Originally Posted by
cbn42
I don't think the investment is that big of a deal. Most stores replace their equipment every several years anyway, so if you have an appropriate transition period, it shouldn't cost too much extra. The savings from reduced fraud are likely to pay for the investment.
The merchant doesn't pay for fraud, the customer and the credit card companies do. Even if a merchant is replacing it's equipment every several years (which is way too low of an estimate) many of them are buying refurbished equipment that the store down the street just turned in when it bought refurbished equipment and the company cleaned it up, fixed it, and tested it.
For example, an VX510 new is $330 from Staples. It's under $150 refurbished.
Most terminals have a lifespan of about 100,000 hours on them, and are used less than 10,000 hours per year (because there are only 8,760 hours in a year). Barring any compliance related changes that can't be done to the terminal, it should last at least ten to twelve years if it's not abused.
Many gas stations just updated their readers to be PCI complaint in the last couple of years, and the pay at the pump units cost something like $3,000 each. There's no way they will embrace changing all those again any time in the near future for chip and pin.