Hi

I think the above poster overstates his case.

The last stats I read for France were 2m US tourists out of a total of 80m tourists.

You haven't been able to use a foreign cc in a French automatic petrol station for 20+ years. Yes even if your card is issued 10km away across the border.

And if the French machines don't accept British pin numbers then why should they accept US cards given that more Brits visit France than US based tourists.

Peter

Peter...

Question...can one use a foreign non pin cc on the autoroutes to pay tolls?

Again the issue transcends Americans, Brits, French, Swiss, Japanese.

The problem concerns the international credit card companies (Mastercard and Visa) who want to make international transactions universal vs. the banks who want to do whatever they can to combat fraud vs. merchants who are caught in the middle and certainly want the tourist trade but don't and shouldn't be held responsible when they operate in good faith and are nailed with fraudulent charges.

Nobody least of all me although perhaps it didn't come out that way, thinks special accommodations should be made for Americans because they spend mucho tourist pounds, euro, swiss francs, kroner whatever.

I suppose several years down the line there will have to be some kind of standardization; something which I have been trying to say, will probably be resisted by Americans who think that whatever they do is right and don't give one hoot if the rest of the world doesn't like it (see how American resisted, perhaps for valid reasons, the standardization of mobile phone frequencies which causes inconvenience all around)...I am pro globalization, I think all these things should be standardized or globalized or whatever the word is. My point simply, which apparently has been overblown, given the amount of tourist trade (not just American doggone it) in the UK, some accommodation will have to be made for the forseeable future for non compatible pin and chip cards or magnetic stripe cards. No more, no less and if I haven't been clear, I do humbly apologize.

Hi

the French autoroute takes non pin cards, and has since cards were first accepted. (France was slow to start with cc's and even in the 1970's many autoroute service stations still had carte bleue accepted signs as you drove up the ramp. CB now = VISA)

And the Spanish autoroute takes French chipped cards.

Neither require a signature or pin number.

20 years ago, a French restaurant in Calais refused to accept my UK non chipped card. This was soon after their introduction. In pidgeon French I pointed out that it was too late to tell me, and I had no other money. I then pointed out that my card and their door both had the same VISA logo, and didn't that suggest something to them ?

Eventually they got out the old slider machine and accepted my card.

I'm pretty sure that the small print in the VISA agreement specifies that businesses displaying the VISA logo must accept all VISA cards : and this will continue.

BTW - not all US ATM's & stores will accept European cards !

Peter
www.the-languedoc-page.com


Peter

I bet the merchants are being stuck with a higher percentage fee to accept cards w/o the PIN, so that may explain their reluctance. The card companies put the merchant in the middle, and they do stick them with any chargebacks saying they are responsible for getting signatures, security codes, etc...