Originally Posted by
Kevin AA
Count me out. I prefer cash, and if not that, then a credit card (I have one with a chip and one without). Contactless cards can be literally stolen without contact, and I refuse to buy one of those stupid faraday cage wallets.
A few things:
- You can only read them from a few inches away without having enough equipment such that you'd look incredibly suspicious in public.
- Even if you did read data from the card that way, it's not enough to create a new physical card. For one thing, your real name doesn't appear when the card's used wirelessly.
- You would have the CC# and expiration though*, but online stores generally ask for the name on the card, the billing address and/or the three digit code (four if AmEx) on the back (front) and check that everything matches like it should. Most B&M stores would also be incredibly suspicious if you try to ask to manually enter the card info without a physical card if not flat out deny you.
- Finally, you'd still not be liable for any fraud that ended up happening despite the above.
Unfortunately it appears US banks were justified in not offering contactless cards anymore, especially if they'd end up getting tons of calls to disable/remove the functionality and thus costing them more money than they'd get. I don't know if requiring the use of a phone is going to go over all that well since usage is still pretty low from what I hear.
* If the physical card's used. Apple/Android Pay and similar give out a totally different card number and expiration.