Originally Posted by
der_saeufer
That's how terminals over here are configured--after inserting the card, the screen will say "Total 123.45 EUR / Enter PIN + OK" for PIN cards. I can't recall ever seeing a terminal in Europe that didn't have some variation of that prompt; for C&S cards it's "Total 123.45 EUR / OK?" so a clerk could OK it for you, which the PIN prevents. Even at kiosks where you've completed your order on the main screen and have the total right in front of you, the card reader screen will still display the amount with the PIN prompt.
Even at major chain stores, all the POS does is pass the amount to the terminal--there's very little integration.
Yeah, the lack of standardization in the US is one of the worst parts of the whole thing. It would have been nice if there were some actual mandates, even if that meant stuff like "all PIN support must be disabled on terminals". Heck, there are issues getting stores to print the required EMV info on receipts, never mind everything else. That discussion is probably better suited for the EMV/contactless thread though.
As for DCC, considering how uncommon PIN preference is for US cards, I'm not sure that can really be considered a viable option. The good news is that contactless, more often than not, probably is--at least in Europe. Hopefully the latter continues to be a reliable method of DCC avoidance. ^