Note to self: get chip and pin cards before European trip in June.
Interesting...
I can see numerous problems occurring as Americans get switched over in mass to a new type of Debit card. Not so much from the users I suppose but from the lack of new point of sales devices industry wide.
Are these RFID chips which can be read from distances? I did not see this in this addressed in the article. It does sound as though these are impenetrable, but we all know better. I know biometric info can be stored on them as well. I am waiting to see the dark underbelly of this. The article did not mention the exact numbers of hacking compared with our “old- fashioned” method. I want to see hard data, not climate changing money to follow data. Can we even get hard numbers anymore?
My Visa card has both a chip and a magnetic stripe. I haven’t used it wirelessly that I know of requiring a PIN, but I have bought a gun or two with it where they swiped it, etc. You can see the chip on the front side.
Soon it will be required to have it in your hand or forehead.
I, for one, am very happy to see this happen. Besides the well known Target data breach, there were many smaller companies hacked and card and personal data taken. The primary reason is that the US still uses the old technology and hackers were picking the low hanging fruit.
My wife and I recently froze our credit with the 3 reporting agencies to help thwart identity thieves. Also using Avast! Safezone when doing any transactions online, and have started to use LastPass to keep our passwords safe. It’s getting dangerous out there!
We were in Ireland last year and our cards worked fine.
They call it “new tech”, then admit it’s been in Europe for “years”.
We seem to be moving closer and closer to the day when everyone will have a chip implanted under their skin. Of course, once that happens, no one will be able to buy or sell unless they have the mark of....
It’s often difficult to use American credit cards abroad
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I wonder just where the author went ???
I was “abroad” in October and had no problems with my “old fashioned” credit cards...
This is the new style EMV card. The laundromat I go to already uses this type.
And we’ve been brainwashed into believing that the U.S. is the leader in such technological advances. What putzes we are!
In 2015? We’ll see. Its going to be a lot easier to get new cards to people than it will be getting millions of new point if sale devices in place.
Europe had ATM’s years before they were installed in the US.
When I went to my local AAA to buy my Disney trip, the agent took my credit card, placed it in a black plastic tray, covered it with a 3” x 7” multi layered paper/carbon paper thingy, and slid a bar back and forth to indent my card number on the carbon paper. I haven’t seen that since I was a kid. I was surprised my card could still do that.
The credit card companies have vigorously opposed any update to their cutting edge 1960s technology for 40 years now.
With this, they are updating their security to about 1990s levels.
In future, credit cards almost *have* to be biometric, with a picture of the user on front, a fingerprint, and an encrypted data matrix bar code pattern on the back, which can be read and translated by most cell phone cameras, and has its own error correction for some degree of damage.
I am a merchant and a consumer. As both, I welcome more secure transactions. However, as I perused my Costco magazine just this week I saw something troubling in one of the articles: “Beginning October 1, 2015, there will be a liability shift from the card issuers to merchants of any size, excluding automated fuel dispensers (”pay at the pump”). Merchants not using compliant EMV point-of-sale solutions will be liable for domestic and cross-border counterfeit credit card fraud committed at the point of sale”
No card can be 100% safe.
BFL
bkmk