xyz123

I agree that US financial institutions have not gone out of their way to promote emv. Their attitude is best summed up by the script Capital One customer service reps are trained to give when asked i.e. merchants are required to accept any valid mc or visa card according to their merchant agreements. As noted throughout, the US banks just don't seem to see the value of emv in the first place and even when they do, almost universally for whatever reason they have chosen to go in the direction of chip and signature.

Even Amex, one big happy family, supposedly, who offer chip and pin cards throughout the world only offers chip and signature on most of its cards available in the USA.

There is simply not enough pressure being exerted on the banks to move to chip and pin for whatever the reason as I said. And of course, different people have different attitudes regarding charging expenses when in a foreign land. I have read "advice" which I don't get to only use credit cards for large purchases! Why? Well supposedly the more you use a credit card, the greater the chances of fraud from cloning the cards. Makes no sense, of course, as US liability laws protect consumers to be at risk of only $50 in case of credit card fraud and almost no bank even tries to collect the $50, they eat almost all fraudulent charges.

The other piece of advice, which I don't get, is to use a debit card in lieu of a credit card. Really? Liability laws in the USA are not quite as protective on debit card transactions as credit card transactions and if a debit card is cloned, actual money leaves your account and may turn your checks to rubber and a number of unpleasant things.

Nobody here is saying it would not be nice to have a chip and p pin card. What people from outside the USA might not realize is they are simply for the most part unavailable which is all I've tried to say in many ways. US banks are under a mandate from mc and visa to establish emv by 2015 but as of now, it really looks like they will resist chip and pin and try to go with chip and signature. As pointed out, some of the reasons they claim they "prefer" chip and signature are hilarious like the one that says American consumers prefer to sign for dharges rather than enter a pin.. This is simply reality.

The other thing that may be hard to swallow for some is that the majority of Americans simply do not travel beyond the shores as the country is so large from sea to shining sea. They have no idea. (I know people living here in NY who have never been west of the Hdson or so it seems).

I don't understand why this thread has become so contenteous. Yes chip and pin would be desirable but is it absolutely necessary today for travel? There are few people like me who would be lost without the ability to charge even the cheapest meal at McDonald's (although I do have a self imposed limit that I will not charge anything for less than 1 currency unit be it US dollars, Canadian dollars, Aussie dollars, pound s, euro, kroner, rand, pesos, yen or whatever. Others think I'm crazy. Fine. But chip and pin, as of today, is simply not widely available in the USA. I will grant you Andrews, State Department, Pen FCU's despite their limitations are chip and pin (with limitations as noted), several other fcu's are too. I know UNFCU, only open to staff at the UN offers emv cards which I think are chip and pin but not sure. Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, the three largest US banks offering emv cards make some of their cards available with emv but as noted are all chip and signature which I agree are only marginally better than magnetic strip. Wells Fargo is in the process of rolling out emv cards but again apparently chip and signature. USAA offers chp and pin but it restricts membership.

So, and it's only for information purposes not to put anybody down. I am no longer the confrontational type which I once was admitedly. All indications are chip and pin cards will not be coming to a financial institution near you if you're from the USA. This is simply today's reality.

I hope finally we can put all this behind us and try to understand just what is going on and not be nasty to each other. Life is too short for that.

dulciusexasperis

Robert2533, if I were looking for a US issued credit card today I would go for the Chase Marriott Black Visa.
http://creditcardforum.com/rewards/1...ut-seeing.html

I believe that 'elite' cards are more likely to go to chip and pin based on the pressure their users will exert.

For now, chip and signature but a very good card nevertheless, it will still work in automated machines leaving only the odd reluctant store clerk who won't take it. Besides the hotel rewards it has concierge service which I have on another card and have found invaluable several times; auto rental CDW always good to have; no exchange loading which is of course a must for a traveller.

https://www.rewards-insiders.marriott.com/thread/11314

Xyz123, re "but is it absolutely necessary today for travel?". I would answer that yes, it is becoming more so every year.

Again, what the majority of Americans who don't travel internationally do is irrelevant, this is a travel forum and so the topic should be discussed from that point of view.

Perhaps those who take the typical one vacation a year can accept putting up with the hassle of being with a chip card but anyone who travels frequently or for extended periods of time will quickly become very unhappy with their old swipe and signature cards.

greg

US fraud rate looks like higher than the average and getting worse.

The article claims <i>The United States accounts for more than 47 percent of global credit card fraud, while generating only 24 percent of card spending, according to the Nilson Report. ... The U.S. is the only world region where counterfeit fraud continues to rise... The absence of this chip technology at the physical point of sale is a large contributing factor. </i>

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/te...pper-data.html

So much for the "US banks claim fraud is not a large problem in the USA" smoke screen argument.

Peter_S_Aus

Do the US banks support paywave for small purchases?

xyz123

Peter...hardly at all. It hasn't caught on here.

Greg...While it is true that the USA does lead the eague or as the Brits might say the table in card is present fraud, it still represents only a small part of their profits from credit cards. The problem is, of course, that when visitors from overseas come here to take advantage of the lower prices for almost everything we offer, their cards must use the magnetic strips they continue to have on many of their cards and are subject to the same cloning of cards as are Americans. Interestingly enough, 40 million credit card numbers were recently stolen from Target, a large discount chain found all over the USA. Once again, some pointed out that chip and pin cards would make such thefts nowhere near as profitable to the vermin doing it. However, while clearly much more secure, chip and pin cards have been compromised in the past and the question then becomes the banks are so sure of themselves that they at first denied the cards were used fraudulently, blamed the cardholders for not keeping their pin private and gave them a hard time regarding the liability issues. I don't argue chip and pin is much more secure but not perfect and of course, the credit card theft rings probably already have contigency plans to steal credit card numbers if the USA ever adopts chip and pin; something that remains a long way off.

Bedar

Well, maybe people won't be using credit cards so much in the U.S. According to yesterday's NYT, merchants will now be allowed to tack on a fee for use of cards, thus giving us a two-tier price for goods. Put Amex in the search box and the article will come up. This does not only pertain to Amexco cards but also to Visa, Mastercard, whatever. It's a return to cash, folks.

xyz123

Nothing new here. Several years ago, mc/visa merchant agreements in the USA prohibited merchants from either setting minimum purchase requirements or surcharging credit card sales. But then in a totally in a banking bill, Congress passed prohibitions on credit cards from enforcing these pro consumer policies. Merchants were allowed to set a minimum $10 purchase requirement and allowed to surcharge credit card purchases.

However many states such as New York had laws prohibiting credit card surcharges. But this did not deter some large companies from finding ways around the various state laws. So they called their illegal surcharges discounts for cash. Some day, somebody will explain to me the difference. I mean if a gas station puts up a sign saying $3.79 a gallon for cash and $3.89 for a credit card. So it is a 10¢ discount for paying cash? Or a 10¢ surcharge for using a credit card?

To be truthful about it, very few merchants in the USA have instituted surcharges for mc/visa. Also Amex has had a non discriminatory cluase in its merchants agreements. So this really doesn't change anything very much.

dulciusexasperis

Bedar, yesterday's NYT is behind the times by a fair bit. The right to add a surcharge has been available to US merchants for some time now.

For small 'mom and pop' stores or a gas station, it might make some sense since they operate on very small margins. I am not aware of any of the larger companies however who are charging a surcharge.

Don't plan on going back to a cash society any time soon. In the meantime, American comsumers are subject to ever increasing fraudulent credit card transactions while the rest of the world is not. You figure out who is getting the worst deal.

MissPrism

My daughter had her card cloned in the US.
Luckily, her bank noticed a few redneck type purchases including a pick-up truck.
She didn't lose out by it, thank goodness

Robert2533

" her bank noticed a few redneck type purchases including a pick-up truck" Now that's a broad stroke of the brush. If you have a pickup truck you're a redneck? Not too biased now, are we?

janisj

MissPrism may not realize the VAST number of pickups in the USA. Not a thing about having a pickup indicates redneck. Most pick up owners have never been south of the Mason Dixon line nor live in backwoods areas.

dulciusexasperis

Maybe most who live NORTH of the Mason Dixon line don't know a thing about false logic.

John wears a hat, John is a man, therefore all men wear hats. False logic.

John has a pick up, John is a red neck, therefore all men with a pick up are red necks. False logic.

I don't see where MissPrism implied all men with a pick up are red necks. What she implied is that red necks OFTEN drive pickups. Perfectly logical on HER part.

Anyone suggesting MissPrism said all pick up drivers are red necks is using false logic and YOU are the ones who need to be corrected.

Robert2533

False logic? Relax, have some (natural) honey in your tea, sit in front of the fire and mellow out!

janisj

>>a few redneck type purchases including a pick-up truck.<<

Definitely indicates MissPrism thinks a pick up truck is a display of red neck-ism. Otherwise why even mention it???? Since she lives in the UK - that might be a logical assumption.

>>I don't see where MissPrism implied all men with a pick up are red necks.<<

She didn't mention MEN at all. So maybe it is YOU are the one who needs correcting.

MissPrism

Forgive me for having a little chortle at the last few messages.
Dulci, I have to dredge though the untidy filing cabinet of my memory. Isn't the fallacy, you demonstrate an undistributed middle?

Anyway, we have somebody who is using a young woman's credit card, potentially robbing her of thousands of pounds.
A bank official's word "red-neck" seems pretty mild to me.
Thank goodness, the incongruity of the purchases was noticed.

To return to our moutons. If the malefactor, whatever the colour or cleanliness of his/her neck had been asked for a PIN, it might have been more difficult for them.

xyz123

We all agree on your last statement. However don't think for one second that the vermin running these credit card theft rings are incapable of cloning chip and pin cards also' it's more or less right now there is no need to as there are plenty of credit card numbers available from those countries not using chip and pin (I can think of one). But and it's a big but to some degree, from what I've read, when a chip and pin card is compromised, the banks all along have been assuming the cardholders have been careless with their pins and put up a big resistance. With the magnetic strip cards, in general they do recognize fraud right away and do eat or at least the cardholder doesn't eat the fraudulent charges without all that much of a hassle.

In a way, and this applies to everybody caught in this thing, credit card fraud while traumatic is not all that difficult to deal with; a few phone calls. The biggest inconvenience is notifying your payee of the new card number but then again when a new card is issued with a changed expiration date or changed ccv number you have to do the same thing too. As long as they don't steal your identity, just try to deal with and while I've been victimized by this 3 or 4 times in my life, I don't lay awake at night fearing it might happen.

chartley

My only personal experience of card fraud is when my card was used to buy mail-order t-shirts in California while I was at home in the U.K. However, our local fuel station experienced fraud with the connivance of the staff, and the cards were used somewhere in the far east.

It was fairly simple to show that a group of chip & pin cards used at a particular place in the U.K. had then been used on a different continent, and that there was no way the individual card holders were to blame.

Chip & pin is not completely crime-proof, but the amount of crime is less, and the type of crime is different. It was also simple to identify those likely to be involved.

dulciusexasperis

Well the rules/laws vary by country but generally speaking xyx123, the remain the same from the consumer's viewpoint. Liable for nothing if the card is used fraudulently.

Banks have argued that if a chip and pin card was successfully used for fraud then you must have been negligent in protecting your PIN. Indeed, some people have been negligent and should be liable.

But you already have that same issue with your debit/ATM cards for which you already use a PIN.

The BIG difference in liability is to the merchant. This same shift of liability is coming to the USA in 2015. What that means is if a merchant is presented with a chip card by a customer and does not use a chip enabled card reader, the merchant is liable, not Visa, not the customer.

Clearly, that will mean merchants will have to buy a card reader that can read chips as they will not want to accept liability. So when I visit the USA and use a chip card, I will have MORE protection against fraud than an American customer using a swipe and signature card. Does it seemm 'right' that a foreigner has more protection in the USA than a citizen? You have to laugh at that.

A comment I find telling is that you have been 'victimized by this 3 or 4 times in my life'. I have NEVER been a victim of credit card fraud in my life. The only signifigant difference I can see between us is you spend the majority of your time in the USA and I do not.

Since the USA has the highest number of credit card frauds, it makes sense you are more likely to be a victim of it. But it also would seem to me to make sense that you (Americans) should be the most agressive in trying to find ways to prevent it for that same reason.

Chip and Pin does not stop all possibility of credit card fraud but it reduces it considerably. The pros will find ways but the guy who steals your wallet won't get anywhere with your cards. You could say it is another example of false logic if someone is going to try and say, if it doesn't stop ALL fraudulent use then why bother.

MissPrism, yes, you could call it an undistributed middle or you could call it false logic which is what an undistributed middle results in. But let's tell it like it is, 90% of all Americans are Red Necks anyway, they just don't think they are. ;-)

xyz123

You make it seem that I am not in favor of chip and pin; actually I am. BTW, twice I was "cloned" in Europe but admitedly that was before chip and pin so again you misinterpret my feeling on the matter; I just used the example to allay fears that credit card fraud is something that can cause a great amount of damage as opposed to identity theft (and there are many who don't get the big big difference; it is that reason why I refuse to show ID in accordance with visa/mc regs when making a credit card purchase, something the USA merchant agreements prohibit btw and something that makes me wonder why people invalidate their credit cards by writing check id on the signature panels although few merchants in the USA except for large purchases check signatures anyway although they do in the UK).

Maybe the Target thing will get the banks off their rear ends on this although I doubt it. And again, while card is present card fraud is indeed much more likely to happen in America, no sane person will argue that, chip and pin does next to nothing to prevent online fraud which is the greatest source by far of credit card fraud today.

But I repeat as clearly as I can. I am a proponent of chip and pin so your continual arguing with me is preaching to the choir. Personally, I'm in favor of retinal scan. How do you feel about those? <g?

dulciusexasperis

No, I don't misinterpret your remarks xyz123, I'm sure you are in favour of chip and pin cards. But I do think readers who wish to bury their head in the sand so to speak will misinterpret your remarks as justification for their viewpoint.

I have no problem with retinal scan or fingerprinting as a means of identification at all xyz123. Personally though I favour a chip inplant just under the skin. Done once for life. ;-)