UnionPay and Mainland Chinese issuers might know this, but I still maintain that most people are using this card in Mainland China where the PBOC protocol would be widely supported. It doesn't even need to be the issuer blocking transactions. Merchants who realize they might be liable for fallback transactions now could opt to decline a chipped card when the chip fails.

As expected, Walmart worked with PBOC without a PIN or signature:



It's interesting that the receipt still says DISCV TEND. I then went to my local Safeway where the chip card failed to read. I swiped the card, was prompted for the PIN, and asked if I wanted cash back. This transaction went through as a debit purchase. I'm drawing from my memory, but I remember being able to press cancel and run over the Discover network as well.