We have had the same credit card processor since we opened our doors 3 years ago. In the last few months, however, they have had us making some major transitions, including purchasing over $1000 in processing equipment, and spending a considerable amount of time educating our clients on how to operate the new system. This is not counting the hours of frustration of dealing with buggy new hardware and software. I currently have 3 machines hooked up, and I have to determine what kind of card (not Visa or Mastercard, but “Swipe”, “Chip”, or “Tap”) before every transaction, and use the appropriate machine, or in the case of “Chip” cards, direct the client to use their terminal.
Apparently, by October, everyone in the US should have switched to Chipped cards. These have a chip on them that goes in the reader, and processes the transaction more securely than a magnetic strip, I hear they are very popular in Europe.
They originally claimed it was due to the Russ-Feingold act, but then said it was the credit card company’s policies that had changed, requiring the new equipment and procedures. Googling gets me no information on any of this.
I have a representative from our Credit Card Processor coming out this afternoon, so, I was wondering if there is anyone who can shed some light on what exactly is going on in the credit card world. I don’t want to have to take their word on everything anymore, so any information or links with which I can arm myself would be awesome.
Note to mods: Credit cards and everything about them is quite pit worthy, but I would hope this thread stays in GQ at least long enough to get some feedback before it gets swept up into the flames.
“Chip & Pin” is universal in the UK. now and is totally accepted.
Stores from small to giant all use the same system and customers have no difficulty.
The storekeeper knows within seconds that he is going to get paid, this alone is a good thing.
Cash machines use exactly the same system.
Big stores have permanently connected systems while the machine in small stores dials up as required.
Don’t know the differences in Obamaland, but it works here!
We just got a new reader at work and chipped cards can’t be swiped. If you attempt it, the reader will just back the whole transaction out of the system. It takes a few tries to get used to it, but it really isn’t any less convenient. As for more secure? I’m sure someone will have it hacked soon enough.
Small business owner here. I’ve switched credit card processors a few times over the years. My company tells me they are “adding new fees for paper” or some other change. I call around and find a cheaper alternative and switch. The old company acts hurt, saying they would have waived the fees if they knew it was a problem.
That is how our system worked before. Swipe the card, it gets approved, at the end of the day, I run the batch, and the money is deposited in my bank account. The only difference with chip cards is that they don’t have to enter a PIN, and the bigger difference and irritation is that not all cards are the chip cards, some still get swiped, and some get “tapped” (rfid chip, I assume).
That is one of our frustrations. If someone has a chipped or tap card, and uses the wrong machine or procedure, it causes errors, and clears any tips they may have entered. Trying to swipe a tap or chipped card may sound foolish, but I have a large number of clients to educate on this matter.
I’ve upped the threat to that, I don’t want to change companies, really, but I have warned them that I will be considering other options if they don’t stop frustrating me.
The thing that really got me was that we had to pay $1000 for the equipment that they sent us, and when I received it, I looked it up online, and found I could have bought all the stuff for less than $400.
AIUI, the ‘tap’ is just to give people a reason to put the card (chip) near enough to read. The ‘just hold it over the terminal’ would freak people out, so they are told to tap it.
If the machine can detect the chip, why does it still try to process a swipe?
This sounds like a hardware issue - the machine causes the confusion, the machine can solve it, so why doesn’t it?
If it detects a chip, it can turn off the swipe reader. Hell, if nothing else, it could activate a pop-up post at the top of the swipe groove to block the card.
Or make the chip card too thick for the swipe.
I have cheapie cards, and have yet to get a single chip. I"m devastated.
Most POS/customer terminals are badly installed, badly programmed and badly integrated with the cash register/purchase tracking system stores use. It’s that simple.
My experience goes back a few years, but even with the less sophisticated terminals being installed about ten years ago it was possible to customized everything about the customer UI, process steps, read reliability and so forth. A careful installer could fit the card system to the store and clientele like a glove. When you use a terminal in a store and it “just works” the way you think it should, with no extra steps, confusion about which button to push, having to be told by the clerk to wait or do some nonobvious step or having the whole transaction fail because you didn’t stand on one leg and hold your breath while swiping your card… the installing vendor did their job.
Everywhere else, they changed the store name in firmware, screwed the terminal to the counter, made sure the first screen came up, and left. There is never, ever any reason for these systems to not work smoothly in all respects - just vendor/installer/buyer shortcuts and ignorance. It’s just another area where crappy work is passed off as “just the way the system works,” costing everyone time, frustration and often money.
The various NFC / RFID technologies where you just have to get the card near the terminal are 100% different from and incompatible with the technology being rolled out across the US now. The NFC/RFID idea ended up not being popular and is in the process of being phased out. Tapping is so last year.
The new system coming in uses a chip in the card that is exposed as a contact patch on the surface of the card. The card must be inserted into a slot in the terminal and left in there for several seconds for the terminal to recognize & communicate with the chip.
The gotcha is chipped cards also have a mag stripe so they can be used in old readers that don’t handle the chip. And 100% of the US user base is trained to swipe their card via the stripe.
So what happens during this transition is the user swipes his new chip-equipped card out of habit. The terminal connects to Visa or whoever & presents the info. Visa says “Sorry, that’s a chip card and you’re a chip terminal; have the customer stick the card in the slot so we can read the chip. Otherwise we ain’t approving nuthin’”.
Now the customer is confused, and maybe the POS system is confused, and nothing will go forward until everyone becomes unconfused.
If you have used tap cards before (I haven’t, but I have witnessed clients do so), then you would know that you have to line it up just right with the reader. (Or maybe it’s just my reader) If it is upside down, or if it is sideways because they are preparing to swipe, it will detect that the card is there, but not get a good read off of it, causing an error, and clearing any tip the client may have entered. Turning off or blocking the swipe would not help, as that is after the fact.
I do not believe any of my clients with the “tap” cards have actually literally “tapped” them, though that is at least because they haven’t used the tap feature before on anyone else’s equipment, and I am guiding them through the process.
And yes, it is an annoying hardware/software issue, and I pay our credit card processor a lot of money in order to not have to worry about it, this is why I am especially annoyed that they are making me have to worry about it.
Ah, that explains the “insert at bottom” instead of tap.
Now it has to sit and wait?
We just spent 20 years getting people to “swipe” quickly and smothly - now we need to re-train in exactly the opposite mindset.
In Canada, a chip terminal (we use PIN number) is also a swipe terminal. If the merchant accepts tap, it is also a tap terminal. No need for multiple equipment.
Basically, a chip card must be chip processed. If it is inserted, and then fails, the terminal/POS software will ask for (allow) a swipe instead. But generally, a chip card must use the chip. Simple as that. In your case, during the transition, non-chip cards need to be swiped still. Unless the USA is very different, you can look at a card and see if it is chip or not.
Tap is NOT on the way out. It is now the “next big thing” for small purchase convenience. Up to a limit (usually $50) it will allow a transaction with nothing more than a radio conversation with the NFC chip. The owner is not liable for chip purchases when his card is stolen, and the merchant is not liable if the card was tapped (i.e. it was the real card). Of course, if you don’t report the card stolen in time, someone can do some spending with it; it’s not clear if you are liable for your purchases before you discovered and reported your missing card. (There’s also a daily limit, which probably becomes more of an annoyance for some people.)
I spend quite some time in a pitch dark room shining a LED flashlight through my cards to trace and cut the embedded loop antenna for the tap chip to disable the function I did not ask for.
Are you surprised the card issuer stuck you with a 250% markup for a captive clientele?
The “incentive” the card processors came up with, is that using a swipe instead of chip means the merchant is automatically liable for any contested charges.
The whole industry is in on this, so you won’t get an exemption from some other processor - just maybe better software or equipment (which you then buy… again)
Even worse in Canada, is the number of people who force their card too hard into the slot. After repeated abuse, the card breaks in half.
At least here, you follow the prompts - “connecting, checking, now enter your PIN, checking, approved… please remove your card”. You can get a copy of your receipt, but other than that, you’re done - no printing a signature slip etc. unless your chip is unreadable. Usually a re-insert solves that problem. SO it’s probably faster, and the merchant has a more solid guarantee of payment, harder to challenge a PIN number.
In the US, tap cards are pretty much dead. Chase Bank, the biggest issuer of credit cards in the US, pushed them really, really hard and had the tap technology in almost all of their cards. The other banks were less enthusiastic, but did issue some of their cards with the tap technology.
Despite all the commercials about how fast and easy it was, consumers preferred to swipe. The contactless card readers were finicky, swiping a stripe was fast, simple, and reliable. Chase threw in the towel in early 2014 and stopped issuing any new or replacement contactless cards. The other banks never had a large commitment anyway.
But that’s not the end of contactless technology. Banks are hoping to expand the smartphone-based payment systems like Google Wallet, Apple iPay, and the now defunct Softcard (formerly known as ISIS). These work through the same contactless readers that the cards used (and don’t have an alternate magnetic stripe or chip if the contactless reader can’t be used).
This is starting to sound like my conversations with tech support about this issue, where they tell me everything I already know, but don’t address the actual issue. They did finally admit to me that it is a known issue, and they are just kind of hoping it goes away with tap cards by October.
Most customers don’t even know that they have an RFID chip in their card until they go to swipe it, and the terminal throws out a bunch of error beeps. When it throws these errors, it also wipes out any tip they may have entered. I either have to start the transaction over, or do a whole new one in order for them to add the tip again.
Chip cards I have no problem with, though they are a bit inconvenient, in that I have to get the client to use the terminal themselves, which means training them on how to use it. If they swipe those, it just tells them to put it into the reader.
I was told by tech support, that if they have a “Tap” card, then I should use my old terminal to process it, as it does not have the near field communication that the new terminal has. That’s more than a little inconvenient, if nothing else, it’s a separate batch to process at the end of the day, as well as requiring me to inspect everyone’s card prior to the transaction, because if I find out it’s a tap card from hearing the error beeps, then it is too late, the tip has been dropped, and I need to start all over again.
I would be quite surprised to learn that anyone was required to use the Tap feature of a Tap card. The tap functionality has always been positioned as being at the customer’s option. My understanding is that only customers trying to pay by smart phone would be required to use the tap functionality.
Again, don’t know how USA cards are supposed to work - but for the Canadian versions, tap is an option. Chip is the default. If you do a chip transaction and it is a chip card, it will work. If you tap, either (a) it will work or (b) declined - hit daily limit or over single transaction limit … or (c) there’s no tap feature on card. The terminal will never say “you have tap, don’t use chip”.
(It will however, demand you do a chip transaction if you swipe it first).
It looks like the card makers are forcing tap feature on everyone - my last two cards had no option to decline it. It’s meant to speed and simplify small transactions.
So all cards here have chip, magstripe for fallback, and possibly tap. US cards work with swipe - I haven’t heard if they now print a signature receipt for chip transactions (I did have one store in Canada do that with my Canadian card recently).
If the transaction cancels when you try to tap - maybe you’re over the limit. As I mentioned, there’s a per-transaction limit on our tap feature of typically $50 to $100 depending on the card (the customer) and the merchant’s default number.
I assume from what you’ve said that the earlier tap feature was intended for ALL transactions for that card, not just for smaller ones. Hence, it sounds like people are tapping now for too-large transactions.