Originally Posted by
bullfrog
Not too stupid (though while your average American memorizes the PIN for their one (or maybe two, tops?) ATM cards, will they really memorize 4, 5, or 6 PINs for all the cards they may have in their wallet?) The thing that terrifies a bank is that they don't want their card to be any harder to use than a competitor's.
I have 4 credit cards in my wallet. Each one of those banks wants their card to be my #1, go-to card for day-to-day transactions. Now let's say that these banks start issuing EMV (one of them, Wells Fargo, already has.) Now, each bank has to decide, should they prioritize C&P or C&S? If C&S, they know the end user experience is pretty much the same as before and I'll probably keep using my card just as much as before. But let's say I'm a less savvy user. Suppose the bank decides to send me a new card with C&P priority, and like many people in the swipe-card days, I just mindlessly discard the PIN mailer that comes a few days after the card, because I never take cash advances. Next time I go into the store and try to buy something, my card doesn't work. Annoyed, I use a different card. THAT is the scenario that banks want to avoid, because the loss of business costs them a lot more than the additional fraud they absorb due to the less effective customer verification that comes with signatures vs PINs.
Well my Chase Sapphire Preferred is currently my "go to" card. But what happens when I try to buy tickets at a terminal that only takes offline PIN, and there's a line of people 15 minutes long at the window with the agent? What happens if I try to buy gas at a gas station that only takes offline PIN? CSP goes back in the wallet, and out comes the USAA C&P card. Isn't THAT also a scenario that banks (namely Chase) would want to avoid? That's another reason I keep the USAA card. It's not worth waiting 15 minutes over 1 point per dollar and no foreign transaction fee. So if Chase doesn't wise up and put an offline PIN into the CSP, at least as second priority, then they're going to lose business to USAA.
Originally Posted by sdsearch
That indicates that it's an "offline" PIN card, which is the only kind of card that will work in some (unmanned) situations in France.
And it's not completely true that the PIN cannot be changed. What is true is that the PIN cannot be changed online or over the phone. The PIN can be changed only at an EMV-enabled ATM (or other kind of EMV-enabled machine at a bank), and the problem is that there are very few of these still in the US.
Any bank's EMV enabled ATM, or only your own bank's? If it's only your own bank's, then I'd likely have to go to San Antonio, to USAA's only branch.