Originally Posted by
upnorth
I think it is a flawed logic to assume that moving to a secure chip and pin at POS will lead to more on-line fraud; so let us live with the current insecure system. The liability may rest with Visa, but the enormous work for card users to get new cards and notify auto billing companies is not insignificant. Secondly, the rest of the world has moved to Chip and Pin so it is the US that needs to adapt, not visa trying to arm twist Europeans to change their system. The only reason I got myself a pure chip and pin is because I have had many embarrassing situations where my chip and signature cards or magnetic swipe cards did not work overseas. I would prefer to have a more secure chip and pin in the US, but it is not a deal breaker. But should there be another fraud case at POS, I am going to blog heavily and criticize the companies and name the CEO's and shame them. They have time until October. Most shameful will be if Target joins this crowd. There is no reason, Target can't go for Chip and Pin for its own Target store card. This has nothing to do with Visa or Master Card.
Of course I didn't mean to imply that the increase in online fraud that will almost certainly happen following the introduction of emv compliant cards is a good reason not to go for chip and pin. But let's face it. These hackers are good at what they do and emv will cut down on pos card is present fraud without question and pin will cut down on the use of stolen cards at pos terminals (although that is hardly a big issue). It will, at least for now, make it harder to counterfeit cards although if they put their mind to it, I have few doubts that these vermin will not be able to clone emv cards but it is not necessary for them to do so now as cloning magnetic strip cards is so easy. As I said, what worries me more is that if we went to chip and pin, there may be a greater effort on the part of the networks to hold consumers liable for fraud. This is what happened in the UK for a while early in their emv migration when some cards were indeed compromised and at first the banks refused to reimburse customers until they realized indeed the customers did nothing wrong. Today we have a system which holds us not liable for fraud and while I agree it is a pain to notify merchants when a card is cancelled because of fraud and if you're travelling it may be hard to get a replacement, you have to do the same thing when the expiration date changes, don't you? And even if we were completely emv compliant here, the basic data stolen from Target would be just as vulnerable and the stolen information would probably be more likely to be used for online fraud.
Face it. Credit card fraud is modern day back robbery without guns. As Willie Sutton is claimed to have said (it has been refuted btw) in the 1950's when asked why he robbed banks, he answered "Because that's where the money is." Why do hackers break into data bases and steal credit card numbers? Because that is where the money is, of course.
I'm sorry if you disagree and I am not trying to start a verbal spat with you or anybody and you are welcome to disagree. I just don't lay awake at night worrying about whether my credit card will be hacked. It most assuredly will at some point again. To me, chip and pin provides really no greater protection in that regard from chip and signature. If I had my preference, I would probably prefer chip and pin but I just don't feel that issue is the most important part of this. I worry most about my ability to use the card.
But please. Don't shoot the messenger.