Whole Stadium to be a Cash free zone. (UPDATED)

[Matt de K]

Queue cutting? Cash free zone??? What a load of rubbish. More like another way to force supporters to spend X ammount of money at the club.

I'll tell ya what - it'll well bugger up our half time pints system.

Eh? How does it force anyone to spend anything? If you don't like it, don't spend it!

Because if Joe Bloggs wants a coffee, and only a coffee, then he's going to have to put a tenner on his card in order to purchase a £1.80(???) drink. Whats going to happen to his £8.80? He's going to have to spend it at the stadium. Is RFC going to refund unused credit? Don't make me laugh. If anybody thinks that RFC will credit people back their money surely they've got another think coming. Maybe they'll offer a buy back scheme a'la season tickets, and run it successfully for the same ammount of time to.

[londinium]

Queue cutting? Cash free zone??? What a load of rubbish. More like another way to force supporters to spend X ammount of money at the club.

I'll tell ya what - it'll well bugger up our half time pints system.

Eh? How does it force anyone to spend anything? If you don't like it, don't spend it!

Because if Joe Bloggs wants a coffee, and only a coffee, then he's going to have to put a tenner on his card in order to purchase a £1.80(???) drink. Whats going to happen to his £8.80? He's going to have to spend it at the stadium. Is RFC going to refund unused credit? Don't make me laugh. If anybody thinks that RFC will credit people back their money surely they've got another think coming. Maybe they'll offer a buy back scheme a'la season tickets, and run it successfully for the same ammount of time to.

Joe Bloggs can still buy his coffee for £1.80 in cold hard cash if he wants, queing up behind the other muppets who choose to do so.

I think it is a great idea, there will be designated queues for people wanting to buy by this method and hence your waiting time at half time greatly reduced.

It always makes me laugh when I walk into Argos and use the card machine to pay by credit card and there is a queue of muppets still using the till. If it is half as effective as that then I for one will welcome it.

[TFF]

Queue cutting? Cash free zone??? What a load of rubbish. More like another way to force supporters to spend X ammount of money at the club.

I'll tell ya what - it'll well bugger up our half time pints system.

Eh? How does it force anyone to spend anything? If you don't like it, don't spend it!

Because if Joe Bloggs wants a coffee, and only a coffee, then he's going to have to put a tenner on his card in order to purchase a £1.80(???) drink. Whats going to happen to his £8.80? He's going to have to spend it at the stadium. Is RFC going to refund unused credit? Don't make me laugh. If anybody thinks that RFC will credit people back their money surely they've got another think coming. Maybe they'll offer a buy back scheme a'la season tickets, and run it successfully for the same ammount of time to.

You work for Compass Catering AICMFP

[Matt de K]

I was extremely hungover 2hours ago - but suprisingly 2hours of Excel & SAP has cured my bad head

[Royal Lady]

How many of these topping up machines will they have? Surely there will be large queues of people having to top their card up most weeks. Unless people put £50 on it, which I'd be loathe to do if something went wrong and there was a danger of losing my money, they're only going to put say £10 on it at a time, buy a couple of beers and a pie or something, then next week have to do it all again. And unless the caterers round prices up to full figures, what happens to the odd pence left over on a card? And it still won't shorten queueing times imho, as the only delay is with the catering stuff understanding what it is you want and still getting the order wrong, the delay isn't in giving out change in my experience. Surely the caterers are able to employ people who know what Fosters, Lager, pint, half pint, wine and pie mean?

[Dirk Gently]

How many of these topping up machines will they have? Surely there will be large queues of people having to top their card up most weeks. Unless people put £50 on it, which I'd be loathe to do if something went wrong and there was a danger of losing my money, they're only going to put say £10 on it at a time, buy a couple of beers and a pie or something, then next week have to do it all again. And unless the caterers round prices up to full figures, what happens to the odd pence left over on a card? And it still won't shorten queueing times imho, as the only delay is with the catering stuff understanding what it is you want and still getting the order wrong, the delay isn't in giving out change in my experience. Surely the caterers are able to employ people who know what Fosters, Lager, pint, half pint, wine and pie mean?

See my above comment about the calibre of staff employed - which is undoubtedly the biggest probelm with the transaction time.

The cluib have promised faithfully that there will be lots of machines where you can top up cards, as well as being able to load cards via the on-line ticketing system. The odd pence will stay on the card for the next time you use it - it'll be your member card/season ticket card, not a different card.

So the only people who will have odd sums of money left over on their cards are the people who come to the MadStad only occasionally - but I'm also assuming this will be like other systems where the machines which you can load up cards will also let you collect any unused balances (not 100% certain on that, though).

[Royal Lady]

Well, good luck to them with their trial in Upper West. I'd respectfully suggest that they put the worst staff on the tills, just to ensure that they cover every thing that might go wrong. Like the person using the till pressing the wrong button and charging you twice for something, or overcharging or whatever and I hope they manage to sort those problems out, because the queues will be just as bad if not. I'll be interested to hear what happens next week and how Upper West supporters felt it went.

[North Somerset Royal]

Just had e-mail from club detailing arrangements:-

Introducing Royals QuickPay - The cashless payment system that helps us serve you faster

Starting with our game at home to Birmingham City on Saturday 22nd March, a trial will be taking place in the Upper West Stand, blocks GU8 to GU12. We will be trialling Royals Quickpay, a new cashless payment system for the concourse refreshment kiosks.
As you sit in this part of the stadium, you will be affected by this trial. This email is to let you know more about what’s happening, and what you need to do.
We have developed Royals Quickpay in response to feedback from our supporters. You have told us that speed of service at the concourse refreshment kiosks is an issue, and that you spend too long in the queue. Royals Quickpay is designed to cut down queuing time by introducing a cashless system, integrated with your Reading FC Season Ticket/Member Card.
QuickPay is simple to use and saves time. Use your Reading FC Season Ticket/Member card to store up to £50 of cash to pay for food or drinks at our concourse kiosks. When you start running out of cash it’s quick and easy to top up.
As a special offer for the trial period, we are offering a 10% discount, starting from the Birmingham City match on 22nd March, and at subsequent games, until the end of the season. This is only available to supporters in Upper West blocks GU8 to GU12, and is our way of saying Thank You for helping us to trial QuickPay.
The key points to be aware of are:
- Once the trial has started, kiosks in GU8 to GU12 will not accept cash at the tills.
- You must load money onto your Reading FC Season Ticket/Member Card, then use that card to pay at the tills.
- The best way to load money is in advance at https://www.fortress-rfc.co.uk.
- You can use cash to top up on match day, using either our QuickPay team in the concourse or with our dedicated QuickPay top up points.
We will also be contacting you by post with more information, in the meantime you can find out more by visiting our website http://www.readingfc.co.uk (choose the Fans tab and select QuickPay). If you have any questions please email royalsquickpay@readingfc.co.uk or call 0870 999 1871.
Thank you in advance for helping us to trial this new system.
Kind regards
Reading Football Club

[Platypuss]

FAQ here:

http://www.readingfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/QuickPay/0,,10306~1262582,00.html

Answers nearly all the questions raised on this thread.

FWIW - there's a £1 "admin fee" for refunds.

[Royal Lady]

Interesting that there will be no cash tills in those blocks either. So people in GU8 to GU12 get no choice.

[TFF]

Interesting that there will be no cash tills in those blocks either. So people in GU8 to GU12 get no choice.

Encouraging customers to bring their own food and drink can only have a positive effect on queueing times.

I'm in the Upper West so I'll (be forced to) give this a go or have to do without my pre-match pint. To be fair the club seem to have addressed most of my concerns via the Q&A though I can see problems here...

6. What happens if I want to make purchases greater than the value of the balance on my Card? (eg. drinks cost £12, balance on card is £10).
The tills will only allow food & drink purchases up the value of your QuickPay balance. If you wish to purchase additional food & drinks you will need to add extra top up onto your Card via cash or text message

[Physci]

Interesting that there will be no cash tills in those blocks either. So people in GU8 to GU12 get no choice.

Encouraging customers to bring their own food and drink can only have a positive effect on queueing times.

I'm in the Upper West so I'll (be forced to) give this a go or have to do without my pre-match pint. To be fair the club seem to have addressed most of my concerns via the Q&A though I can see problems here...

6. What happens if I want to make purchases greater than the value of the balance on my Card? (eg. drinks cost £12, balance on card is £10).
The tills will only allow food & drink purchases up the value of your QuickPay balance. If you wish to purchase additional food & drinks you will need to add extra top up onto your Card via cash or text message

Which is really no different to wanting to buy £12 drinks and finding you only have £10 in your wallet.

[T.R.O.L.I.]

You're missing the point slightly IMO - if you go to the bar with a £10 note and find it isn't enough, then you can get some more money out of your wallet. If you go to the bar and only find out after you;ve ordered that you've only got £10 on your card for a round of £12 then you're screwed (unless one of your mates is nearby with a card with some money on it).

[TFF]

'greed.

I've just just stuck a tenner on my card, fairly painless except the fortress website doesn't work on firefox - so well done to their developers.

[Royal Lady]

You're missing the point slightly IMO - if you go to the bar with a £10 note and find it isn't enough, then you can get some more money out of your wallet. If you go to the bar and only find out after you;ve ordered that you've only got £10 on your card for a round of £12 then you're screwed (unless one of your mates is nearby with a card with some money on it).

and you're holding up the queues, which is what I thought they were trying to avoid!!
How are you supposed to remember how much money you have left on your card btw?

[Squelchy2507]

FFS it isn't difficult. Most people have access to either the internet (obviously all users of this forum do) or a mobile phone.

If you know you only want to buy a cup of coffee for £1.80, then only put £1.80 on the card if you like - you don't have to put a tenner on (minimum is £1 unless you use the QuickPay team when the minimum is a tenner).

As for checking the balance on your card, you can either do that online or use the balance checker machines.

[Ups and Downs]

FFS it isn't difficult. Most people have access to either the internet (obviously all users of this forum do) or a mobile phone.

If you know you only want to buy a cup of coffee for £1.80, then only put £1.80 on the card if you like - you don't have to put a tenner on (minimum is £1 unless you use the QuickPay team when the minimum is a tenner).

As for checking the balance on your card, you can either do that online or use the balance checker machines.

This whole systems a joke! So you have to pre-plan what you want to eat or drink on the morning before the game? I don't even like to think about the grim flat pint of Fosters or weak overpriced coffee while i'm drinking it, nevermind a good few hours beforehand.

Hopefully after this trial, RFC will see that the problem lies with their (presumably) underpaid, under enthusiastic staff, rather than that annoyingly cumbersome form of payment we've happily relied on thousands of years called; cash. Perhaps if their staff were trained to look happy to be there and pleased to be serving people, rather than act like they have to be there due to some out-standing community service order than the whole catering arrangements would work a little smoother. Perhaps, rather than spending the money on a white elephant of a system, they developed some sort of bonus scheme to provide the catering staff with an incentive to work at a speed slightly faster than a snails pace and with a little more social grace than that of a house brick.

[North Somerset Royal]

'greed.

I've just just stuck a tenner on my card, fairly painless except the fortress website doesn't work on firefox - so well done to their developers.

I had problems earlier today when I kept geting an error message. Have now managed to load a tenner but one thing I am not keen on is that the system links your ST/MC with your debit/credit card. I usually avoid sites that retain credit/debit card details as I am nervous about card info sitting on a server waiting to be hacked into. Apart from that seems OK.

[The Surgeon of Crowthorne]

Another downer about this system is that it will be less obvious if you've been overcharged for a meal deal, which is what happens the majority of the time I buy one - or at least they try to overcharge me & then I have to explain & point at the board several times. Without the change actually in your hand, will it be so clear that they've rung up the wrong price?

[RoyalBlue]

Another downer about this system is that it will be less obvious if you've been overcharged for a meal deal, which is what happens the majority of the time I buy one - or at least they try to overcharge me & then I have to explain & point at the board several times. Without the change actually in your hand, will it be so clear that they've rung up the wrong price?

Ask them for a receipt. The system we use has the tills linked to a printer and can print off a very detailed receipt. i.e. balance on card at start, less purchases (detailed by item and price), closing balance.

Given some of the limitations of the system, the large number of transactions required in a very short space of time, poorly trained staff (some with limited English and/or intelligence) and RFC's less than perfect track record with the introduction/use of technology, I will be absolutely staggered if this all runs smoothly from the outset. As for longer term, the jury is still out.

Finally it's interesting to see that they talk about providing a refund if fraudulent purchases are made from a stolen/lost card. I wonder who the burden of proof will be on when it comes to determining 'fraudulent purchases'. Also, I presume the refund of fraudulent purchases only applies after card has been reported lost or stolen. In which case it is all pretty academic as the card can be blocked immediately, making such purchases impossible anyway.