He says: Stopped in here to pick up a cheap pre-paid mobile phone while visiting Belgium. Service…read morewas fairly helpful enough until it came to payment. As someone whose first resort is to throw down a Visa, I had a rude surprise. The owner refused to take my card because it was a US card and lacked a microchip (which has been common in Europe for a couple years now). She said if I wanted the phone, I'd have to go to the ATM. I told her that I was trying to avoid that because a 3 Euro ATM fee is a hefty surcharge for a 25 Euro Phone. She replied, "Well, it is my store. I can do what I want. I lost 500 Euro when someone bought two phones once." Despite my verbal assurance that my wife and I would not be ripping her off over 25 Euros, she was quite adamant about it. While I can accept her reluctance....
Rules are rules. The VISA carrier agreement is quite strict about taking magnetic strip cards.They literally have a reporting form dedicated to it (https://usa.visa.com/merchantviolation/index.jsp). I offered to let her make a photocopy or picture of my passport. I informed her twice that she was violating the merchant agreement and once that I would report her if she didn't process my card. She dug in her heels and said, "It's my store." So, here we are. She's now reported to VISA and I feel compelled to make a quite bad review. Otherwise, the place seems like a decent mobile shop. However, if you're from the US and not willing to pay cash, I would find somewhere other than Gare du Midi to grab a phone (all the GSM shops there are sub-par). I'm not willing to be treated as a second-class customer, and neither should anyone else. All told, if this store doesn't want to take VISA, they shouldn't post it on the door. Otherwise, they should follow the rules.