Eftpos headaches brewing over at Coast cafe

A frustrated small business owner who has endured an “ongoing nightmare” with her Eftpos machine, now fears she will lose customers for good

Cafe Gingers owner Caroline Pickering says she has had endless problems with her Eftpos machine in Yandina. Photo: John McCutcheon

A FRUSTRATED small business owner who has endured an “ongoing nightmare” with her Eftpos machine, now fears she will lose customers for good.

Café Gingers owner Caroline Pickering said her small shop on Farrel St, Yandina suffered every time the Eftpos shuts down.

Until recently it was a problem she was able to deal with, simply by “saying sorry” and then send customers across the road to the ATM.

But after a “recent review”, Commonwealth Bank of Australia decided to remove that ATM which led to an outcry from the community.

“I’ve had no Eftpos for more than an hour and I have no idea when it will be fixed,” Mrs Pickering told the Sunshine Coast Daily.

“It shuts down at random and it happens too many times. I’d say a few times a month.

“It really needs to be sorted, it’s just an ongoing nightmare.

“A lot of my customers are tradies, but they don’t have time to go up the road to get money out. So I will lose their business.”

A CBA spokesperson apologised for any inconvenience the issue had caused the cafe.

“We will be contacting the merchant straight away and offering to send them a new device free of charge. We will also apply a three-month terminal waiver as a goodwill gesture,” the spokesperson said.

“In the meantime, we encourage the merchant to perform a reset on their device which should solve the issue in the interim.”

Questions were put to the bank to see whether it would reconsider reinstalling the ATM outside the bakery.

They went unanswered and, instead, the bank spokesperson referred back to a previous statement.

“Following a recent review, we made the difficult decision to remove our ATM at Yandina,” it read.

“The needs of our customers are changing — every day more and more customers are choosing to do their banking online, via our CommBank app, and Netbank.

“Across the industry, ATM use continues to decrease year on year as customers look at other methods for payment including tap and pay and Apple Pay.

“Cash now only accounts for around a third of all payments and has dropped from more than two-thirds a decade ago.

“Customers can deposit and withdraw cash from Australia Post which is across the road (30m away).

“Additionally, customers can also visit their nearest Commonwealth Bank branch and ATM at Nambour.

“As always, customers can also access their accounts 24 hours a day through NetBank or the CommBank.”

This was met with further outcry from Mrs Pickering.

“What happens if someone needs to get money out after 5pm or on weekends?” she said.

“Then what do we do?”

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