One increasing trend as retailers adapt to and reopen in the Covid-19 environment has been to change payment systems typically replacing traditional cash for contactless debit or credit cards for small transactions.
These are typically small stores that sell items of low value which traditionally we'd of payed for by cash such as Bakers like Chatwin's locally who sell marvellous bread and cakes and Greggs who famously sell sausage rolls following sector advice not accept cash in case the virus is on it.
That can be a problem for those who don't have bank accounts with cards or for shopping for others who may find it too difficult or are staying home because of extreme vulnerability to infection who even if they had a card should not be providing some one else their PIN number.
This might even had worked had such stores accepted regular credit or debit cards but these store are refusing to accept the UK's chip and pin system where a chip is read and you are prompted to enter a four digit PIN.
This is because they also fear transmission of the virus from your hands to others via the touch pads.
The contactless card currently with a £45 per transaction limit just requires being held and waved over a reader that then beeps when the transaction is made.
The problem is some typically older customers were never given the option of having the contactless sort at the outset and others were refused because they would not be issued to those whose credit score fell below a set figure.
Thus in this much altered world we've added social exclusion from certain shopping for sections of society.
After a half an hour trying to get someone at their bank because bank staff are working from home, my elderly folks were elated to get a person issue them new cards which are contactless as they were increasingly struggling to shop because of this issue.
It was on the face of it a fairly normal Monday although the press commentators had dubbed the day Cyber Monday, the day internet retail giants such as Amazon expect to get the highest amount of Christmas preorders through.
What transpired was anything but, leaving a good many people with some intriguing questions remaining unanswered.
At approximately 18:00 GMT the credit cards of many people with accounts to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group became unusable both at the ATMs and also for purchases at stores both online and instore. Fixing it took several hours going well into the night with reports the following day saying it was a computer system glitch with profuse apologies offered and talk of not leaving anyone out of pocket.
Consider the following situations people experienced:
People out for social gatherings in a restaurant unable to play their bills.
People unable to pay for groceries in their shopping baskets as their cards were declined
Car owners having bought Gasoline unable to leave as they couldn't pay
Christmas shopping expeditions brought to a holt.
Customers finding electronic transactions failed and in some circumstances unexplained transactions appearing to have occurred.
For some of these making good on losses maybe adequate but consider such things as embarrassment caused in store by being unable to pay. Should someone like that perhaps get an additional amount for embarrassment at having to have goods returned in public?
What of say you went to order a item on special offer about to pay for it and you were declined. Should losing that offer be compensated?
Finally why was it the banking industry was allowed to spend little on maintaining and upgrading decade old systems patched up after takers and mergers?
