Getting Your Credit Card Rejected at the Grocery Store, Sucks

I think all of us can remember an experience like this.

Do You Have a Question You'd Like Help With? Contact Debt Coach Damon Day. Click here to reach Damon.

“Anyone who has had a credit card declined in a public place like a store knows the news almost always sounds as if it is being delivered via megaphone by someone convinced to the very depth of her – or his – soul that you don’t pay your bills. Ever. I have a thinner skin than many, perhaps, but for me the experience is mortifying.

Late once on a Sunday afternoon, back in town after a restful Laurentian vacation during which I didn’t even open my wallet, I handed over a credit card to pay for groceries – and it was refused. Shoppers behind me in line at the west-end Provigo expressed noisy impatience as I asked the cashier to try the card once more – and then again. I chose the few items that the 20 I had in my wallet would cover and slunk out.

The card had been compromised while I was on vacation, it turned out, used at some online gambling site out of England. Mind you, I learned this only after calling the credit-card company to find out what had happened. I realize that credit-card fraud is a huge problem and appreciate that the card was cancelled for my own protection. But it would have been good of them to have informed me.

Many people use a debit card in place of cash and so did I – until mine was cloned and someone withdrew hundreds of dollars from my account.

I carry a couple of credit cards now and pay them in full each month, assiduously collecting the various miles and points associated with the cards – and even occasionally reaping some rewards, usually in the form of airline tickets.”

Read the full story by Susan Schwartz in the Montreal Gazette.