Went to the BP station around the corner for my politically incorrect cigarette habit. Grew up with the guy who runs it. Apparently the debit/credit card POS terminal is randomly rejecting cards. There was a long line. There is no logic or order to the rejects, mine went through, others didn't. At the station they have been told to expect it to only get worse through March, a "CASH ONLY" sign may soon go up. Paper checks may not be accepted, as POS terminals get screwier, some will attempt to take advantage of the confusion by writing bad checks.

I for one intend to keep my y2k cash stash, and expand it considerably to take care of larger expenses that may no longer work electronically.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 09, 2000

Answers

Thanks Forrest! We use BP gas, and pay cash, always get a receipt ... lotsa life-long life / work-style habits confirmed and formed by perusing and considering the voluminous info on TB2K.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 09, 2000.

hello... this happend to me yesterday... I tried to use my debit card first at a local shop .. she said that the machine couldn;t read my card.. so I wrote her a check... then I went to fill my car up at bp and always use the pay at the pump .. it slide the card in and it rejected it.. I went inside to have the clerk swipe it and I saw her swipe it several times( I know what she was doing because I work as a bank teller and I do that all the time).. I then saw her key the card number in the computer and it took that...

-- bank teller (nine to five@working. com), January 09, 2000.

Had an interesting experience Friday. Friday is payday at my company and most of my employees get their checks mailed but a few come by and pick up their checks and cash them at the grocery next door.

The procedure is for the clerk to 'swipe' the check through the reader at the the checkout counter at the grocery....the magnetic strip on the check is transmitted to a checkclearing house in Charlotte and immediate response is given to the terminal. I had the first two employees come back and say that the grocery store couldn't cash the checks. Since the manager and I are friends, I went over and asked why. He said the check clearing firm wouldn't tell him. Got the number for the firm and called. The answer?? "YOUR BANK DOES NOT EXIST!!"

I thought it might be wrong input on the bottom of the checks since they are printed as needed by the payroll company. Took a check to our bank right down the street. No problem with the checks. Had the bank call the check clearing house and ask to clarify the problem. The check clearing house told THE BANK they did not exist.

End result----told the employees to cash their checks at the bank. FWIW, other grocery chains in this area had no problems cashing the checks.

y2k? Probably not, just terminal stupidity and incompetence. I can see the clearing house saying my company did not exist but the BANK?

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), January 09, 2000.

There was an earlier and very lngthy post late in December, about BP's anticipation of exactly these problems -- and the Y2K Kits BP distributed to all its franchisees and stations, cinlsuding pacards stating "PUMPS TEMP)ORARILY CLOED DUE TO MECHANCIAL DIFFICULTIES"; "CASH ONLY", etc. Sounded like BP did an EXTREMELY THORGOUGH JOB OF PREPARING for Y2K, so this is a notable development, in my view.

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-- (squirrel@huntr.com), January 09, 2000.

squirrel,

I remember that post. I sure wish I could find the link. Tried to ... but, to no avail.

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), January 09, 2000.