Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
All my credit cards converted to chips months ago, some even last year. Until two weeks ago, I had not been to a single retail establishment that had upgraded to the chip-reading machines and still just swiped my card as before. Now the new supermarket in my neighborhood has a chip-enabled machine, and I was in a Home Goods last week with one. The cards with chips have been around for quite awhile just waiting for the people to accept them to catch up with the technology.
I guess I have not yet been to a store where it worked right, because it's not been less than 20 seconds to asking for my pin, then another 20 or 30 seconds for approval.
Gads, that's awful. Ours goes through the process quickly and painlessly. Maybe those stores need new card readers too. I know it was just plain miserable until we got them. If it takes more than a few seconds to go through I have them take out the card and insert it again. That usually works and what happens is they didn't have it inserted firmly enough. And sometimes they don't read the screen and take the card out too soon. For the longest time we had to insert the card three times and then swipe it. What a pain that was but somehow most of us managed to make a joke of it...one, two, three, SWIPE, like a dance step. lol Many of them I had to enter manually. Fortunately for me I'm proficient on a ten key so it didn't take me but a few seconds to do it. But still, a pain.
Well, the silly thing about the chip cards, is they don't keep anyone from stealing the numbers and using them online, for instance.
When you order stuff online, you usually have it delivered to your home address. If you want it delivered to another address, you usually have to notify your card issuer, and/or have them add the 2nd address to your profile. Your card doesn't have your address on it, so someone who steals the number is less likely to be able to abuse both the card number and your address together. You should receive all your statements online to be sure they don't steal those. The really big problem is what happens when someone steals your credit card itself and you don't notice it's missing. Then the chip won't help at all, except by delaying the thief a few extra seconds at each purchase.
The past two weeks when preparing to slide my credit card at the food stores, the cashiers ask, "Is that a chip?" to which I reply, "It's a credit card." "Oh," they say.
To what are they referring?
They're referring to the chip IN the card. But I have noticed some people will call it a "chip" instead of a "credit card with a chip", which is obviously a misnomer. When did a credit card become a chip?
A person can circumvent this irritating nomenclature by paying with their smartphone. But that's not much better. First of all, the phone has a chip and we don't call the phone a "chip", we call it a "phone". Or worse, it gets called a "cell", which is a term complicated enough in origin to have its own forum. Even the word "phone" is hardly the primary use for most mobile devices anymore, so that's only halfway accurate. And, to make issues worse, half the time the cashier will say, "oh, you're using Apple Pay". No, I don't use Apple Pay; I have never owned a single i-ph******-anything. But I don't even bother explaining that it's Android Pay or Samsung Pay or whatever, because then we might as well just go back to talking about chips again.
When you order stuff online, you usually have it delivered to your home address. If you want it delivered to another address, you usually have to notify your card issuer, and/or have them add the 2nd address to your profile..
I have had purchases shipped to dozens of addresses that are not my own, and I have NEVER had to notify anyone or add any address to my profile.
And in Europe it's been available for at least 15 years...America is slow .
It's basically an authenticator chip - security enhanced. So now the scammers or skimmers will have a challenge to break the chip codes. The transaction code is a one time deal..so it resets itself under the computer chips technology.
News flash: the bad guys already know how to hack the chips and insert their own code onto them. Debit card versions are already being used to load a virus into an ATM, that causes it to spit out cash, and then erases itself.
It's only a matter of time before they figure out how to max out your credit account and profit from it. I already have an idea of how it could be done (no, I'm not going to put it up here).
I'm a tech junkie, but I still prefer swipe and PIN. It's faster to enter a PIN than to sign (especially for me, since I'm a lefty and I have to go through contortions to get my sig on the stupid machine.
Safer? Not if someone gets the card. The machine doesn't care what you scribble on there, and nobody is checking your ID to make sure your sig matches.
Plus, the chip can be scanned even with your wallet in your pocket, unless you use an RFID blocking wallet or card-wrap.
The whole system is a gigantic waste of money, and inconvenient too.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
