Oh! The Irony!

So, on Thursday (see below) I post about the ins and outs of credit card processing, noting the myriad ways in which those who control credit card processing rule the world.  The fees, the fees, the fees.  About how we try hard to get a card to swipe so we don't have to hand enter the number and pay a higher discount rate for that card.

Well, as many of you know, Verizon internet was down all afternoon yesterday, Friday.  And evening.  All evening. We had no way to authorize credit cards.  It's Friday night for goodness sakes! 

Luckily, we've been through this before and we have a pretty good system as a back-up.  We use that old fashioned "knuckle scraper" machine to record the credit card information on a hard copy, which the customer can sign (and leave a phone number).  Then each credit card check had to be closed so #1 we could use the table again, and #2 so the staff could get their payment at the end of the night.  We use our House Accounts to do that, which is easy enough.  So, while it did add another layer of "interest" to what was already a very hectic night, it was certainly doable, with no major impact on the customer's experience at Brooks Tavern.

Then, this morning, when the internet is back up, I manually entered (oh man) each credit card number.  It took the better part of an hour.  It figures, of course, that out of 47 checks last night, only 7 were paid in cash.  The other 40 were paid as manually entered credit cards...

Funny...ha ha.

But at least we had a system.  Another business in town did it a different way - the customer wrote their own credit card number on a piece of paper, along with the amount of the check.  Oh dear, talk about the possibility of human error...  As some would say, dependence on the Internet, not so good.  As though we have a choice.

T.G.I.S.

Cheers!