jamar

No, I'm voting in favor of having both over only having one. CIBC will give me a chip+PIN Visa debit card for that minimum and depending on circumstances, possibly a no-annual-fee chip+PIN credit card as well. Barclay's, not so much.

So what would you call this?

if not an assertion that said legislation would have been bad?

I would be a hypocrite if I said I thought all regulation was good (living in China and dealing with the red tape surrounding foreign currency has taught me that's not the case) but I am a fan of using it a bit more than it is now.

garyschmitt

I would like to have a late model Lambourghini for $1k. But I can't vote with my feet because there isn't one. We could pass a law that price caps Lamborghini, so there is a prohibition on charging more. But then when Lamborghini files for bankruptcy, a continuous government bailout would be needed to meet the demand. In the end the Lamborghini would still cost close to 6 figures, but it will come from taxes instead. It's a way of making everyone pay for something they don't need, because some people would like the features of a Lamborghini. We wouldn't want only those who would buy a Lamborghini to have to pay a proportional share.

CIBC... Yet another option. Vote with your feet. As I said, Barclay's is not the only game in town.

Selective regulation. Regulating only where it makes sense to do so.

Is that a question? Please explain.

jamar

You're set in your ways and I'm set in mine. Thus I see no point in continuing further down this line of conversation.

D582

This has happened at all the stations near where I live where the Chip terminals at the pump have been enabled - no more mag stripe at the pump.

The reason is not so much to prevent cards from being skimmed (as a fraudster could still attach a skimming device, and the pumps still have mag stripe readers to read rewards cards for example), but to prevent the gas station from being defrauded with skimmed cards. It's very easy to skim the mag stripe of a card and then copy that to a plain white mag stripe card you can buy online. This would go unnoticed at an automated kiosk like a gas pump, but would not be much use when you have to present the fake card to a person.

percysmith

HK's chip and sign, unless <HK$193 which qualifies for small transaction (no signature needed).

In HK, almost all retail merchants are chip, which I accept are difficult to clone with today's technology.

Sure, my card still has a magstripe and can still be skimmed and used in a magstripe country, tho I believe HK banks will flag it.

When I travel I usually use a magstripe card of some sort anyway (Amex or Unionpay) due to Visa/MC's DCC woes.

I would hate to have to use a PIN in addition to a signature for all transactions, just slows all transactions down.

garyschmitt

I can only imagine PIN being better in the off case that a receipt can be printed with lots of fine print loaded with a predatory agreement (like consent to DCC), and card holders would probably tend to sign without reading, thus being locked into the agreement perhaps more solidly than if a PIN were used.

I'm not sure to what extent sneaky agreements are put on receipts, but certainly the careful among US card holders are better off with signatures.

That's disputable, because the dynamic magstripes are potentially safer and more capable. Dynamic magstripes could be blank when in the wrong hands (whereas EMV chips provide an interface that is willing to communicate with rogue gear). Dynamic magstripes could also support multiple accounts with a single card (which is probably not possible with EMV chips because they are designed to resist cloning, thus killing the option of having consumers clone all of their cards onto one). Dynamic magstripes are also potentially lower cost, because no ATMs or terminals need to be replaced. The merchant and banks have that benefit, but this benefit is passed on to the card holder.

percysmith

I think signature will still win in the DCC case. When you have signature, the clueless waiter or evil merchant will still have to wait for your signature before s/he can post the transaction. At least for me, this gives me an opportunity to protest, refuse to sign, translate the wording back to them and demand the transaction be reversed.

With PIN, I'll probably only know I've been DCCed after the slip's been printed, and probably the waiter's made off like a thief.


Sounds great. Where do we get one of these?

And are dynamic magstripes backwards compatible?

garyschmitt

I think it's still an emerging technology. Check out this site.

Yes. The card reader just sees the card as any other magstripe, so no equipment needs to change in order to accept the card.

cbn42

Gary, where do you come up with these legal ideas? You don't need to actually sign something in order to be locked into a contract. If you go to McDonald's and use your credit card without signing anything because the amount was too small, you are still locked into the same agreement as if you had signed. Under US law, even an "electronic signature" (mouse click) is equally valid to a physical signature.

garyschmitt

In the US, even verbal contracts are legally binding. But this does not contradict what I said. I'm not sure why you continue to fail to accept the fact that these contracts still have to be enforced in court, and must meet the standard of evidence required by the court. Having the legal binding is only part of what the merchant needs to succeed in court.

Not good enough. You can't have the contract hiding in some back room, and then not even reference it. Shrink-wrap agreements (where you see the agreement only after agreeing) are on very shakey legal ground in the US. It must be presented to the agreeing party. Customers must be able to find out what they're agreeing to. When the McDonald's PoS terminal simply shows you a price and asks for a pin, or click OK, and the cashier makes no mention of whatever sneaky terms they want your unwitting agreement to, the only thing you're agreeing to is the price.

kebosabi

Terminals and ATMs can continue to be mag-stripe only until they reach their end-of-life so long hybrid cards that still retain the mag-stripe are issued to those that request them.

Terminals and ATMs are machines too and they have their own lifespan. When it comes time to replace them, manufacturers of ATM machines (NCR, Diebold) and POS terminals (Ingenico, Verifone, etc) have the next generation of their product line ready with all three form factors of mag-stripe+NFC+EMV built in mind.

Besides, nowadays it costs much cheaper to produce a terminal with all three built into one because of the international market. In their view, why should these manufacturers build something specifically for the US market when they can just mass produce something that works with the US (mag-stripe) AND the rest of the world (let's keep production costs low and add the NFC and EMV slot as well; that way we can sell it to both the US and the rest of the world) in mind?

Just look around Wal-mart, 7-Eleven, and even the US Post Office. They all have the new POS terminals which already have EMV slots and NFC taps alongside the mag-stripe swiper even though the former two have yet to catch on here in the US. Why? Because that's the only lineup manufacturers builds these days, they don't make terminals that only accept mag-stripes anymore, it makes no financial sense to make one lineup that's solely catered for the US in this globalized world.


The ball is in the issuers' court. It's not the merchants' or retailers' court to change the terminals; they can replace them when the machines die eventually. It's not in the consumers' court, we need hybrids cards just like the Europeans/Canadians/Japanese that work both here in the US and the rest of the world without any hassles. Failure of the issuers to listen to consumers' needs and requests show that the banks are really out of touch with the public.

Even with all the arguments that have been made, I have yet to hear a reasonable rebuttal on why banks cannot just issue hybrid cards to those that need them on a per-request basis. Even if it costs the cardholder something, I'd be glad to pay $20 additional for a hybrid card that will avoid the hassles of non-chip card acceptance abroad.

jamar

The poster above you said something about free markets and it not being worthwhile for the issuer.

cbn42

I fail to accept it because it isn't true, and no evidence has been presented to verify it.

The contract that determines liability is between you and the credit card issuer. The merchant has nothing to do with it.

mia

This is the rule:

This is my interpretation:

Write about credit cards, policies, benefits and rewards. Do not write about other members.

Suggestion:

Avoid using the word "you".

garyschmitt

It's evident that there is a deficit of basic information on civil law here, so that's where I will start. The highlighted portion of this page supports my claim that contracts are enforced in court. Although I recommend paying particular attention to the highlighted part, I suggest reading that whole page. It's a good laypersons introduction to contract law.

Where does this idea come from that the contract between customer and merchant has nothing to do with liability? Why would customer-merchant contracts include language specifying where liability is placed, if it's useless? In the case of a customer-merchant contract we were discussing, it's actually the /card holder-card issuer/ contract that is useless. If the customer agrees with the merchant to pay a DCC fee, and the /card holder-card issuer/ contract makes no mention of DCC fees, then it's actually the /card holder-card issuer/ contract that has nothing to do with it.

In a court proceeding disputing terms of an agreement between party A and party B, the litigant who shows up to court with a contract between party A and party C will learn a hard lesson when trying to claim that the contract between party A and party B has nothing to do with it. When contract A-B is being enforced, it's contract A-C that is totally irrelevant.