# Paying by laser card - merchant can see your account balance?



## Trinacheile (15 Jun 2009)

We were out in a restaurant the other day and paid by laser card.
The guy came down with the little handheld thing and after we punched in the PIN he joked about the balance in our account, and he showed us - he could see what was left in our account!
I never knew this could happen with laser. Is this normal and it's just that the person processing the card normally doesn't mention it?


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## Armada (15 Jun 2009)

I am a merchant and never ever saw a persons balance when entering a transaction. I use Elavon, a BOI terminal.


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## sam h (15 Jun 2009)

Wow - he actually showed you your balance??  I had no idea this came up on any of the machines.  I would get onto your bank and find out what the story is.  Banks often ask what your current balance is & a recent transaction as a security question.  => he has 2 pieces of important information and has just has access to your card, CVV no & name.


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## Caveat (15 Jun 2009)

OP, are you sure he wasn't having a laugh and just showing you another number generated by the process that was either very high or very low?

I cannot believe that he could have access to your balance.


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## Bubbly Scot (15 Jun 2009)

I use one of those terminals at work and we never ever see a balance. We get either an authorisation code or a "declined" and that is the only indicator that there is or isn't money in the account to pay the requested amount.

I think he might have been pulling your leg, did the amount he "showed" you correspond in any way with what was actually in your account?


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## Locke (15 Jun 2009)

OP - Merchant's can't see the balance on the accounts so you need't worry. He was probably just being friendly.


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## Smashbox (15 Jun 2009)

Or trying to be smart.

Theres no way to access an account that way.


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## CatherineB (16 Jun 2009)

?? If a card has not been accepted, the till says 'EFT Tender has been declined online' which indicated balance/bank problems or else 'This card cannot be accepted' indicating the chip is faulty. That's about as deep as it gets information-wise. You can of course, determine someone's balance if transaction+ cashback doesn't work but it does work with lesser cashback...but no, balance would never show up.


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## Trinacheile (16 Jun 2009)

Seriously, he really did have our balance there. 
He made a joke pretending that it was about 3 decimal points more to the right - i.e. over 100k, but when he showed us the screen it was our actual balance. I had just checked it at an ATM the day before so knew it was right.
I have never seen this before myself either, in all the years we've had laser cards.


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## paddywhacker (16 Jun 2009)

Bloody hell, dont like the sound of this! What kind of a terminal was it do you know?


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## Towger (16 Jun 2009)

I have seen while in Oz, about ten years ago!


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## Smashbox (16 Jun 2009)

Trinacheile said:


> Seriously, he really did have our balance there.
> He made a joke pretending that it was about 3 decimal points more to the right - i.e. over 100k, but when he showed us the screen it was our actual balance. I had just checked it at an ATM the day before so knew it was right.
> I have never seen this before myself either, in all the years we've had laser cards.


 
Did you question him?

I would contact your bank and ask them what the story is, your balance is private. I would not be happy if shops could see my balance.


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## samanthajane (16 Jun 2009)

While not doubing your story i find this very hard to believe. 

It's just not possible to see the balance of someone's account via using a laser card. And even if they could it's a breach of your legal rights. Even when doing a credit search you dont know the balance of someone account. All you can see is what loans, overdraft ect that they have. So if you had an overdraft of 1000 euro and you were using 400 euro of this they can see this,  if you had another account with 50k in all that would come up is that the account was satifactory, the balance isn't displayed. 

I would get onto the bank and report this, it sound like the terminal has been tampered with, for them to get this information, or something techincal has gone wrong for the machine to display your actual balance.


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## Sconhome (16 Jun 2009)

Seems crazy to think its possible as not all ATM machines will allow you to access your bank balance information.

I would notify the bank immediately and speak with the restaurant manager and ask them to explain the situation.


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## Tomodinhio (16 Jun 2009)

I agree with Sconhome, id contact the manager and confirm if this is true or not, i wouldnt want a stranger seeing my bank balance, could be very embarrising if he/she made a comment on it.
Im gona have to keep an eye out for this myself next time i pay by laser, but like most of the above i have never come across it.


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## mcaul (17 Jun 2009)

I'm in retail over 20 years and I've never heard of any way that any laser machine can show the balance of an account.

The way the machines work is the retailer has an agreement with a card processing company, (such as Elavon which is operated by bank of Ireland or Streamline which is operated by Ulster bank). When a card is swiped the details are transmitted electronically to the card processor who then contacts the bank that issued the laser card (customer's bank) - they confirm if the payment is accepted or rejected and issue a 5 or 6 digit authorisation code. This code is then displayed on the terminal and printed on the laser receipt - all this takes about 10 seconds.

My guess is the authorisation code just happened to be similar to your bank accout balance. - e.g. an auth code on a transaction I had yesterday was 132569, which could be read as €1325.69 but in reality is just a computer generated code.

Check the laser receipt and see if it has an AUTH NO printed on it and see if this looks like the number you were shown - if so the waiter was taking the mick.


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## Caveat (17 Jun 2009)

Whatever the reality/outcome of this, that a waiter would behave or talk to a customer like this is outrageous IMO.


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## Trinacheile (20 Jun 2009)

I contacted Merchant Services at my bank and they never heard of this either. They said it would surely be illegal if the balance it could be seen,
Good tip about the authorization code. I'll dig up the receipt and check it. Hopefully it was just a fluke.


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## lovelylovely (21 Jun 2009)

I would consider that event a dodgy thing to happen to me as its well known that card readers are available and any information picked up can also be cloned onto another card or sold worldwide in minutes ...talk to to your bank and name the retailer and his worker to your bank in case its a scam..


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## mcaul (21 Jun 2009)

lovelylovely said:


> I would consider that event a dodgy thing to happen to me as its well known that card readers are available and any information picked up can also be cloned onto another card or sold worldwide in minutes ...talk to to your bank and name the retailer and his worker to your bank in case its a scam..


 
A card reader can only take information that's on the card's magnetic strip. This only holds card number and cardholders name. - It does not hold the account balance. The pin nummber is then also required. In addition if a card is cloned (relatively rare considering the millions of cards in the market) the bank refunds in full all monies taken by deceit.


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## raindog (21 Jun 2009)

trinacheile your not alone my wife had same experience with our laser (bills) only last week the person at till refusing card saying there was only 18 euro on our acccount slipped memory as we were going on holiday strange development alright


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## dieseldave (22 Jun 2009)

No, Merchant can't see balance, I work for a company installing and maintaining terminals, and have come into contact with other companies terminals and have never seen that. I would be suspicious that someone has tampered with the terminal maybe for skimming, so maybe best to contact your bank and tell them about this.


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