Slower than Cash - Among the Wild Animals
While on a recent family vacation, one of our visits was to the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park just outside of Escondido, California. A wonderful experience indeed - except when it came to buying things. The card acceptance practices and technology at the Wild Animal Park could sure use some work.
For example, when paying by card at one of their lunch cafeterias, you're asked to also provide an ID along with your card. Just how many fraudsters enjoy spending the day watching the animals anyway? The card authorization appears to be done via dial-up (based on the time it took to complete), and the receipt printer printed painfully slowly. And, a signature was required on the receipt although the amount was less than $25.
Any one of these factors might have been tolerable. In combination, they were very frustrating! All of this added up to a truly "slower than cash" experience. Where's the Park's merchant acquirer (or Visa/MasterCard) - helping them to upgrade their POS, migrate to broadband, enabling no signature required (and no ID requirement!) for food purchases, etc? And, in the process, helping to displace rather than encourage the use of cash!
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