JEFFJAGUAR

Take a look at thisd article in today's NY Post:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/s...UrnRdCY9xncXHJ

The point is made about the table side terminals preventing this. I believe such should be required in the USA or at least the practice of having the waiter disappear into some back room be banned.......customers should be permitted to watch the transaction being performed by the cashier at their request. Has anybody here ever asked to go with the waiter to the back room or wherever and been turned down?

Just wondering.

kebosabi

I think that's pretty much the norm everywhere else but the US.

Currently traveling from Canada, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Laos. When processing credit cards, they either bring the terminal to your table or you pay up front at the cashier so you see the cashier process the payment without doing something fishy to your card.

garyschmitt

Those portable terminals bring new risks. In Europe some of them have already been hacked, so a theif can steal money remotely, without even being in sight. There's also the extra risk of theft, loss, and accidental damage of the handheld devices themselves.

Plus they don't protect you from skimming in the first place. A rogue read head can still be installed in a handheld as well. In fact a whole fake handheld could entirely replace the restaurant's handheld. So they only reduce security, not increase it.

From a business standpoint, the US embraces the concept of a free market. Stakeholders get the freedom to decide what best protects their own interests -- this way the party with accountability is also the same who has responsibility. If the risk of back-room card scanning exceeds the costs of portable terminals and the extra risks they bring, then there's naturally a market for handhelds, in which case statutes are useless. And if the stakeholders find otherwise, then the statutes are still useless anyway because they would increase cost and damage business (stepping over a dollar to save a nickel).

In the end, the portable device fails from the security viewpoint and from the business standpoint.
This is already the case as there is a business interest to locate the terminals where staff can conveniently access them. Customers are generally kept out of the kitchen, but you won't find the pos terminals in the kitchen anyway because it's not the cooks that use them.

I've never made such a silly request, because I'm not a stakeholder. That is, I'm not the one who is liable for damages under regulation E. The restaurant owner and banks are the stakeholders in this case.. you're just the steak-holder

JEFFJAGUAR

Ah so...I get it. The rest of the world is crazy; only the USA is sane. Now I get it.@:-)

garyschmitt

This is broken logic. Specifically, the appeal to popularity variety. "10 million smokers can't be wrong."

JEFFJAGUAR

Gary, I don't wish to belabor the point because obviously from your view point, and you are quite entitled to it and I really do respect your opinion as I do the opinions of most people (it's called freedom of speech and I will defend to the death your right to say what you please...somebody famous once said that). your mind is made up. But more and more, little by little, travelers are being put into inconvenient positions as more and more merchants throughout the world don't want to accept the archaic American credit cards. Is it a major problem today? Probbly not. But inevitably, the day is coming when say the eu or the Canadians will say non emv credit cards will not be honored then what? Pay cash? Don't walk around with enough cash and don't want to. When I travel, almost 100% of my purchases, no matter how large or small, are by credit card. I can easily spend a week or two on holiday whether it be in the USA or in Canada or in Europe and never once reach into my wallet for cash (and believe me I don't just shop at top end places)...it is a far far better way to travel. Do you want us to go back to travelers cheques and stand at the banks in Europe and cash in travelers cheques? Nobody takes them anymore. It just seems our country doesn't consider itself in so many ways as part of a world community and is set in its ways on so many issues that for the most part are incdonvenient but are silly at the same time. Why not Celsius? Why not metric?Now why not emv? Are there better things out there? Probably but they're not here now so why not get in line with the rest of the world. When people start screaming they can't go into a McDonald's in Vancouver and use their credit cards because McDonald's Canada policy is to only accept chip and pin cards, I would call that an unnecessary inconvenience. Wouldn't you?

percysmith

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Jeffjaguar - Yes. Not in the us, but in a us-run hotel (park hyatt shanghai) with a magstripe-only card (HK-issued Amex) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china/1146772-using-credit-cards-china-great-cc-rip-off-dynamic-currency-conversion-36.html#536

kebosabi

Nevertheless the cost does come back to the consumer in form of higher annual fees or higher rates from the banks or higher cost of goods from the merchants as in form of risk assessment from potential fraud.

Skimming fraud is on the rise in the US as it is due to our antiquated credit cards using magnetic stripe technology. Just a few days ago, waiters were busted at upscale NY restaurants for stealing credit card number through a skimming device because of instances like these.

Banks and the restaurants won't "eat up" the cost of these, they'll just start charging consumers more to cover for the risk of credit card fraud. That $20 steak you're eating may cost you $25 next year because the restaurant has to cover for the risk of credit card fraud.

jamar

Yep. This is why I like the table-side terminals and why I am fully prepared to go to another country to get an EMV card.

garyschmitt

This is my point. There are unavoidable costs either way. Convenience has a cost, security has a cost, and lack of security also has a cost. The free market pressures the stakeholders to reduce cost (i.e. select the cheapest cost). The lower the cost, the more competitive they can be, which is directly proportional to profit.

Currently table-side pos terminals are less secure, and that lack of security comes at a higher price, which is further increased by the procurement costs. It's a no-brainer.

The portable POS terminal's affect on cost is irrelevant to whether the card is swiped or inserted. Portable POS terminals can handle both kinds of cards, and the Steak restaurants decision not to use a wireless terminal is entirely independent.

Moreover, skimming fraud is popular simply because it's currently the easiest attack. Criminals go for the low hanging fruit. When skimming fraud is countered, the next weakest link will be the most popular. BTW, European cards also have magnetic stripes, and can be skimmed.
And you still believe that a portable terminal can stop that? They're still vulnerable to skimming. That vulnerability isn't controlled. Plus a new vulnerability is introduced by the portable terminals: wireless interception. Criminals have already exploited that vulnerability in Europe by masquerading as a portable and sending a false signal to the host.

Even if you let customers disassemble the portable pos terminal that you use on their card, to verify that there is no apparent makeshift rogue read head installed, and reassemble it at the table, they still don't have visibility to what the host is doing with the data. There is simply no way to make a portable pos terminal that is fraud proof. Even if you could hypothetically come up with one, the waitress could simply hold one of these (or the like) under the unit, and with a slight of hand skim a customers card right before their eyes without detection.
That's not how business works. They must eat the cost. If the above mentioned steak restaurant were to start charging $5 more for a steak, they risk pricing themselves out of the market and ultimately losing profit. Prices are not determined by how much profit a merchant wants or needs. It's determined by market forces. If they can get away with charging $5 more per steak and it actually increases profit, then that means they were not charging the optimum price to begin with. Merchants need not assign or recognize a particular cost in order to justify a price increase.

If Bob at Bob's Burger House suddenly has a need to put his kid through college, or he suddenly needs to replace the roof, floors, walls, and all appliances, and he then increases the cost of his burgers from $5 to $50 to cover what he needs, he will earn close to zero. He might get a couple eccentrics who must find out what a 50 dollar burger tastes like, but it will ultimately kill his business.

percysmith

EMV? Definitely. PIN (remember PIN and EMV does not have to be bundled - see HK Visa/MC cards for instance) - I have my doubts.

One case in point that will be dear to your heart will be DCC. Under current chip and sign, I see a slip with DCC, I still have an opportunity to not sign and force merchant to void slip.

I worry with Chip and PIN, the non-compliant DCC terminals will display RMBxxx.xx in big characters, then print the DCC verbage *after* you've keyed in the PIN. The waiter will probably have vanished into thin air and I'll have a much harder time voiding that slip (even though it will be possible).

Of course I acknowledge there's some economy not having to store signed slips under Chip and PIN for local transactions, if I trust the technology. So far I do, but I can't go back to signature on the day it is not.

Furthermore, merchants and banks benefit but I don't - why should I help them http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/e...-PIN-safe.html ? Chip and PIN cards better come with great rebate benefits before I decide it's worth my risk.

jamar

The thing with PIN is that I guess I've been conditioned to assume that PIN also goes with Signature (using PRC-issued UnionPay cards for six years will do that, I guess). Type in the PIN, the slip pops out, and I have to sign that as one last step. If there's no signature involved I wouldn't be happy either, except at automatic terminals with no one there to verify the signature.


Also, I guess another thing I have against current US-based Chip+Sign cards is the lack of a decent rewards scheme. Hearing of cards with HK$1.6/mile or even HK$2+/mile earn rates when my own is US$1/mile for my American card and a horrific 20RMB/mile for my CCB China card (and only the option of exchanging for MU/CA/CZ/Some other PRC airlines...) Not that Canada is much better, but they do have a wider selection.

mtkeller

PIN and signature? Sheesh. European cards don't require a signature when you enter the PIN. Seems totally insane.

percysmith

European cards have chips, (most) China Unionpay cards do not.

D582

Yup...the wireless terminals are increasingly popular in Canada. While a lot of restaurants have adopted them as part of their chip migration, many restaurants here used them before Chip because our debit cards have always required PINs.

Do you have any sources to back that up? (I'm not doubting you, I just want to read for myself)

In Canada we have 3 different types of wireless terminals in use - Bluetooth, WiFi, and GSM/GPRS, so the security considerations for each is different.