Current process for Charging a Credit Card

First, let’s review the current process for those of us who try to pay for a ride around the city with plastic. After the jump, of course. You won’t regret it.

• 1. Try and determine if the cab has a VISA sticker on the outside.
• 2. Get in the cab and tell the driver first that you have to use a card and risk being told that they don’t accept cards. OR wait until payment time comes and risk being told that “it don’t work” and is magically broken today.
• 3. Threaten to simply not pay for the ride or to report them to the taxi cab authority (which I doubt would accomplish much).
• 4. After they begrudgingly agree to take your card, they take no less than 4-5 minutes to find a pen and start to fill out the little form. This often requires you to tell them how much you want to tip before they have even run your card.
• 5. NOW the fun begins. They then pull out the 1980’s style, absolutely archaic slider machine that creates a carbon copy of your card info by manually moving a heavy piece of metal and plastic over the top of it several times (and they usually do is lots of times just for effect).
• 6. Next is time for them to hand you the form and your card…and for them to drop the pen. Once they’ve found the pen again, you can sign the form. Sometimes, if you are lucky, they even ask for your phone number so they can call you if “they have any problems”.