Exactly like that most likely, I am old enough to remember those machines where credit cards left their mark on the receipt, that is why their numbers are higher than the card.
Here,
Here,
Calling a call centre to verify every transaction is too expensive so only purchases over certain limits came in following BofA/Visa - and that stated that way till the late eighties when larger stores started using back office to talk to Visa network etc. but even so the ability to do live updates and verification was too much and there were weird cacheing tricks
So banks could easily approve or be liable for transactions they would prefer not to approve - so they only gave credit to the rich at first, and then to those who paid back regularly. This info was shared and became credit reference agencies - because the credit card companies shared it initially like casinos but the abuse and mistakes brought legislation
I think what i am saying is our consumer credit culture was not designed, it just grew.
I last used a carbon credit card in the early 00s. Electronic swipe and sign for a credit card had gone pretty much everywhere I went except the US by about 2010
I am not sure how valid it was, though they would take a deposit and a card imprint until we got the car accessories back.
It put all the transaction risk onto the employer, and had a high fee per-use, but since they only had these 'stock clearance' sales to employees once a year it was fine.
IIRC, the merchant gets paid if hitting a credit limit or similar decline reason. The card holder then gets hit with a financial penalty (usurious interest rates, or extra charges). If the card has been stolen, it ends up in a big phonebook-like book for offline use (otherwise the merchant just called it in for big purchases).
If you mean chargebacks: I believe imprinters had card issuer liability for the longest time, at least as long as the transaction was under the (network-defined) "floor limit".
So if these were relatively low value transactions, the bank would simply not have any standing to decline payment.
If you had any interest in any topic you read about on the web or in a book, that was the only way to get things even if you had the money otherwise.
Btw, what typography magazine was it?
In the backlog of my things to do is a best-of compilation of articles from the published (and one planned but unpublished) issues.
Gave me a bit of a surprise when he cashed in the paper copy two years later and I hadn't been to Australia since...
I think there was a limit of something like 60 days. At least my bank apparently refused all transactions that were settled too late.
I had a job which involved a lot of taxi trips, and when I cross checked 30% of the trips where never charged my account. I suppose they just filled up the glove box with old slips until they couldn't shut it. Hotels never failed.
And I guess if one has never seen these, I need to explain. In order to leave an impression on the carbon paper (I should probably explain that, too, huh?), a fair amount of pressure was needed (those old card imprinters didn’t require a gym membership, but a child could not operate one). That rolling pressure would eventually wear on the surface of the card, and turn the numbers white when the outer layer wore through.