I operate a shop that accepts VISA cards. The POS we use is a Verifone VX510.
There’s this one customer that his PIN gets rejected the first 2-3 times he enters it but on the 3-4th attempt the PIN is accepted and the sale goes through. We have more than 50 regular customers with chip-and-PIN cards and they don’t have a problem with their PIN getting rejected. Only this one customer has this problem.
Is this situation even remotely possible with chip and PIN cards or is it a classic case of PEBCK?
How long has this been happening? I had a pin that had a leading zero and it was causing me untold greif. Several outfits don’t allow leading zeroes anymore.
I eventually had to change it when my bank changed to not allow leading zeroes.
This and a sticky key could be your problem, customer not realizing that the 5 key is not registering but when methodically applying more pressure on each digit it gets through. you may wish to try it running your own card or an employees for a dollar to test this.
and make sure to give him his dollar back.
Drach, computer guy who installs 3-4 POS systems a year.
There’s no separate keyboard for the client. When the time comes to enter their PIN I hand the POS over to them, they enter the PIN and I take it back. I am 100% positive there are no sticky keys.
On this specific POS we process maybe 50 cards a day and about 20 of them are of the variety that requires a PIN. No other customer has ever had this problem, only this specific one.
Is it possible that the chip on his card is damaged? I find this highly unlikely though because we had some damaged cards before and the POS would reject them right away and show a message that it could not communicate with the card.
