I recall reading an article from last year, when NFC-based payment was introduced at the German supermarket chain Rewe. The author went out to test it, but the cashiers didn't know how it worked. The author himself figured it out for himself, and just started touching the phone to the cardreader at the appropriate moment, when the cashier was waiting for him to present either cash or a card. The cashiers were allegedly oftentimes confused by the reader beeping to indicate success, and two receipts being printed (instead of the usual three).
Also, while I was looking around to see whether I could find the original article, I saw an article describing that German banks want to eliminate traditional banking cards and do everything via NFC-enabled apps on smartphones. WHAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG.
Rewe is one of the better stores for this. Even though it didn't seem the staff was explicitly trained on that topic (the feature was just switched on one day), the register showed enough information that they knew exactly what to do. Never had any problems, only surprised looks. The other store is Aldi (actually both of them), where from day one every single cashier was trained very well on that and was happy to see a customer actually using it.
All the other stores created many opportunities for mistake by staff they badly trained and much confusion still happens today even long after the roll out. Most commonly, many cashiers demand a signature (on the back side of the receipt, where there is an authorisation text for using another payment technology) even though none is needed.
Yeaah literally no cashier has ever seen these payments, apparently. H&M, Uniqlo, gas stations, Kaufland, Rewe, the list is just infinite.
I worked for 1 week at a Kaufland (you could compare it to Eroski/Carrefour/Walmart) as cashier and I have never seen anybody else except me pay contacless so no wonder they get surprised all the time :)
Had the same. Was shopping at a supermarket in Germany and was the first person to use it apparently. Was then forced to sign (even though there was no indication that I would have to sign and doing so doesn't make sense for contactless payments). I tried to protest but had to catch my train so scribbled something random..
Many stores print one receipt for the goods you bought (which is yours to keep) printed by the register, and two receipts for the card transaction (so one for both) printed by the card terminal. This is mostly for historical reasons due to how card transactions were introduced to German merchants. They have stuck to that and still design new so-called "hybrid" terminals which have a receipt printer and take the card in for the full length (so the flow for magstripe and chip transactions is exactly the same with no confusion even though magstripe basically only happens for foreign cards now).
Smarter merchants print muss less: Rewe, which is used in the example, doesn't print receipts at all unless specifically requested by the cashier and then only one which contains both the goods bought and the card transaction data for the customer. A merchant receipt is only printed in case a signature is required.
Probably Händlerbeleg (Merchant receipt), Kundenbeleg (Customer receipt) and then a normal Kassenbon (just the receipt with what you bought) but I have only seen the two customer ones in one.
Also, while I was looking around to see whether I could find the original article, I saw an article describing that German banks want to eliminate traditional banking cards and do everything via NFC-enabled apps on smartphones. WHAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG.