It’s worth noting that the liability shift for gas pumps doesn’t occur until October 2017 (along with ATMs). The industry as a whole doesn’t expect those to switch over yet.
Ah. I’m not sure how clear of an awareness I ever had that they were raised for any particular reason. Interesting.
My parents didn’t have credit cards, and I didn’t get one until the late nineties, so I’ve probably only seen one of those carbon devices used a couple of times, and wasn’t in a position to scrutinize what it was up to.
I think a lot of it is just resistance to change with some of the [older] bar owners. When you’ve been sitting down at the bar every morning for 15 years and adjusting receipts and now you have to do it this way, it’s difficult to make the change. I know at least two that put in EMV and then pulled it back out because of that.
I’d be willing to bet that the credit card reader inside of a gas pump is modular and can probably be swapped out. As soon as a new one is developed (and a new front panel if need be) it can probably be dropped in just like they replace the entire credit card reader when it gets damaged. It’s not like they have to replace the whole pump if someone smacks the number pad with a baseball bat.
Come to think of it, the credit card reader/swiper is already set up that you ‘dip’ your card. It’s going to be more a matter of training people to leave it in there during the transaction instead of ‘insert and remove quickly’.
Speaking of gas pumps, what would be the UX on those, in light of the issues with restaurants/tips/not being able to run the card until AFTER the total is known? Ie, right now you can swipe and then pump; the swipe before starting is the guarantee that you can pump without just driving away…and then the charge is actually made once you stop the pump. So if you can’t run the chip card until after…? Wouldn’t the choices be 1) put your card in and leave it there the whole time you’re pumping, or 2) be able to start the pump with no “guarantee” of valid payment and insert the card after, or something else? If it were possible to pre-authenticate and then hold the info to run the actual charge afterward, then there wouldn’t be a problem with adding a tip at a bar/restaurant… The way I’ve seen that handled (just one place, so far, that I know of) is the server will ask me if I plan to add a tip to the card, then they ask me to go ahead and write it on the receipt before she runs the card. Then the receipt I sign simply has the total including tip and a signature line. I’m fine with that (unless there’s a horrible downside possibility I haven’t thought of), but I can see that it makes the tipping culture a little more awkward because it has to be confronted and acknowledged upfront, rather than the usual method of leaving it (or not) and running away.
EDIT: I guess leaving it in the whole time would work…but I’m sure that would result, at least for a number of months/years, in a whole lot of cards being left behind. As it is now, I see so many receipts left behind (even in the ones where you specifically opt-in to get a receipt, they still leave it). People are in a hurry, there’s no cashier to check or remind. I guess a loud beeper or something would help.
Do you plan to tip me (and how much?)
No (or ‘yes, 8%’)
Excuse me while I spit in your leftovers that are being boxed up.
Forcing a customer to tip before they’re done interacting with the waiter almost forces them to tip higher than they might want to. As a customer, I might think they were doing this on purpose to get a bigger tip out of me.
My ex was a culinary arts major. You don’t ask that kind of stuff. For example, if the total is $43 and they give you a $50 you never say ‘do you need change’, you just say ‘I’ll be right back with your change’ and let them tell you to keep it…anything else is a bit presumptuous.
But as we get deeper into this EMV stuff, I imagine things will be figured out for these situations.
That reminds me of one day when I was out to a restaurant, I gave the waitress my CC, she brought me the receipt to sign and I asked where I CC was. She said she doesn’t bring it back until the receipt is signed…something about being burned once before. A minor power struggle ensued before I finally signed so I could get my credit card back and mentioned it to her manager.
As a manger myself (not at restaurant) it drives me up the effin wall when employees make up their own rules. She pissed me off with that…some other customer took off on her so now she’s making my life difficult, bite me.
How does one use a chip card where there is no setup for it? Does it also have a swipe strip? If so, that would seem to still be an opportunity for fraud.
If a store isn’t set up to accept a chip, they just swipe the magstripe. However, due to the liability shift last year, the merchant will now be responsible if something goes wrong (card number gets stolen etc) due to that transaction.
Yes, it still has a swipe strip. But from what I’ve seen it seems the employees are trained to ask, and even interrupt you if they see you trying to swipe a card with a chip, and they ask you to do the chip dip.
Depending on what you mean by fraud…stolen #s from a database breach, or someone actually stealing your wallet and using your card, it’s a multifaceted approach. Chip-and-signature (which seems to be what most are doing right now) doesn’t give any more protection against someone stealing your physical card than a magstripe does. Chip-and-pin is used elsewhere in the world, and is obviously more secure for that type of scenario. I’m guessing the US is trying to make the transition by not changing too many things at one time.
I think right now the fraud they’re trying to prevent is 1) stolen stripe information from a database, since there’s an encrypted handshake thing going on unique to each transaction; so either the account info itself can’t be stored by the vendor (ie, why they can’t run the transaction later, or add/edit it) or can’t be used again regardless, or 2) skimmer devices that store the stripe info when you swipe - again, encryption, etc so you can’t clone the chip. The retailer would have an incentive to want everyone to use the chip, when available, since I would guess it reduces the chance that a hack into their payment database would yield usable information (ie CC #s compromised in recent hacks on Target, etc.). The consumer would have incentive to avoid swiping to avoid the possibility of their stripe being skimmed.
Yes, there’s still relatively large potential for fraud for as long as you can use a swipe strip or even just the number itself (ie phone or web), but using the chip everywhere you can at least lessens your “attack surface,” or potential vulnerable spots.
The way my machine (and most I assume) is set up, is that if you swipe a card that has a chip, it’ll tell you to use the chip. If the chip fails a handful of times, sometimes it’ll let you swipe it, but in general, if there’s a chip, it can’t be swiped, The odd workaround to this is that I can still key the number in as if it’s a card not present transaction.
What I think might end up being even more secure is things like Samsung/Android/Apple pay. I use Samsung pay. I have use my fingerprint to get my phone to start transmitting the card number (a PIN may work as well). It doesn’t transmit my actual number, but something more like a token (IIRC EMV doesn’t use your actual number either), but what I really like is that when I use Samsung pay my phone alerts me, instantly. On the off chance that someone would manage to run that number, I’d assume that my phone would let me know right away.
Also, with Samsung pay (unlike Apple and the other Androids) on ANY credit card machine, it has a magnet that someone replicates the magstripe. I’ve used it on machines that don’t work with NFC/contactless/EMV payments and it doesn’t know the difference between my phone and a plastic CC.
The chip and pin gas pumps work the same way as the magnetic stripe pumps. You insert your card and then enter your pin when prompted. Once the card is authorised, you need to remove it before you can pump gas.
Do you have to insert it again at the end of the transaction? My understanding of EMV is that you have to know the total amount charged to when you do the EMV negotiation.
My new citi costco credit card does not have raised numbers so it won’t work on the carbon paper impression machines.
I’m in Canada, so the rules may be different, but we don’t have to reinsert the card afterwards.
The pumps do prompt you to select a maximum transaction cost, so that may be a workaround for that rule.
Another Canadian here. Gas pumps have had chip card readers for several years and you are preauthorizing a maximum amount. The pump reader will default to a fixed amount (usually $100-$200) which you can change as desired. I usually change it to $50, as gas prices would need to be much higher before it would cost more than that to fill my tank - I assume the high default value is so that truck and gas guzzler drivers don’t hit the dollar limit before they finish filling up if they forget to change it.
The amount charged is the actual cost of the gas purchased. I almost always use my debit card, but have never seen any pre-charge, reversal, actual charge entries on either this or a credit card, so the system seems to be set up to work with the amount provided at the end rather than the beginning of the process. As **AHarris **said, the card part is completed before you even begin the fill-up part.