Card reader practice: a pretend store checkout to pay at

A real card reader

• Readers differ a great deal. Some have a touch screen, some have keys, some have both, and the words and the order of the screens change from one store to the next. What follows is how it often goes, not how any one reader works.
• Three ways to give the card. Tap: a card with the mark of four curved lines can often be held flat near the same mark on the reader until it beeps. Insert: the end with the small metal square goes into the slot, often at the bottom of the reader. Swipe: the dark stripe is pulled through a slot on the side; fewer readers ask for this now.
• Leave the card in. A card that is put in stays in until the screen says to take it out. Many readers beep then. Pulling it out sooner often stops the payment, and it has to be started again.
• When a tap is not read, many readers ask for the card to be put in instead. It is common, and it says nothing about the card or the person holding it.
• Credit or debit? Some readers ask. With debit, the reader usually asks for the PIN. With credit, it often does not, and may ask for a signature instead. The bank or the office that gave the card can say which ways that card can be used.
• The PIN is the private number that goes with the card, often four digits. The screen shows a dot or a star for each digit. Many people cover the keys with the other hand while they type it. The cashier does not need to hear it or see it.
• Three keys with names. Many readers have a key that takes back what was typed (often yellow; on some it takes back one digit at a time), a key that says “that is all of it” (often green, “Enter” or “OK”) and a key that stops the payment (often red, “Cancel”).
• Cash back at a checkout is cash the cashier hands over, added to what the card pays: it comes out of the same account. Many grocery stores offer it with debit. Some stores charge for it or cap the amount, and the screen or the cashier can say so. It is not the “cash back” in card advertising, which is something else.
• “Is this amount OK?” is the moment to read the number. Answering no is allowed; the cashier can then look at what was rung up.
• Questions that are not about paying. A reader may ask for a donation, a tip, a phone number for a store program, or an email address. Each of these can be answered with no, “Skip” or often the red key, and the payment goes on. On a tip screen, “No tip” or an amount of your own is often there too, sometimes in smaller letters.
• When a card is declined, the reason is often not on the screen: it can be a mistyped PIN, a hold placed by the bank, a worn card, the store’s reader, or not enough in the account. Another way of giving the card, another card or cash are the usual next things to try, and items can be left behind. The phone number on the back of the card is where to ask why.
• Nobody honest asks for a PIN. A caller, a text, an email or a stranger who asks for the PIN, or offers to “help” by taking the card out of sight, is something to be careful with: Is this a scam?

How the lessons work

• The pretend reader is the dark box. The pale part at its top is its screen: it shows what the reader is asking, and its choices are buttons on the screen itself.
• The pretend card is the box with the dashed edge. It shows a made-up PIN, a new one for each lesson. On a real card the PIN is not printed; it is in your head.
• “Tap the card” stands for holding the card near the reader. “Put the card in” stands for the slot; while the reader holds the card, the same button says “Take the card out”.
• The keys are pressed with a mouse, a finger, or the Tab and Enter keys. While the pretend reader is in use, the number keys of a real keyboard press the number keys too. “Cancel”, “Clear” and “Enter” are pressed on the page.
• The PIN shows as dots as it is typed, as on a real reader.
• The yellow line under the reader says what the last press did, and what the reader is waiting for.
• A choice the step is not after changes nothing: the reader stays on the same screen and the yellow line says so. A real reader would go on with that choice.
• The steps say no to the donation every time, and to the tip once. That is only so that saying no gets practiced; what to give is yours to decide.
• “Cancel” in the middle of a step stops the pretend sale and puts the step back at its start.
• The pretend reader does not count misses. A PIN that does not match can be typed again as many times as it takes, and the pretend card is never declined.
• “Next step” answers only when the step is done. Until then it is gray. On the last step of a lesson it says “Finish the lesson”.
• The page waits. There is no countdown, and nothing is timed or counted. “Start this lesson again” asks for another card and other prices.

Every time the page is built, a program makes 24,000 lessons, half in English and half in Spanish, and walks through their 64,000 steps, pressing the keys itself: that the choice a step is after is on the screen, that no step is done before it begins, that the right presses in order end the step, that every other key and every other choice leaves the reader where it is, that a PIN with a digit off or a digit missing is not taken, that a typed PIN shows only as dots, that each tip choice, each cash back amount and each total comes out to the cent, that cash back is never added without the new total on the screen, that “Cancel” puts the step back at its start, that a card that went in comes back out, and that both languages ask for the same presses.

What this page does not do

• It pays for nothing and reaches no bank and no store.
• It is not any real reader. A real reader’s screens, words, order and keys will be different.
• It does not practice swiping, signing on a screen, paying with a phone or a watch, scanning items at a self-checkout, a gas pump, or paying on a website.
• It does not know the fees, the limits or the rules of any bank, card, store or benefits program, and it does not say how much to tip or whether to give. The bank or the office that gave the card is where to ask about the card.
• It cannot practice the hands: which way the card faces, how far it goes in, how long to hold a tap, a stiff key.
• It has not been tried by people. A program tried the page with a mouse and a keyboard in one browser. It has not been tried on a touch screen, with a screen reader, a switch or an eye tracker.
• It keeps no record of lessons done, gives no certificate and makes no promise about how any real checkout will go.