this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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Not being an American the whole idea of not including tax in the stated price just seems so alien. You expect me to work out what 12.5% of my bill is on the fly as I'm shopping? Fuck you, that's your job. You are the one actually paying the tax to the government, you work it out
Also "They took my card". That is apparently an American thing.
Do you guys still do the hilarious chip & sign thing or have you finally switched to using a PIN?
You think that's hilarious? There are a lot of places in the world that still do a manual shhk-shhk of a card only a few years ago. Now that most cards don't have raised digits, they'll write it down. If they even take a card.
Places where the Internet goes down if it rains and there is no mobile service. Imagine the horror.
The other side of the coin - paying with debit (which has a pin) is stupid in the US. Unless you can't control your spending, credit card is the way to go for every legal purchase you don't mind being tied to you forever. CCs have far superior consumer protection than the law.
Not only that but many of them give you cash back, so if you never carry a balance (and therefore never pay interest), and don't use it wherever they charge a credit card service fee, it's basically a free discount almost everywhere.
Funny thing, we didn't do chip and pin because the credit card companies thought we were too stupid to figure it out, in spite of the fact that we already used pins for debit cards... We now do have chip and pin, but only for bank/debit cards
We just do chip, no sign unless it's over some threshold (must be pretty high since I've spent nearly $1k at a single Costco trip). I've never used a PIN on a credit card, and I haven't needed so sign anything in years unless it's a contract of sorts.
In Canada, they have the wireless chip readers everywhere. It was nice since a large chunk of stolen credit cards are when employees scan it before charging it.
Some places in the USA is starting to do the same thing. But yes, the US is way behind.
They have had wireless chip readers for years, but many restaurants still take your card anyway. Some places bring the payment device to you, which is nice, and some have it there always so you can see exactly what's on the bill (sometimes you order on it too).
But taking the card is a cultural thing, not a tech thing. Even back before wireless readers were a thing, they still had portable payment terminals and could have you swipe there or have you pay up front on the way out. It's not an issue at all.
Also they would only have to do it once per item, shoppers have to do it every time!
We generally tip 15% or 20%, depending on quality of service, 10% if it's bad but not atrocious. And that's pretty easy:
well, no.
They do that when they ring you up. The price on the shelf is pre tax. The price at the register is post tax. So you just do a mental adjustment as you shop, adding about 10% or so on top of what you're buying.
It's not ideal, but it's not impossible.
I think realistically, sales tax should probably be at the distributor side. But it's kind of nice being explicitly aware of what the sales tax is.