Question about Chip & Signature credit cards
- Thread starter Mr. Laser Beam
- Start date
You have a chip & PIN card? What bank?
Well as I said, almost every place I regularly go to in Canada still accepts swiped cards. (The only place that I ran into problems, was an automated Toronto Transit Commission vending machine.) So I'm not worried that I'll be stuck without a way to pay. I'm just sort of a technology geek and I was just curious if I could use the actual chip part of the card. I guess I will just try to dip it first and if that doesn't work I can always swipe.
Thanks everyone for all the advice, BTW. This place has never let me down.
I still write cheques in a couple of regular/semi-regular situations. One is to a person and the other is to an agency that still hasn't clued in as to the convenience of online payments.
Make sure you don't mention this to a cashier in these terms; they might think you stole the card!
Oh, I didn't mean to put down cheques. I just meant that it seemed from that era. Comes across more as a solution to bridge the gap. Yeah, they are still handy in some situations.
I've had the same cheque book for years. They just don't cover up much anymore. But I wouldn't want to ditch them completely because they're still useful for sending money through the post between private individuals, and a lot of tradespeople still want paying by cheque. I think we need to make electronic money transfer between individuals a bit easier before cheques have their final death.
Striped, then?
I have had this conversation with people up there and I just ask them if they accept American credit cards, they always understand what I mean.
They actually might be surprised that we are starting to have chip cards down here, come to think of it! I'd better rethink my strategy.
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I don't mind using Paypal, but I understand why some folks are reluctant. And it does seem silly to use that service when it's to someone standing right in front of me.
I used to accept cheques from my clients until there was a bunch that bounced within the same month. My bank got perturbed at that, and it was disagreeable to have to tell a long-term client that their cheque bounced and that from now on, I'd prefer cash.
Well, it just occurred to me that if someone walked up to me and said they wanted to use a "swiped card" I'd wonder whose card it really belonged to, and why you'd be telling me you wanted to use a stolen card.Striped, then?
I have had this conversation with people up there and I just ask them if they accept American credit cards, they always understand what I mean.
They actually might be surprised that we are starting to have chip cards down here, come to think of it! I'd better rethink my strategy.
Looks like most of you folks are posting from some vaguely futuristic parallel world which makes me feel slightly disconcerted. I have a credit card with a PIN so I can withdraw money from ATMs abroad without fees but I didn't even know this was used for paying with the card in some places.
I think what confuses the matter is that people sometimes use "credit card" and "debit card" interchangeably. Most Americans with a checking account have a debit card from their bank, for which you are assigned (or choose) a PIN, and you use that card and PIN to get cash from ATMs as well as make purchases (which are automatically deducted from your checking account). I just noticed that my new-ish debit card has a chip in it. I suppose this means I can insert the card and then enter my PIN, though I have just been swiping it so far, as my old one did not have a chip.
This is different from credit cards, which in the past you always had to swipe, and then you would have to do some combination of showing your ID, signing the receipt, or entering the billing zip code (I've only seen this at gas stations). These now have a chip, so you don't have to swipe. However we do not have PINs, so you still have to sign the receipt.
The silly thing about the way that this has been implemented, from what I've noticed so far, is that they've made no incentive to use the chip. People are still preferring to swipe rather than insert their card. Inserting actually takes longer (it says something like "please do not remove card" for several seconds, as opposed to swiping which is instant) so people just aren't doing it. At our local Target, when they first got the chip readers they were requesting that everyone insert rather than swipe, and the lines were backed up for quite a ways, as it just plain took longer. You could feel the irritation level rising. Next time I went they actually started requesting the opposite, saying "if you swipe it won't take as long." A similar thing happened at Trader Joe's, they got new chip readers but instead this time the process was taking longer whether you inserted the card or swiped. It was a terribly long wait and managers were pacing about looking frazzled. I don't know what has gone wrong here, whether the software/machines were designed poorly or if being able to enter a PIN speeds up the process, but so far the implementation doesn't seem all that successful.
This is different from credit cards, which in the past you always had to swipe, and then you would have to do some combination of showing your ID, signing the receipt, or entering the billing zip code (I've only seen this at gas stations). These now have a chip, so you don't have to swipe. However we do not have PINs, so you still have to sign the receipt.
The silly thing about the way that this has been implemented, from what I've noticed so far, is that they've made no incentive to use the chip. People are still preferring to swipe rather than insert their card. Inserting actually takes longer (it says something like "please do not remove card" for several seconds, as opposed to swiping which is instant) so people just aren't doing it. At our local Target, when they first got the chip readers they were requesting that everyone insert rather than swipe, and the lines were backed up for quite a ways, as it just plain took longer. You could feel the irritation level rising. Next time I went they actually started requesting the opposite, saying "if you swipe it won't take as long." A similar thing happened at Trader Joe's, they got new chip readers but instead this time the process was taking longer whether you inserted the card or swiped. It was a terribly long wait and managers were pacing about looking frazzled. I don't know what has gone wrong here, whether the software/machines were designed poorly or if being able to enter a PIN speeds up the process, but so far the implementation doesn't seem all that successful.
This thread is the first I've heard of "dipping" a chip credit card. I insert mine.
Same here. It's always been "insert" as long as I can remember.
I have seen a couple of machines with the card reader on the top, so I guess I could see the terminology coming from there, since you are sort of doing a dipping motion. But the vast majority of the machines I use have the reader at the front, and you have to slide the card in almost horizontally but slightly upward.
Besides, if I'm going to be "dipping" a "chip", I expect to find Heluva Good on it when I'm done!
I've had chip debit cards for years, and I don't know if it's true for all banks, but my bank has disabled the stripe functionality, at least on mine, even though the stripe is still there. Which makes it really fun when the chip inevitably fails.
Machine: Insert card into chip reader.
Me: *insert*
Machine: Chip error. Please swipe card.
Me: *swipe*
Machine: Function disabled by branch. Insert card into chip reader.
Me: *insert*
Machine: Chip error. Please swipe card.
Me: Excuse me, do you accept payment in magic beans?
Much apologizings for the bump, but this does apply to the reason for this thread...
anyhoo, I'm up here in Toronto right now, and my chip/sig cards DO work (i.e. I used them as a chip card and was not asked for a PIN), so yay
, but thanks all the same for everyone else in this thread because it's been very helpful.
anyhoo, I'm up here in Toronto right now, and my chip/sig cards DO work (i.e. I used them as a chip card and was not asked for a PIN), so yay
, but thanks all the same for everyone else in this thread because it's been very helpful. 
I had a tap&go debit card until they replaced it with a chip card with no tap&go.
I now have a debit card and three replaced credit cards with the chip.
I'm up here in Toronto right now, and my chip/sig cards DO work (i.e. I used them as a chip card and was not asked for a PIN), so yay
Glad it all worked OK, and enjoy your visit!
I have two Chip & Sig cards now in my possession. I like them and they're easy to use.
Glad it all worked OK, and enjoy your visit!
I am!
Also looking forward to going to Ottawa this weekend and seeing Parliament Hill.
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