rubesl

I called Monday for an EMV chip Plat., the agent wasn't familiar with it so I was put on hold for about 5 min. The agent came back & said "no problem, yours was my first request" & I had the card Tues. (next day).

kebosabi

The contactless thing isn't really catching on the US (at least not yet), thanks to fears that "it'll be too easy for criminals to steal my info using a hidden wireless device in a suitcase" or "government is now tracking everything that I do" or the sort. See wireless identity theft.

Many card companies don't even bother putting them in the cards and instead, opt to send out to those that request one, keychain dongles or cell phone stickers instead of being in the card itself.

lbotez

Well, they could make us use a pin.

The chip & pin cards are very successful in Europe, everyone has them. In the US, we are still using cards where someone with a cell phone can take a photo of both sides of the card (in a restaurant, for example) and then go make a bunch of charges after you leave. Really no difference, actually.

The pin number is an extra protection. Of course, the signature should match, but most people don't really look at it. I can't tell you how many times I use my husband's credit cards. No one seems to notice.

Majuki

Isn't this mostly due to the fact that there has been a liability shift which still has yet to occur in the US?

kebosabi

The problem is that since the US never really used offline PIN transactions in the past which requires a hard coded PIN onto the chip itself, there's no way to change the PIN to something that you remember quite easily at any bank branch or ATM in the US. Our PINs are stored on the server and verification is done all online, instantaneously.

The only true hard encoded Chip & PIN card that's available in the US today is the Andrews FCU GlobeTrek VISA card and you're assigned by VISA, a PIN that you have to remember. It is not changeable so you're pretty stuck with that number.

And Americans, compared to the rest of the world, tend to hold many many credit cards in their wallets. Trying to remember oh my AA Mastercard's PIN number is this, my Chase Hyatt's PIN was that, oh wait that's my Andrews FCU card PIN, umm, what was my AMEX Platinum's PIN again... gets lost if one can't change the PIN. Unless of course if you want to write down a list of PIN on a piece of paper, but how safe is that?

reclusive46

Some companies will allow you to choose your PIN online when getting a replacement or when applying for a card.

Majuki

Yes, but this is the cash advance PIN, and it will only be used for online PIN verification. An example of this would be where you withdraw cash from an ATM. As kebosabi mentioned, this PIN is not stored on the chip itself but with the bank. If the kiosk does offline PIN verification, which is common in some countries like France, the kiosk will try to match the PIN stored on the chip on your card with the PIN that you have entered. The purchase will fail because the Chip & Signature card doesn't have a PIN stored on the chip.

One exception is that there have been reports of successful transactions if 0000 is entered as the PIN, but this doesn't work 100% of the time. Chip & Signature is still a net gain, however, because there is no more arguing with the cashier about having to accept a swipe & sign purchase with your non-chipped card. Technically the merchant has to accept your swipe & sign purchase, but some merchants flat out refuse to do this.

kebosabi

Correct but this is for ONLINE verification, meaning the when you punch in the PIN number, the card machine connects to the internet or dials over phone lines and verifies with the PIN stored on the bank's server to see if you're the actual cardholder. This is a non-issue in the US because our telecommunication costs are really low that it doesn't cost that much money to install dedicated lines to each subway kiosk or gas pumps all over the nation.

But that's not the case elsewhere. Abroad, card machines (i.e. train station kiosks, gas pumps, toll roads) may not have direct connections to the internet or a dial up phone access due to high telecommunication costs or high installation fees. And for things like train station kiosks abroad where there's high demand for mass transit, it does cost a lot of investment to put in dedicated secure telecommunication lines to each and every multiple number of kiosks all over the city's stations.

Hence in places where they still can't do it online, they need a way to verify that you're indeed the cardholder. Hence they went with verification with a PIN that's encoded directly onto the card itself (not the server) that only you are supposed to know about. And of course ID verification doesn't work; it's not going to do any good when you yell at the non human machine waving your state issued drivers license or US Passport in front of a kiosk or a gas pump saying that "it's is me! it's my damn friggin' card!"

And since there's no magical wireless technology where once you change the PIN, it beams the info wirelessly and rewrites the PIN written on your card itself, the only choice is stick with PIN that the card company gave you, until banks in the US install specialized machines at the branch or at the ATM to do direct PIN changes to the chip. They are in the process of doing that now, but it's not exactly a flip-of-the-switch turn-key operation since the US never used that before.

Let alone, trying to argue with a live merchant who doesn't speak the same language as you do. I had that experience in a non-touristy town in Flemish area of Belgium. The restaurant wouldn't accept my non-chipped card and trying to argue with them in different languages gets you nowhere and just a is a waste of time not worth the hassle.

The relief from the stress and headache of that alone is worth having a Chip & Signature card where the merchant (usually a part-time cashier) wouldn't get confused with a non-chipped card they're not familiar with and instead, just stick it into their machine and follow the prompts on their machine in their local language.

reclusive46

Indeed offline pin is used here in the UK. I normally change my pin on a new card at any ATM. (We only have 1 ATM network called Link in the UK, all banks are connected to it). Even in the UK where communciations are cheap a lot of transactions are still done offline. For example with EMV contactless almost all transactions are done offline, so most of my under £20 (25 dollars ish) are all done without Amex or whoever knowing.

One problem with Online PIN that the US could experience problems in a lot of places in Europe. In the UK and France all transactions are done via offline PIN. I do know from my Wife who owns a shop and runs a card machine that this causes problems. Those from Denmark till recently had online PIN cards and her card machine would literally just decline it straight away or give a card error, She couldn't swipe them either as it would tell her to inside card (Due to most cards having the EMV if possible flag on the magstripe). She would often have to force a fallback. I.e. Put the card upside down in about 5 times and it would think there was something wrong with the chip and would finally let her swipe though.

From what I've read, online PIN if not possible should revert to signature, but this is not always the case and some countries/card machines are not setup to take online PIN.

Regarding the 0000 thing, this is often machine thing. I know some machines also have an override PIN for Online PINs and magstripe cards (When the UI must have some kind of PIN entry), When I had an emergency replacement card, they still issue magstripe only ones in the UK and if I tried to use an automated machine, it would still ask for a PIN, Amex told me that 1001 would normally work.

kebosabi

As is with Japan. About 75% of my transaction done in Japan show up as pending instantaneously. This shows that these were done online.

However the other 25% may not show up as pending post until over a month later, which to my understanding, is done on the old fashioned way of batch processing on whatever the accounting terms that the merchant has with the acquirer.


Which is the case with many automated kiosks. There's really no process of say, signing a receipt when purchasing a subway ticket or a paying for a toll road AND verifying if the signature matches the back of the card, is there?

reclusive46

Very true, although toll roads shouldn't be much of a problem, they have NO card verification on them all, even us PIN people don't enter our PIN.

Majuki

It occurred to me earlier today. Would it be possible to use a US Chip & Signature card on a European ATM and assign a PIN to the EMV chip? I don't know if the EMV is coded in such a way that renders this impossible, but I'd be curious to know.

reclusive46

No, it wouldn't be possible. As your Chip and Signature card will already have a PIN for ATMS as it is but it wouldn't allow it anyway haha. The chip will have signature as its on card verification method on it.

styxl

finally, i struggle with this everytime i travel....."will it be PIN or Signature Sir?" i prefer the PIN option.....

lakers6902

Don't know if it was posted already but the Mercedes plat is offered in chip/signature as well. Just received mine in the mail.