durham_lad

I've just requested that our existing credit card from a US credit union be changed to a CHIP and PIN card. My existing Amex card was up for renewal and although they don't do CHIP and PIN, they do have CHIP and Signature, which I now have.

We're off for a long trip to Australia in July and while I know that our old technology cards should work fine, I'm hoping that the new cards will be more difficult to clone (which is what happened last year during our long trip to the UK and Europe).

Alan17

I've had an Amex "chip and signature" card for ages. Never had anyone do anything other than swipe it though, here and in the UK. Is there some special feature I'm missing?

Guindalf

Surprisingly, chip & pin cards are getting harder to find in the US!

I managed to get them for our trip back home last year, but when my wife's boss tried to get one for a European study trip a month or so ago, he was unsuccessful - even from the same bank as me! He tried several others and was told the same thing, "We don't have those".

Luckily, another professor on the trip has a Dutch wife and regularly visits, so he had one they could use.

It seems like the US is going backwards in this respect!

durham_lad

I've not used it outside of the USA yet so I wonder why they even bother if they only use the magnetic stripe to read the card in countries with CHIP & PIN machines.

I guess the idea is to eventually eliminate all magnetic stripe cards so that only CHIP machines are used in stores, and then copying the cards becomes much more difficult, but the USA is really slow to implement.

http://www.today.com/money/u-s-retai...ght-2D11971618

Alan17

I've read somewhere that the cost of replacing all the cards and the retail transaction machines in the US far outweighs the credit card fraud costs that the card companies have to absorb. Barring any legislative requirement if that's the case, I won't hold out hope.

I did have a BA Visa card which did have a chip and PIN (one of their marketing pitches revolved around that) but lack of flight availability and them 2 times having to wait over an hour for a human on BAs exec club line (unsuccessfully) put paid to that. I like the Amex card as you get good cash back which can then be applied to flights - I've given up on flight affinity cards.

durham_lad

I've read that as well, but this recent report cited by Forbes puts the fraud at $190 Billion/year which surely must dwarf the costs of retailers putting in new technology.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnsha...more-on-jumio/

lansbury

I think on a TV news report I saw that following the Target fiasco that chip and pin is coming to the US. They didn't call it chip and pin but the description sound like it. The impression I got from the report was 2015.

durham_lad

Woo Hoo

hungryhorace

This isn't as great as you think. C&P in England has been used to put the entire responsibility (and liability) for fraud onto the consumer. If your PIN was correctly entered for a disputed transaction, good luck successfully over turning the banks decision in their favour.

Fraud already occurs with C&P, here's a good example: http://markmail.org/message/qhhqiou7tbxfqpdz

durham_lad

Last year my card was cloned and the thief ran up $23k in 2 days before I spotted the fraud. I would much rather take my chances with C&P and am not suggesting that it is fraud free.

hungryhorace

No, you wouldn't. You just think you would. Had this happened against a C&P card the financial institution who issued the card would - if a valid PIN had been used - almost certainly not refund the money instantly like they would due to using the signature system.

C&P in itself is good system, the implementation of it in the UK leaves a LOT to be desired in terms of protecting consumers. Currently it is just used as a means to protect the banks from incurring losses as the burden of blame is automatically apportioned to the consumer (see above).

hungryhorace

C&P is fundamentally a broken system. The US will probably implement something just as broken.

Read: http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2...pin-is-broken/

Bob

They are, being phased in over a couple years, starting with credit cards.

durham_lad

That article is from 2010. It is not hi tech fraud that has been the problem, it is still the low tech stuff that has been pushing up the fraud figures in the UK.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...tech-cons.html

Sheepdip

I've had a C&P card from BoA for a while now. Worked flawlessly in the UK last year.