Cash or Credit or Bank Transfer

I took this photo of this KFC sign because it illustrates a common situation here - that relatively regularly stores cannot establish a connection in order to run a credit card transaction. I guess KFC must experience this regularly enough that they had a sign printed for these occasions that they could post as needed.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Macro (think Price Club) with about 20 check out lines and a line of about 40 people (I am not exaggerating) waiting patiently . The only credit card machine working in the entire store was the one in the office. So, they rang those of us with credit cards up at a till, then sent us into the office one by one with the amount written on a slip of paper to have our credit card put through. Given the circumstances, they managed this process fairly efficiently.

Yesterday I went to buy beds and sat while they tried for 20 minutes to get a line to run my credit card. Finally, they gave up and suggested I come back later in the day. About 3:00pm Sisco from Dial-a-Bed called and said don't bother, come tomorrow, lines still down. Fortunately Dial a Bed is 5 minutes from our house so I was able to quickly get over today to finish up the transaction. Whew.

A very common way to pay for things here is through bank transfers - even from regular person to regular person. For example, say I borrowed R500 from Tanya. I could get her banking details and transfer money from my account directly into hers. I guess you can do the same thing in the States - just we don't do it commonly.