There Are Lots of Things PayPass Can’t Buy

MasterCard PayPass allows you to pay without any swiping your credit card, and you don’t need to enter any password. The purpose of this contactless transaction is to make your life a little easier. However, I am finding PayPass is making life even harder.

PayPass is not yet widely available. Not all credit card companies and merchants offer PayPass enabled cards and terminals. Tim Hortons, Petro Canada, No Frills and Loblaws are among few merchants to accept PayPass.

I encountered similar situation at many PayPass merchants. At Tim Hortons, whenever I presented a PayPass credit card, the cashier did not know what to do with it; furthermore, she had to call someone else to show her how to put through the transaction. At some stores, I was told it does not work. At a Cineplex theatre, once I showed my PayPass card – the rep at the counter pushed aside the PayPass reader saying it’s broken. PayPass is supposed to be “Tap and Go”, but I wasted more time trying to use PayPass than Interac and regular credit card.

This is obvious that MasterCard and PayPass merchants rolled out PayPass service without training their staff. This should be a simple, non-expensive training, and it does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Before you try to come up with something to make consumers’ life simpler – train your staff first, otherwise, you will be making everyone’s life complicated and consumers will reject your products and services.