New devices speed service: Restaurateurs enjoy efficiency, customers like pay-at-table security

摘要

One of the most common disgrun-tlements of American diners is the process of paying the bill. It can take a long time for wait staff to deliver the tab, pick up the credit card and return it to the customer after the payment transaction has been processed. In the meantime, the patron is held captive at the table, and when a restaurant is humming, that wait can feel endless. There are other gripes to relinquishing credit cards in restaurants. The restaurant industry is the only venue where customers must turn their cards over to a complete stranger who leaves their sight in order to pay the bill. And any time you do that, the opportunity for fraud arises. Identity theft due to credit-card skimming exceeded 1 billion dollar in 2002, according to Michael Friedman, director of emerging technologies at the Mercator Advisory Group in Waltham, Mass., and 70 percent of it occurred in restaurant settings.