sdsearch

Well, they do a good job of hiding it. I've applied for a bunch of Alaska cards over the last few years, and never have I gotten any information about this. And without knowing that it has PIN, I wouldn't know the PIN (since I never use credit cards for cash advance), and without knowing the PIN, how could I possibly use it?

So is Visa discouraging banks from mentioning that they support PIN when they do?

mia

VISA has an amusing page touting Chip & Choice which extols the virtues of signature verification. They assert that if PIN verification were required diners would need to accompany their waiter to the POS machine to enter it .

alggag

Argh, that's another grievance of mine. I've had my card number stolen four different times over the years and all four times happened at home and I'm 99% sure the card was skimmed by the waiter when they disappeared with it. Why, why, why can't we do like just about everywhere else in the world and have the waiter bring the card reader to you instead?

tmiw

To BofA's credit, they actually do talk about it now, though you have to dig a little for the linked page:

Considering how their cards are set up, it's very possible that you'll never be asked for the PIN--especially if you only use the card domestically--so having that info available was likely low priority.

One of the restaurants located in SAN brought the terminal to me the other day, actually. That sort of thing will probably be very uncommon outside of areas where foreign cards are common though (like airports).

PWMTrav

You have lots of good answers in this thread, so I'll just sum up my experience: You'll be fine, with a couple of exceptions. For the most part, chip and signature works just fine in Italy. Gas stations and unmanned train ticket kiosks will be the only challenges. If you're a tourist, just use cash for gas, and use manned train ticket kiosks for things like local trains. If you're traveling high speed with trenitalia, or at least using the major rail stations in the cities, you likely won't even run into anything that I described.

I go to Italy a lot and have never run into a situation where I couldn't use my chip+sig card. I don't rent cars, but if I did, I'd just carry cash for gas (it's not as though the pumps ONLY take cards).

Well, in Italy, they often bring the POS to you anyway if you hand them a card. Chip+PIN is common in Europe so they're used to it. They just bring over a small handheld POS and you enter your pin. I guess in the US it'd be weird only because you're then entering a tip amount, but even that's not awkward.

festdave

I was in Italy in May 2017 and used my CSR in numerous restaurants with no trouble at all. Never took a train or bought gasoline, though.

mia

You know this, I know this, VISA certainly knows this. The Chip & Choice argument is misrepresentation.

tmiw

It makes a little more sense if you think of it as "chip and merchant choice". For example, restaurants aren't required to buy wireless terminals if they don't want to.

mikesyr18

They're required to buy those terminals in countries where chip and PIN is the law, unless the restaurant wants to implement pay at the counter system.

sdsearch

Yes, it is. Unattended gas stations only tend to take cards at the pump. You can certainly run into those in France on weekends rurally, and I certainly ran into that (requiring a PIN card, not sure if online or offline since my card had both) at a gas station at night in rural Norway. I haven't driven a rental in Italy to date so I don't know if there are unattended gas stations at night or on weekends away from the big cities in Italy (like there are in France and Norway) that do demand PIN cards (and perhaps only offline PIN?).

Of course, with good planning (topping off way before you get to empty), you can presumably avoid having to gas up at unattended pumps in most places, if you know that could be a problem.

tmiw

Most other places don't have tipping, not to mention that EMV isn't actually mandated by law in the US. If being able to buy a wired terminal for less money means that more restaurants start supporting chip, that's probably a good thing.

LAXRuss

Similarly, SDFCU is a Visa card and they allow the cardholder to choose whether to have a primary Chip & PIN issued card or to live with a Signature preferred + PIN card. (They issue the Signature preferred in the absence of a specific request for Chip & PIN). When I asked specifically for Chip & PIN, SDFCU sent out a new credit card that looked identical to the original Signature preferred card but now requests PIN in lieu of signature at all chip-enabled U.S. terminals, if a signature would normally be required.

Interestingly, the Chip & PIN cards mention that the first time the card is used at a terminal, the PIN is downloaded onto the chip. The SDFCU card does not require the PIN at McDonald's. However, interestingly, the first time I used the new Chip & PIN card was at a McDonald's drive through and it drove the staff crazy-- it took about 90 seconds for the transaction to process, probably because the PIN was being downloaded to the chip, and the cashier called a supervisor thinking that the payment system was having problems. (By the time the supervisor arrived, the PIN had downloaded and the transaction approved without PIN or signature.)

It appears U.S. gas stations default on zip codes for address verification rather than a PIN for Chip & PIN cards. Even with a European AMEX Chip & PIN, U.S. gas stations require the foreign zip code in lieu of the PIN to activate the fuel pump.

tmiw

With my Diners Club card (which had the PIN baked into the chip from the start), I find that a lot of merchants in the US don't bother asking for PIN at all, at least for smaller amounts. Recent examples for me of such places include Walgreens, In-N-Out and 7-Eleven. I wouldn't be surprised if this became more common, especially since restaurants aren't bothering with wireless terminals.

As for gas stations, only one in the entire country that I know of supports chip at the pump. Every other one still uses the magstripe and thus behaves as such. (That gas station with chip support is somewhere in North Carolina, IIRC.)

der_saeufer

Here in Belgium, other than gas stations right along the major highways, essentially every station is closed at night and on Sunday--even in the big cities. Whether they use cardlocks or readers on the pump, no PIN means no gas. It's not that big a country, but you definitely have to plan far ahead if you can't pay at the pump.

sdsearch

Do you know whether these nighttime gas stations in Belgium accept online PIN or offline PIN or both? Some US cards only have one (most typically online PIN if only one, I think).

Online PIN means it goes online for verification, and the PIN is checked at the bank. Offline PIN means it stays offline to do the verification, and the PIN checked within the card itself.