Our store, swiping your card early may save you a couple of seconds, or it may end up wasting your time.
From the customers end, the interaction with the "pinpad" goes like this:
You swipe your card
it asks "Debit or credit"
You enter your PIN or select Credit
If you picked Debit, you deceide how much cash back you want and verify the transaction total.
It approves your purchase.
It cannot proceed to step 2 until the cashier has pushed the "cerdit/debit card" payment key, which happens at the end of your transaction, but if you swipe early it will know that you swiped and just wait for the button.
UNLESS you swiped before anything was actually rung up. Then it will forget anything about a card having been swiped, and you will have to swipe again.
and if you are buying cigarettes, it has not "rung up" anything until after the cashier has entered the verification that you are old enough to buy cigarettes, so if you swipe right after the cashier scans the ciggies, you'll need to swipe again.
I have been in other stores where I could put in my PIN and do basicly everything but verify the total while the cashier was still ringing, though.
Back to the main point: man was trying and not succeeding and becoming frustrated. In my experience, alcohol is usually involved in such a display: he's drunk, doesn't want anybody to know that he's drunk, and so is very very pissed to find he is too drunk to understand the steps he needs to follow to check himself out, and turned that on you because:
A) you were there,
B) he was using the self-checkout in part because he was trying to avoid human interaction, because he doesn't want anybody to know he's drunk. He thinks his son doesn't know, and he's just trying to buy some groceries and drive home without anybody figuring out he's drunk (and maybe calling the cops on him).
At least, that's my first guess.
From the customers end, the interaction with the "pinpad" goes like this:
You swipe your card
it asks "Debit or credit"
You enter your PIN or select Credit
If you picked Debit, you deceide how much cash back you want and verify the transaction total.
It approves your purchase.
It cannot proceed to step 2 until the cashier has pushed the "cerdit/debit card" payment key, which happens at the end of your transaction, but if you swipe early it will know that you swiped and just wait for the button.
UNLESS you swiped before anything was actually rung up. Then it will forget anything about a card having been swiped, and you will have to swipe again.
and if you are buying cigarettes, it has not "rung up" anything until after the cashier has entered the verification that you are old enough to buy cigarettes, so if you swipe right after the cashier scans the ciggies, you'll need to swipe again.
I have been in other stores where I could put in my PIN and do basicly everything but verify the total while the cashier was still ringing, though.
Back to the main point: man was trying and not succeeding and becoming frustrated. In my experience, alcohol is usually involved in such a display: he's drunk, doesn't want anybody to know that he's drunk, and so is very very pissed to find he is too drunk to understand the steps he needs to follow to check himself out, and turned that on you because:
A) you were there,
B) he was using the self-checkout in part because he was trying to avoid human interaction, because he doesn't want anybody to know he's drunk. He thinks his son doesn't know, and he's just trying to buy some groceries and drive home without anybody figuring out he's drunk (and maybe calling the cops on him).
At least, that's my first guess.
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