Credit card without chip and pin

Good - the system is working.

Restaurant owner an idiot. I think you are correct. Even shops locally to me who insisted they would not accept cards without a PIN now accept that one of my overseas cards is valid for use, without a PIN.

Name the establishment here so we can avoid it. Future searches linked to that restaurant may show up their ignorance.

So where does that leave 'chip and signature'? Since many disabled people cannot use chip & pin I trust disability discrimination law would stamp out any unreasonable insistance on requiring chip and pin.

So where does that leave 'chip and signature'?

My debit and all my credit cards are Chip & Signature. (The cards that card issuers don't want you to know about and mislead you into thinking you have to be disabled to acquire them).

Experience so far, is that one or two retailers had to be convinced to put the chipped card into the chip reader. Only when the transaction slip popped out for me to sign as norm were they convinced.

Card issuers when issuing Chip & Signature cards send these cards with letters telling you that the card is Chip and PIN, thus misleading the cardholder. (I've lodged a complaint with Trading Standards).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but AIUI the only issue is that if chip and PIN is *not* used the shop or restauranteur is on his own if there is any fraud (like the card was stolen), whereas if it *is* used this bank will carry the can.

john2

I was told by a branch of the Co-Op they no longer accepted chip and signature cards and that they were "illegal" - AFTER I signed the slip.

This does not make sense. If a merchant has a 'VISA' sign up, he should accept ALL VISA cards, if a bank tells him not to accept some types of VISA cards, the bank would appear to be breaching its franchise agreement with VISA. AFAIK a merchant can safely accept a VISA card as long as:

1. He gets authorisation where necessary (this will generally be done automatically nowadays) AND
2. The signature on the voucher matches the signature on the back of the card.
3. The card is not on a 'badlist' circular (with automatic checking, badlists are probably a thing of the past).

As far as I can see if a customer produces a valid VISA card where the restaurant holds itself out to accept VISA, but the restaurateur refuses to accept it after the meal is consumed, any attempted prosecution for obtaining credit by fraud will fail as 'mens rea' (the intention) is not present. This still leaves the messy matter of an arrest, it would be interesting to know if people can sue claimants whose wrongful complaints result in arrests.

In message , Colin Wilson writes

I was told by my local Tesco store, having had a trolley full of goods scanned through, that I could not pay using a card if I did not have the pin number. Oddly, as soon as I said "OK then, just get someone to pop this lot back on the shelf for me would you?" they suddenly became able to allow me to sign for it instead.

Unfortunately some merchants just make up their own rules. About 9 months ago I attempted to use my non chip and pin Visa debit card to pay for a meal at a Chinese restaurant. The card issuer simply had not issued chip & pin cards at this stage. The restaurant refused to accept it. I phoned up the card issuer when I got back who told me that they should have accepted it, and that I should go back to the restaurant and tell them this.

I declined on the basis that it was no longer my problem. Thankfully I had alternative forms of payment. The restaurant still has a disclaimer on their menu stating that only chip & pin payment is accepted. I believe that they display the Visa and Mastercard logo.

I wonder how merchants are expected to recognize a card as being from outside the UK? There's often very little to visibly distinguish a UK card from a non-UK card. I know it could be done by an analysis of the card number, but that would seem to be beyond the capability of an average restaurant cashier.

Chris

I'm confused ..I take it you mean that the card did NOT have a Chip + Pin .??

Stuart

They don't have to know. They have a PIN machine. They stick the card in. The machine chats to the card, and the card tells the machine whether to ask for a PIN or for a signature. Easy.

The bank instructions to the retailer are not "if you don't get a PIN, then you carry the risk", but "if you don't get a PIN *when the card asks for it*, then you carry the risk".

I got some petrol in a Texaco station and handed over my non-chip and pin card. The woman put it through the stripe reader and told me is was 'rejected'. Tried it again with the same result. Never had a problem with the stripe on the card before or since. She then tells me she is not allowed to manually enter a card number so I could not use that card to pay.

Faulty card stripe reader and stupid rules requiring the stripe to be read? Smelt very fishy to me.

Anyone else have similar experience?

I went in to a filling station a couple of days afte Chip+ pin started and the machine rejected the sale .The attendant said it had happened a lot and entered the details as they did before chip+ Pin so they could do it so why not the one you went to

Stuart

If you go to a Tesco store that has those new self-service checkouts, you can pay by card.....All you do is swipe the magnetic strip on the card.....It doesn't do anything with the chip on the card, and it doesn't ask you for a PIN or a signature.....It simply reads the magnetic strip and then debits the amount due from your card.....

If they can do that at a self-service checkout, why can't the cashier do the same?.....

Yes, I mean exactly that.

Axel

In message , Swampy Bogtrotter wrote

Can any stolen card be used Tesco without any form of checking?

Yes, but you can only buy stolen groceries.

Colin Wilson wrote

I recently had to sign receipts at ALDI and PC World...