Steve_

Which almost makes me want to bank with RBC, but I think the banks here just have the cheapest cards possible because I've never known cards fall apart so quickly. What I do is use my credit card for everything, but the retailers don't like that because the fees are much higher.

Which to me was the plan, make InterAC impossible to use so we all have to use credit cards and get charged more.

The one thing I like about RBC is their ABMs dispense $50 bills, I can never fathom why pretty much every other ABM and ATM in Canada and the US dispenses only $20 bills. And then if you go and ask the teller for $100, they start counting out in $20 bills! Er, no, there's an easier way of doing this...

AdobePinon

In college I kept a close track on the ATMs that dispensed $5 bills.

scrubbedexpat091

The 50 dispensing is nice, and in the larger city's some branches are now getting at-least one ATM where you can withdraw USD as well, but they are still harder to find, but will have a $US above the machine if they do.

In 1999 I was in Oklahoma and was shocked when I saw ATM's dispensing 10 bills...lol

They are not not investing in quality debit cards and chips though I agree, they wear down so fast, but if they tried to charge me, I'd be one irritated customer.

zzrmark

Perhaps the reason for small note dispensal is because people generally don't want larger notes.
On my first trip to the States I changed a wad of cash in the UK and most of it was in 50/100s. One of my first shopping outings was to an independent store of several 1000 square feet that sold household goods. When I tried to make a 12$ purchase with a 50$ note the cashier looked as though I'd just shat in her mouth and rather disdainfully told me that they didn't keep that kind of change in the tills!!!! (I had to use my card).
Needless to say my very next port of call was to the nice people at the local Wells Fargo bank who kindly changed my 50/100 bills for smaller notes (technically this is not quite correct, as my first call was to Bank of America who told me they couldn't help me unless I held an account with them!!!)

It was quite an eye opener finding that stores seem to prefer cards and that nobody blinks at a 60c purchase on one, nor charges for the privilege.

Steve_

But they do get charged, here you'll go into stores and they have signs saying they'd prefer you to use cash or InterAC to avoid the credit card fees, which violates the terms of their agreement with the bank but they still do it.

I remember in the UK using 50s and on more than one occasion I had to talk to the manager and remind him what: "legal tender" means. Always seemed to be a fuss. People seem to be more okay with large bills in the US imx, but you do get people sometimes who get a bit worked up about it. People here don't seem as bothered, especially since the new money came out because it's made of plastic. It's just getting your hands on the stuff.

Anyway once again Mr Smith gives me a useful tip as I did not know that any RBC ABMs could dispense US dollars. That could save me some hassle. Some of the Scotiabank ABMs could do it but I've been informed recently that they've decided to stop doing it.

Steve_

So I've been to Wal-Mart in the US a couple of times since and if the bill is under $50 I just insert my card and it doesn't ask for the PIN, over $50 it does.

Which I assume means that's going to be how it's done in the US, which means a lot people are going to forget their PINs.

Mrs Danvers

I have never understood quite what chip and pin was in any case. Other than I got into an argument with some shop assistant in York M&S when I was trying to buy knickers with a U.S. card and she belligerently insisted I had a pin.

I mean correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it just like putting your PIN number in when using a debit card?

scrubbedexpat091

I used my chip MC all week in the US and none of the stores asked for a pin or were equipped with the ability to process a chip and pin card from what i could tell. The card was swiped every time, but oddly no signature was ever asked for, but the transactions were all small except at the hotels where they had the usual registration card signed.

Used the card at (All in the San Diego/Palm Springs region.

Albertsons

Target

Wal-Mart

2 independent gift shops in Palm Springs

Ross

paul32x

My wife got asked for her PIN a couple of months ago by a Wal-Mart checkout machine -- she has a UK credit card -- and she didn't know it, so had to use a US card instead. It had worked in the same store only a few days previously and the cashier told her that some new software had been installed the weekend before ready for chip and pin.

GeoffM

The only trouble I had on my first trip back to the UK with US cards was an automated ticket machine at a railway station - wouldn't accept it. Everywhere else, large or small, where there was a human, they glanced at the card and with rarely more than an "oh", did the printed receipt with signature thing. A complete anticlimax to any expected troubles!

You would have thought that M&S would be a bit more clued up though, seeing as they even accept foreign currency (or is it just the Euro?).

Mrs Danvers

Oh she was probably new. Or that the problem was that she assumed i was a British resident because of the British accent. When I explained that I didn't live in the UK and it was an American card she piped down a bit. Though then she demanded I sign my credit card. If I hadn't really needed the knickers I would have told the stroppy little twerp where to go.

amideislas

They've always accepted my c&p Spanish debit card at Safeway in the US.

I didn't know it was new or unusual.

Giantaxe

My new B of A debit/credit card is a chip and pin card, sent to me with a nice little explanation of the technology. I've yet to find any merchant that actually requires a pin though. But as discussed earlier in this thread, the deadline for merchants to have chip & pin card readers is November 2015.

thinbrit

That is exactly what is happening. My Merchant Services notified me that come October 2015 the liability will shift to me if a card is used fraudulently and it wasn't an EMV card.

I'm using this opportunity to evaluate my processing fees, shopping around for different merchant services, and see if I can get an upgraded terminal thrown in.

scrubbedexpat091

Merchants are not supposed to accept unsigned cards.