Card refused because it had a smart chip...why?
 

I'm in the U.S. and a merchant at my local mall refused my card because it had a chip. She swiped it and said her machine refused it because of the chip. Why on earth would she say that? I wonder if she was using the machine wrong or something because I've never had someone claim they couldn't process my card. Besides that, she swiped the strip on the back and the chip was never even inside the machine.

Anyone else had a problem such as this? Was it a clueless employee or what? I mean, if for some reason it saw the chip, it should have just asked for the PIN right?

What's going on here?

She was probably a bit clueless. She should have then inserted the card in the slot, but clearly didn't.

Card refused because it had a smart chip...why?
 

Poorly trained, clueless employee who may have never seen a credit card with a chip before. Honestly, most American credit cards do not have them.

No slot, we don't use the smart chips here, it's just for foreign travel...so far. She just swiped it like any other card and then looked at the machine rather clueless...it was probably asking something standard like debit or credit and she couldn't understand it...first and only time its happened so far.

No it almost certainly DID have a slot. That's why it refused the stripe transaction - the card has the service code "use IC when feasible"

PS what merchant was this - a lot of us are tracking the enabling of EMV. What type of terminal? The chip slot was probably facing her on a countertop terminal. Next time this happens tell her "you have to insert the card into the slot on the front of the terminal" - problem solved.

I'm in the US a lot and I've seen many many machines in the US with the chip reader slot, just many of them are not enabled. I've used my UK Chip and Pin Amex via the chip in Century 21st in New York City.

I had a similar experience at a restaurant in the US as well though, Merchant said my card was declined, when I didn't get a text message (Amex always text me if its declined) I asked what the message was and he said it kept saying "Use Chip", I had to show him how to process an EMV transaction.

Reminds me a little of a problem in Australian restaurants. In Australia restaurants will normally have EMV machines but to save money they don't get handheld machines. This means they take your card and then press PIN-bypass and it asks for a signature instead. Unfortunately UK issuers and Canadian issuers don't allow the PIN to be bypassed, so it just says declined. I found this out after I apparently had 4 cards declined lol and asked what they hell they were doing. Now though, Restaurants will generally ask, "Does your card need a PIN?" and you then have to walk up to the counter and enter it. I get this all the time in Asia as well, Thailand mainly.

And even if it did have a slot the store manager should be able to bypass it since they sometimes don't work quite as advertised (anyone remember a store pulling out one of these below?)

http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/e...rk-800x800.jpg

lol when I went to Legoland here in the UK last year, their computer system had broken so they were using these.

What was even better is that they don't take Amex but that didn't stop them zip zapping it :P I never got charged for the tickets or food or drinks for the entire day.

haha, nice!

Do you guys have this list published somewhere?

It's a slowly evolving list, and it's evolving in (recent posts in) the existing main thread about this subject:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...signature.html

Ah, I looked, but only saw talk aout which cards were getting it, not which merchants were supporting it.

It's in the EMV thread it's basically limited to a small number of:

Macy's
Sports Authority
Walmart
Citibank ATM
Jack-In-The-Box

Maybe a few others I missed. Not by any means all of these shops' locations, Sports Authority here doesn't have EMV terminals. Wal-Mart's just say "Card Problem Remove Card."

BP pay at pump in New York City as well, which surprised me lol

If you were aware they couldn't take Amex, isn't that kinda a form of theft?

I think we all need to be ready when dealing with small merchants to realise any one of us could, by some bad luck, be the first user of an IC card after a merchant's acquirer enables EMV. It's unlikely where I live (LOTS of tourists) but in other places, very possible. Just tell them "insert the card into the slot" and unless they just refuse because they're clueless, problem solved :)