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“Accepting cards” is not the same as “accepting credit cards” though… A lot of them only accept girocards and not credit cards…
by ricc 3y ago
“Accepting cards” is not the same as “accepting credit cards” though… A lot of them only accept girocards and not credit cards…
- rglullis 3y agoAnd credit cards in Germany are not "credit" cards as well. At least the one I got from Sparkasse does not let you hold a balance and must be paid in full every month.
- ricc 3y agoNot sure about those, but I got mine around 2-3 years ago from gebührenfrei.de, which is from Advanzia Bank. Seems fine so far…with a minor disclaimer that I don’t really use it much. :-)
- mk89 3y agoI don't have enough experience to speak about CC in Germany, but I don't see why a Rewe or ... boh, Aldi, Mcdonalds, etc should prevent that. I am a bit surprised, to be honest.
- ricc 3y agoBig chains and enterprises, for sure. But there’s still a lot of SMBs not accepting credit cards.
- mk89 3y agoAre these the same SMBs that ... accept only cash? :) Or do they really exclude CCs?
- ricc 3y agoThey exclude CCs. They have a card reader but they either have a sign saying, or the vendor will simply say, “keine Kreditkarte”.
- 4ad 3y agoIf you use contactless payments, this is a non-issue, they can't detect it. Although they wish they could.
- amaccuish 3y agoSo a lot will have in their contract with their processor that they actually can accept Visa/Mastercard, so the sign is there to put you off. But actually a lot don't, and when you try to pay, even contactless, with a non-Girocard, it won't work. Visa and Mastercard don't magically let you on their network because you have a card machine.
- avar 3y agoBecause there's a significant a transaction fee if you're paying by credit card, with cash or debit card there's no transaction fee. The bigger mystery is why stores in some other countries are happy to have a payment method chosen by the customer eat into their profit.
- PurpleRamen 3y agoDebitcards, not girocards. I have no girocard since years, and still can easily pay everywhere. But to be fair, the pandemia really pushed this even the small shops.
- addandsubtract 3y agoÄmter only take girocards or cash.
- PurpleRamen 3y agoNot true. It probably depends on the location, but last time I paid for a public service, I had no problem using my Visa Debit Card. I think it was not even possible to use cash.