Over-Consumption Alert
"Come on, give me another!" Barry called out, feeling the buzz of a great night.
"Yeah, one sec," the bartender gave a quick wave in his direction as she spoke with another patron.
"Now, woman!" he shouted.
"Cool it!" she shouted back. "If you're going to be a drunk idiot I'll cut you off."
"I'm not trying to harass you," he defended himself. "I just want a drink. Look, I'll pay for it."
He held up his payment card and flexed it in her direction. He just wanted to pay as quick as he could.
"You need to wait your turn next time," she said in a terse, quiet voice. "There are other people here as well."
"I'll tip extra if you'd prefer."
"It's not about the tips," she took the card from him. "It's about basic decorum."
She brushed the card up against the bar's machine, not giving it much thought. To her surprise, the machine let out a beep and flashed red.
That surprised Barry too.
"Your card was rejected," she observed.
"What? That can't be. I paid for the last one without an issue. Try it again."
She scanned the card again and the same thing happened. The payment was not working.
"There's something written on the card now," she showed it to him.
The back of the card was a screen. It wasn't flashy, but could provide the consumer with useful payment options and coupons. When it wasn't being used, it showed advertisements.
Yet Barry couldn't tell which of those three was shown on the card. Everything was blurry.
"You read it," he demanded.
"Over-consumption of alcohol detected. Payments disabled," she read.
"Bull," he called.
"That's what it says. Look," she pointed to the blurry markings.
"Ah screw them," he growled.
"Do you have cash?"
"Would you accept it if I did?"
"Well, I suppose not."
"I'm tired of these companies running our lives just to have a bit of credit."
"Maybe you should call a taxi and go home," she advised.
Barry swiped the card out of her hands and gave a loud laugh.
"I bet that's the only thing I can spend my money on."
At the start of every month I go through the payments of the previous month and update my account balances. It takes about fifteen minutes, since it is easy to recall all transactions from my credit card history.
There’s a lot of data there which could be mined to better advertise to me. Yet all of those operations seem to happen days or weeks after purchases. If a credit card company harnessed this data in real-time, they could influence purchases ahead of you actually making it.
This could be good, right? We’re not always rational, and it would be good to have an ally before we make regrettable purchases. Clearly there are trade-offs.
Anyway, this is a fun short story that hopefully will remain fiction.