FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - USA EMV cards: Availability, Q&A (Chip & PIN -or- Chip & Signature) [2012-2015]
Old Mar 10, 2015, 4:56 pm
  #10128  
uds0
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Portland, OR, USA
Programs: Delta + United Airmiles
Posts: 703
Originally Posted by Hawaiian717
As far as being given a choice, I've had plenty of cashiers ask me "credit or debit" when handing them my SPG Amex; as far as I know there are no Amex debit cards (at least not in the US), so it's probably just the cashiers rote response when being handed a card for payment. Pretty sure it wouldn't actually work if I'd told them debit.

I think what's causing problems in this case though is that uds0 is trying to figure out if he can force a "purchase with cashback" scenario which would cause the card to hit the PIN CVM. But I don't think this is a great idea anyway; this isn't a debit card so I could see being hit with a cash advance fee on at least the cashback portion of the transaction.
I was indeed trying to use the CVM that had both "pin" and "purchase" in it.

I went back and, via a different cashier, asked to choose debit, but unfortunately the payment went through without every asking for debit or credit. I then swiped my debit card (oatmeal cookie this time <g>) and it did, as expected, ask for debit or credit, so I selected debit and it then asked for only my pin for that card.

Normally a cash advance fee would be a concern, and this card (and at least a few other credit union cards) have no CAF and if paid back in short order, insignificant or even no interest cost.

I now have a secure email and two call back requests (via phone and local branch) to the folks who are supposed to actually be trained on what this card is.
uds0 is offline