anyway, one place to read about it is here .

Maybe they had reached their credit limit and had no money left for a short period of time until someone got on the phone and asked for a line of credit from the Fed.

Can you provide a single news source for this hysterical claim?

Google News provides not one single reference. Other than a single ridiculous story someone provided about two idiots trying to block a (presumably credit card-related) satellite interface with aluminum foil, this is entirely unsubstantiated nonsense.

Do you honestly believe that what goes on at your store reflects the state of the country as a whole?

The total absence of even a mention of this in any mass media or trade media is suspect.

I work - directly - with the credit card companies, there are MANY payment networks, not one. Your Visa card may be processed on Discover's networks and vice versa. There are peering agreements, there are backups, there are store-and-forward tools.

This was NOT - not not not - a national issue. It may not have been more than a local issue, or even a single merchant or authorization gateway provider. Authorize.net could go down and thousands of merchants would unable to process cards, but hundreds of millions of entities would not even notice.

Don't post stuff like this here unless you're ready and able to cite the full story.

Martin, I don't claim to work directly with the credit card companies, you and SHERPADOG do.

I am just a stupid shopkeep messenger who posted what VISA told us for several hours. Who ever VISA is that answers our calls stated that 85% of their system was down and they could not process 40,000 transactions per minute. That is all that I know.

SHERPADOG posted a polite correction to my post - "If you are using First Data services which processes Envoy, Nabanco, CES and a couple of others, yes their system is down and should be back online shortly." I thank SHERPADOG for that.

Martin, I am just a stupid shopkeep messenger that could not find any reference on local media or the internet either. Maybe you and SHERPADOG, two insiders, can enlighten us pleebs. To quote an old phrase with attitude - "Don't post stuff like this here unless you're ready and able to cite the full story."

I work for a large bank, we had no credit card issues and I was personally shopping and dining between 5 and 8 all on credit/debit cards, there was not major us outage.

My guess it the credit processor your store uses had a nationwide outage but not the visa network.

In Cliff's defense, I too notice sometimes, that something is out of the ordinary, try to see how extensive it is, and then get on the net (if I can) and ask around to find out if others are noticing the same event in their areas.

Yes, I am paranoid about a few things.

I fully realize how an insignificant event can (and has) been confused as the start of a major event by the superpowers in the past. The Norwegians launching a weather rocket from their northern end almost had Yeltsin launching Russia's Missiles because their computers were telling them that the USA had launched a pre-emptive strike. Despite having had a few vodka's, Boris knew that there was no reason for us to attack them, so he waited for the missile to hit. It didn't hit and Boris closed their version of the "football" thus NOT starting WWIII on bad information.

In this day and age, I do not expect our govt or the MSM to announce that the city of Moscow is being evacuated for unknown reasons, or Beijing, or any other significant event occurring that would be indicative of a catastrophe being planned or executed.

Perhaps the wording should be a little different as well as the phrasing. Ask a question if anybody else has run into such & such problem within the last few, minutes or hours.

Questions such as that might be the first indications that any of us may get of a major event occurring. Just my views of course.

I always refer people to this page here as it describes in easy to understand terms on how credit cards are processed.

There a literally hundreds if not thousands of Acquirer's and yes they do have their share of tech related issues and do go down from time to time such was the case yesterday.

These days the downtimes are a lot less for many of the reasons Martin alluded to....but it only takes one malfunction to really mess things up.

When I am back at work on Monday, I will see if anyone knows what transpired with First Data...

I would agree with wildman.

The internet is a double edged sword. We are all reporters of news of world-wide (in many cases) events that can travel much quicker through the web than CNN, etc.

Since many of us are not trained as journalists (after quickly perusing some of the profiles) or have the time to fact-check something before posting (posting at work or on the run) a query we are at risk for passing along misinformation.

However, many of us because of our training / careers are expert observers and documenters.

That is our strength (many eyes and ears).

In order to prevent confusion, it is a wise course of action to differentiate between reporting observed data and drawing conclusions and communicate the difference.

"I observe 'x' happening in my area"
"Has anyone else observed 'x' in their area?"
"I suspect 'y' is happening, anyone else got any ideas?"

As we collect more information then, we can start drawing much more accurate conclusions.

I appreciate the heads-up, and am re-evaluating our the family emergency cash plan as a result.

A credit card company is probably just like a lot of other companies. When something good happens, they tell everyone. When something bad happens, they tell no one.

Just for the record, this morning at 4:30 am EST, my local (Tampa, Florida) 7-11 was not able to process credit/debit card transactions. Thankfully, I had ten bucks cash on me. the misses doesn't normally allow me to carry cash, a good thing seeing as how i can not hold on to it.

-Bill Liptak