# How many of you guys are using "chip and PIN" banking/credit cards? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 9, 2008, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344 "2008-12-09T02:59:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/21 "2008-12-09T19:36:02Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > So this was considered a big enough problem that _replacing the entire worldwide card and reader infrastructure_\* was a cost-viable solution? I thought that, if a signature was not checked with the card during the purchase, and the customer later disputed the charge, it was the receiving merchant who was on the hook. A cloned card will have a matching signature. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/22 "2008-12-09T19:40:56Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > A cloned card will have a matching signature. The fraudulent user’s signature, different than the one it was cloned from. Okay, that makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/23 "2008-12-09T21:48:26Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > I started to wonder how durable the chip was, and whether it would short out or something if I dropped the card in the lake… RBC just replied, with a short email that basically boiled down to ‘Maybe, so don’t do it.’ ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/24 "2008-12-10T04:34:48Z")
Well, I took my new Chip-and-PIN VISA card to the gym today and paid for some training lessons. The lady there swiped the card like traditional, then checked the machine and saw that it hadn’t worked. “Oh, this is one of those chip things,” she muttered. She brought the terminal up to the countertop and stuck my card in the front, and from then, it was more like a normal Canadian debit-card transaction then a traditional credit-card transaction: _Okay transaction for $xxx?_ Yes. _Please enter PIN._ XXXX. _Do not remove card from terminal until transaction is complete!.. Transaction approved._ The lady took my card out and gave it back to me, took the terminal back behind the counter, ripped off the receipt and then the transaction was done. Now I’m just waiting for the transaction to show up online so that I can pay it. After all these years, it’s good to have a credit card again. > [@Meurglys](#): > > Several years ago the monthly fee they charge for the use of a swipe machine was increased by, iirc, £5.00 pcm to pay, they said, for r&d of chip & pin technology… What do you mean by ‘pcm’? ---
**Author:** ![shefDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@shefDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shefDave)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/25 "2008-12-10T06:13:21Z")
**P** er **C** alendar **M** onth. ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/26 "2008-12-10T13:05:30Z")
Everyone I know in the UK uses them, and I remember shop owners being very befuddled by my US swipe card when I presented it to them my first month over here. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/27 "2008-12-10T13:18:49Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > RBC Royal Bank here in Canada is making lots of noises about “chip and PIN” banking/debit cards and credit cards. > > These have a chip in them–it’s embossed onto the front of the card–and you enter a PIN into the terminal when you use it instead of swiping. You will no longer need to sign the credit-card slip because the PIN will provide the authorization. We’ve used debit cards with PINs for years here, but they don’t have chips; you swipe them through a reader. > > Apparently this is the up-and-coming thing for payment cards. Anyone else using chip and PIN? are there any differences between “chip and pin” and “swipe and sign” cards when used online? Don’t see how there could be-I certainly hope one isn’t expected to type in their PIN for online transactions. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344/28 "2008-12-10T15:09:25Z")
> [@rbroome](#): > > are there any differences between “chip and pin” and “swipe and sign” cards when used online? Don’t see how there could be-I certainly hope one isn’t expected to type in their PIN for online transactions. I don’t think so. I used my card online in the usual way. For Visa, there is an optional ‘Verified by Visa’ thing that gives me a password for online use, but I think the online merchant has to enable that on the site as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-of-you-guys-are-using-chip-and-pin-banking-credit-cards/476344.md?page=1)