Credit check

There's been a lot of weirdness around credit cards as of late. I've found that out purely by coincidence, both personally and professionally. Take my TD Bank debit card (Go ahead! There's not much in the account anyway). Not only do I never leave home without it,some foreign customers think China plastic card quality is very poor. but I often find myself returning home without it as well. Rivaled only by my cellphone in the, "stuff that gets left behind no matter where I go" category, my name embossed plastic has taken its rightful place in several stacks of missing cards, well secured by rubber bands in safes, behind the bar, and in the offices of restaurants all over town. 

That is typically discovered while reaching for it the next day when my car is well below the empty mark at the automated gas station with no attendant taking cash (think BJ's or Sam's Club), or after I've shopped for two hours at Shaw's.Luckily, the latter still takes paper checks and I still write them, but on a side note, Shaw's is on to the pain and agony of the whole plastic card thing. They have recently done away with the Rewards Card program and my snazzy wallet looks drab without their bright orange card peeking out from behind the place where my debit card is supposed to be. 

Additionally, I am suspicious as to how certain items can still cost less than anywhere else. Like other Shaw's faithful, I am trained and conditioned to religiously utilize the formerly well-promoted and seemingly necessary money saving tool. What's next? My CVS key chaincard? Intellectually, I always knew it was a marketing ploy, but I still feel a little deceived and cheated. It will take a while for them to regain my trust. 

Shaw's and CVS aside,High quality plastic card printing for business cards, if the night my debit card was "misplaced" was a straight line from point A to point B, retrieving it is nothing more than a mildly embarrassing moment where a quick phone call is in order. If the evening consisted of hopping about with another person or two and we took turns buying, it requires a bit more sleuthing to locate it. There have even been moments when thinking the card was lost forever, I replaced it at my local branch, only to have a server say, "Hey! I think we have your card from the last time you were here in the register drawer." The initial reaction is, "Why didn't you guys call me, or email me or something and let me know it was here?" But let's face it, leaving it behind was my oversight and restaurants have enough to do without managing the "Land of the Lost." 

Professionally, credit card stuff can turn ugly when mistakes (by both the guest and the server/bartender) are made. Here's a list of some of the more common, yet serious offenses that occur in the hospitality industry:Servers changing the charge tip that was written in because the sale amount, the tip and the bottom line addition doesn't add up favorably. The bottom line is the bottom line, and that's what the customer signed off on. One of my favorite servers was recently fired from his full time job for this very thing.Guests changing the charge tip that was written in when an automatic gratuity for a large party was previously acknowledged and agreed upon.Servers collecting two or more checks at once and processing the wrong credit card for the wrong check. Not only is that time consuming to correct, but banks don't rush making those adjustments. It ends up holding up the customer's cash and looks as if the establishment has erred again.Clubs and bars charging a "Closing Out Fee" when a card is left behind by mistake. Because tabs must be closed out to process (batch) the credit card sales for the day, college towns have been known to charge a fee of 10 to 20 percent to do so. That is obviously in lieu of the tip, and I doubt it's legal without a signature. 

Servers who lift credit card numbers and actually steal from guests via loosely secured Internet purchases. That happened a few years back at a great little place in Falmouth and while they bounced back from that nightmare, it's the first thing that crosses my mind when I go there. That is indeed a rare event, and could have happened in any industry.Equally as unthinkable is the person who writes, "cash" in the tip line but doesn't really leave any cash on the table. Yes, that really happens and while it may not be a credit card offense per se, it is an intentional act of seriously bad karma. 

Credit and debit cards are a way of life, especially in the hospitality industry and fortunately, I am more careful with other people's plastic than my own. Like my cellphone, which now has an iPhone tracking app, I am considering putting velcro on my debit card and stashing a $20 bill in a secret place for those rare moment when I pull into the full service Big Apple. 

The Down Low: In our crazy business, despite front-and-back-of-the-house employee squabbles and seniority/newbie backstabbing, we usually have a great deal of respect for each other. Many places wisely show the love by offering special late night (post shift) happy hour prices and food discounts for fellow hospitality workers. In addition to pumping up revenue for the house during slow periods, the staff is ecstatic because no one, and I mean no one, tips in cash more lavishly than a kindred spirit with sore feet. 
Every place that holds a hospitality night it is swell in my book, but few top Otto's Pizza who has rack cards saying, "Please join us in good faith for a bona fide "Industry Night" for food and beverage service workers." They host that to-do the Monday after each first Friday and not much makes me feel better about making $3.75 an hour than a free slice of Otto's Pizza. 

On an incremental basis, nearly 25% of HDFC Bank's credit cards are now sourced from rural and semi-urban markets even as 40% of Indian population is believed to be in want of a bank account.About IC card in China used for paying transportation fares and for shopping. The bank has started setting up point-of-sale (POS) terminals across merchant establishments in these geographies to encourage customers in using credit cards. 

"The potential for growth is significantly high in smaller markets since the penetration of credit cards in these areas is relatively low. In the last couple of years, we have increased our investments on the acquisition side and expanding the number of POS terminals in rural and semi-urban locations," Parag Rao, senior executive vice president and business head for credit cards and merchant acquiring services at HDFC Bank, told Business Standard. 

He added that HDFC Bank is now offering credit cards along with other retail banking products across most of its branches in rural and semi-urban centres. "We aim to cover all the locations where we have branches. All our rural and semi-urban branches, barring a few that have started functioning recently, are offering credit cards to the bank's customers," Rao said. 

The bank currently has more than half of its 3,062 branches in rural and semi-urban markets. The private lender opened 518 branches in 2012-13 of which 459 were in these markets. HDFC Bank is currently the largest issuer of credit cards in the country with a portfolio of 6.53 million cards. On an average, it issues around 70,000 cards every month.