You keep harping on this point -- this isn't an issue with the issuing bank. If you're running a business, you should make it as easy as possible for your customers to part with their money. In this case, if your machines are in a busy international airport, you should recognize that only 45% of credit cards worldwide are chip-equipped (and only 36% if you exclude western Europe). On top of that, the EMV chips are not foolproof, either.

Yes I do. And I (obviously) disagree with your second point
From the page you quote: "Years ago, EMV switched to PIN & Chip in order to overcome mag-stripe transactions which have no security at all."

I think it is actually worse than "no security at all". The Pin number of my cards are memorised. They are only four digits and I don't have it written down anywhere. It is not, AFAIK, encoded in any of my cards. So, if my card is lost or stolen, it will be pretty useless to anyone short of a technical expert and, even then, not sure what they can do.

A non-Pin card uses a signature for verification. If a thief or by passer finds the card, the signature is conveniently displayed on the back of the card so that anyone can use it! How dumb is that?

Your comment that "If you're running a business, you should make it as easy as possible for your customers to part with their money."

Is that a well-kept secret? No. I think any businessman can figure that out. And yet, magnetic strip non-Pin cards are difficult to find in Europe. While I don't have any inside information, I can only assume it would be either too expensive to equip machines to read the old cards or the risk of fraud is too high. Besides, although it may not be as convenient, there is always the possibility of using cash.

Now let me ask you: why don't you complain to your bank or credit card company to issue you a safer card?

MichaelBrighton, what you are saying about PINs makes sense, and I don't think anybody would dispute that having to use a PIN is safer than not having to use one.

However, the complaint others have made is about chips, not about PINs. To quote from post 76 above:

There is chip-and-PIN, and there is stripe-and-PIN. As we have learnt, while much of Europe uses chip-and-PIN, much of the rest of the world uses stripe-and-PIN. If you are catering to an international audience then you need to be able to accept both methods.

The ticket machines are, of course, not under the control of Schiphol Airport... so perhaps they should be discussed in a separate thread called "Nederlandse Spoorwegen Sucks..."? I remember seeing a thread on Tripadvisor recently on just that subject...

Most likely it is not much under control of Nederlandse Spoorwegen either. In Europe the pressure to abandon magnetic stripes comes from banks and CC companies (yes, basically the same companies that for some reason don't even want to put chips into US cards) While they are still quite ok using magstripes with attended POS terminals, they have been pushing for chip only for unattended terminals like ticket vending machines. And they have the power since all payment terminals have to be certified and approved for a use.

I'm not aware that "much of the rest of the world uses stripe and PIN". Do you have a source for that?There is generally a movement away from magnetic cards, at least here, as I no longer have a single one in my wallet. My bank card as well as my transport card both work on chips. Although it is not stated on the card, my national ID card, I suspect, also works on a chip. Many stores here which accept debit card payment, have blocked the magnetic strip reader so that people don't use it by mistake.

Since chip and strip readers use completely different technologies, it would not surprise me at all if the elimination of the magnetic readers is mainly a cost consideration.

Only what other people, from other parts of the world, have said in this discussion thread. I'm taking their word for it, seeing they are from countries (including some fairly large ones) where credit cards don't have chips.

For a few reasons.

First, because there is no difference in safety to me -- if I report my card lost/stolen within a reasonable timeframe, I carry no liability with either a magswipe or a chip card. Therefore, from a safety perspective, I have no incentive to choose a chip card over a regular card.

Second, the big credit card companies (Visa/MC/AMEX) have all permitted the big card issuers in the US to issue primarily Chip+Signature cards as they roll out their EMV implementations, instead of Chip+PIN. As this adds no additional security from a user perspective, there is no point in me complaining to my card issuers to replace my magswipe card with a chip card, as the chip card will not require a PIN.

This hasn't stopped me from requesting chip cards where possible anyway, as an EMV-equipped terminal should still take Chip+Sig cards even in places where Chip+PIN is prevalent. However, only the very largest US issuers currently have the technology to issue such cards, and it will still be years before these cards become mandatory, so my case is more the exception to the rule.

You certainly know your banks better than I do. But, does that mean if you contact the bank within three or four days and say it was lost on Thursday that they will without question credit you for any costs after Thursday?

This is more what I am talking about: isn't there a movement in the US toward the Chip and Pin? A slow movement perhaps? If so, my point is that if customers complained more to the banks, they might move faster. I also don't quite understand why they are going to an intermediate technology rather than straight to the final technology as was done here.I just don't understand it. I don't understand the delay and I don't understand why a middle step is being made. Clearly, using a signature is a security problem. If the banks must repay customers whose card was lost or stolen and then used by someone (because there is in effect nothing to stop them from using it), that must be costing them money. From what I know about banks (not an expert, but my wife works for one), losing money is not something they are happy to do.

Generally, if you notify them within 48 hours, yes. By law, if you notify your bank within this timeframe, your maximum liability is $50, although banks rarely charge anything at all. Many issuers offer policies that are even more generous than this.

The movement is toward Chip+Sig, not Chip+PIN. There are a handful of issues, like the State Department Federal Credit Union and the American Airlines Credit Union that offer Chip+PIN since their employees spend a lot of time abroad, but this is generally not the case.

It does cost them money, although a lot of liability is shifted to the merchant -- it depends on what steps (if any) they took to verify the card belonged to the cardholder. Banks have sophisticated risk detection software that will often flag a lot of these transactions before the first one is successfully posted, but sometimes they do get through. Big stores factor these chargebacks into the cost of doing business.

Signatures have always been the convention in the US, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. It's possible that once the transition to EMV is complete, issuers will then push for a transition to PIN-based cards, but for now the only PINs that are used on credit cards issued here are for cash advances from an ATM.

Thanks for the explanations. It seems people in the US who are travelling to Europe in the next few years will continue having problems with their cards. It's really a shame the US banks and credit card companies don't think more about their clients and less about themselves.

I never had any problems at Schiphol and it's an easy airport to navigate. I'm Dutch so that might help a lot but if I compare it to other airports I think it's doing a good job.