Mmm... even faster fast food.

I suppose it would be foolish of me to question multi-billion dollar companies’ decision to roll out a feature for their payment cards — after all, they must have done enough research before hand to see if it was worth the additional cost to include the embedded chip for contactless credit/debit card payment.

Plus, it’s not even really about making it convenient for the consumer — it’s about removing one less barrier so that people will use and spend more with their credit/debit card.

Quick info on contactless payment:

  • VISA: payWave
  • MasterCard: PayPass
  • AmericanExpress: Express Pay
  • Chase: blink
  • No signatures required for purchase under $25

When I received my shiny new Chase Freedom credit card last year, it came with contactless payment ability. Thinking it to be very neat, I decided to gave it a whirl at my local fast food joint, but there was only one minor problem…

It didn’t work.

So I was standing there, waving my credit card to the reader, looking like a tool — for whatever reason, the reader wouldn’t pick up the radio frequency from my credit card. The funny thing was, the cashier didn’t realize the store had a new contactless reader installed, so she politely told me that that isn’t the right way to use a credit card.

After that delightful experience, I never bother using the contactless payment option again, even when I visit merchants with contactless payment readers.

However, things changed last week when I received a mailer from Chase, informing me that I’d receive a $10 statement credit if I use my blink-enabled Chase Freedom credit card at local participating merchants. As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m a cheap bastard, so if you wave a free $10 in front of me, I’d be up for some on-the-way frivolous purchases.

Of course, the contactless payment didn’t work again.

At first I assumed my card has a defective chip, but the cashier quickly inform me that the reader I’m trying to scan with hasn’t been working properly lately.

Three other readers at three other merchants later, I finally stumbled onto a local McDonald’s with a working reader. I bought myself a double cheeseburger, wolfed down 1.5 grams of tans fat, and all of this within seconds thanks to contactless payment technology.

I use to hate self check-out machines, but these days I find them to be quite convenient for small purchases. Maybe once I get over the fear of embarrasment from waving a credit card in front of a device with nothing happening, I’d use contactless payment more.

Will I spend more as the credit card companies hope? Probably not. Does contactless payment “speed up transaction significantly” as Chase claims? Even when they were working, I honestly didn’t notice any difference.

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