Chip & Pin Credit Card Woes

[VivreManger]

How has the chip and pin campaign been going in the UK? Apparently the older sign cards are still being accepted, but it is not clear for how long. Any US credit card users having trouble with the new system? As far as I know US cards are still, sign only for credit, though pin required for debit. If car cards are chipped, the significance of this addition is not clear.

The Guardian ran a story today focused on the difficulties the new system causes

for the elderly, but I don't know if it will also cause trouble for travellers.

http://www.chipandpin.co.uk/consumer/index.html

and

http://money.guardian.co.uk/creditanddebt/...1698115,00.html

[SBonner]

I know that my British debit card dos not work on the Canadian debit card system Interac...so I'm guessing ours will not be compatible in the U.K.

Cheers,

Stephen

[postcode]

You shouldn't have any problem coming from outside the UK and using a credit card that doesn't use a pin. It only applies to UK issued cards. The registered disabled will still have the option to sign if they want and the elderly may get away with it if they plead Alzheimers.

[offcentre]

as far as I understand it, if your card has a chip then from 14th Feb you must use the PIN facility at the point of sale to use this card. If you don't know the PIN number then the merchant will no longer let you sign for it instead.

However, if your card doesn't have a chip then they should still swipe it for you.

I think most merchants will keep the swipe technology because, as you say, most US cards along with many other countries do not have C+P yet.

[JudyB]

as far as I understand it, if your card has a chip then from 14th Feb you must use the PIN facility at the point of sale to use this card. If you don't know the PIN number then the merchant will no longer let you sign for it instead.

However, if your card doesn't have a chip then they should still swipe it for you.

I think most merchants will keep the swipe technology because, as you say, most US cards along with many other countries do not have C+P yet.

←

As postcode said above there will be those, such as some disabled people, whose cards will contain a marker that tells the merchant that the user must sign and not enter a PIN. So, yes, the merchants will have to be able to handle cards that are not chip & PIN.

When we were in France last year we found that their new machines have both a PIN slot and a place to swipe the magnetic stripe. Some places expected that non-French cards were not Chip&Pin, but the machines mostly told them to use the PIN slot when they swiped our cards. (There were still some French machines last year that were not compatible with UK cards).

I would expect that the UK machines will work in a similar way to the French ones and tell the merchant to use the correct slot if they get it wrong.

Edited February 1, 2006 by JudyB (log)

[erica graham]

Our machine will still do both (swipe & chip) and we aren't expecting any changes with non chip cards (outside the uk banks), only you wont be able to get drunk and sign when you get the pin wrong anymore!

(Always plenty of washing up on hand though!)