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Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

nytimes.com

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Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#401

Post by letsgetphysITal »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #387
jimnotgym wrote: post #240

In the UK cards moved to 'chip and pin' in 2006! Fraud in a 'customer present' scenario is very low at our stores. The last fraud in fact was a foreign card that didn't support chip and pin. I can't believe Visa and MasterCard have not made it mandatory world wide... ...except card fraud lossed are recharged to the merchant so perhaps they don't care? Out of interest there is a special exception for disabled people w…

I rarely use chip and pin any more. Contactless is everywhere. The UK is the most advanced in this regard, though.

Contactless is useless for fuel unless you top up with over half a tank remaining. ApplePay / Google Pay work sometimes, but retailers put arbitrary limits on despite payment being authenticated (Pay for my £60 weekly shop in the store but maximum £30 in the petrol station, Sainsburys? I didn't bring my wallet, looks like I'm coming back. Thanks for that.)

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#402

Post by TallGuyShort »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #373
gambiting wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what am I supposed to do about it? My point is - in US not tipping felt like being an absolute asshole, to a point where people would be upset - they grew up in a culture that values money above all else and not being tipped is I don't know, an equivalent of being spat in the face? In UK I've never felt that way. I've had perfectly good meals that I didn't tip on, just like I did in France, Spain or Germany and i…

So its not up to you to enter a restaurant prepared to pay for the meal? You can do lots about it; in fact nobody else but you can do anything about it. I'd rant about "this generation is so entitled" but hey that post says it all.

The point is that in the US, the real price is not advertized, and in the UK tipping is not as obligatory and is therefore not a required part of preparing to pay for the meal. Case in point: I bought a sandwich at Denver airport, that was label roughly $7. I handed them my card and was asked to sign a receipt that added sales tax from multiple government jurisdictions, an airport service fee, and suggested the amount for a 21% tip that it noted in some situations would be mandatory for me to pay. I left no tip but still paid $11 for that sandwich and was not served in any way except for the girl who showed me to where to swipe my own card and handed me the receipt.

In Europe servers are paid more than the equivalent of $2 an hour because the cost of their pay is already factored into the price. I still tip for great service, but increasingly I cannot in any way begin most transactions in the US without hidden fees springing up the whole way.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#403

Post by letsgetphysITal »

cjrp wrote: post #375
kozhevnikov wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of businesses in the UK/Europe do not accept American Express due to higher fees. You would be better off getting a different card preferably that supports contactless payments so you could use it on the tube and buses instead of an Oyster card (remember to touch it on the way out as well). https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/contactless

A Revolut card supports chip and pin and contactless, I'm not sure if it's 100% launched for US customers yet though: https://www.revolut.com/us/

Upvote and reply, because Revolut is a dream. Prepaid so fraud is minimum risk (no possible overdraft), top up via mobile app, disable the card when you're not using it. It's so convenient that I use it to buy from shady sites (game keys, in game currency etc) and just disable the card once the purchase is complete. I can't believe it's still free.

Sorry for gushing. I love Revolut.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#404

Post by semanticist »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #373
gambiting wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what am I supposed to do about it? My point is - in US not tipping felt like being an absolute asshole, to a point where people would be upset - they grew up in a culture that values money above all else and not being tipped is I don't know, an equivalent of being spat in the face? In UK I've never felt that way. I've had perfectly good meals that I didn't tip on, just like I did in France, Spain or Germany and i…

So its not up to you to enter a restaurant prepared to pay for the meal? You can do lots about it; in fact nobody else but you can do anything about it. I'd rant about "this generation is so entitled" but hey that post says it all.

How do you even know the person you're replying to is of a different generation?

I'm no millennial, but I've frequently not been able to leave a tip while paying for dinner in the UK because I've paid by card and had literally no cash on me. I've felt bad about not leaving a tip for good service, but I know that the servers will at lease make minimum wage before tips, unlike in the US. The whole point of this entire thread of discussion is about how people are switching to card-only payments in some areas and different/changing cultural norms, and while there could have been an interesting discussion about how this impacts other cultural norms like tipping, you instead just call someone an asshole like Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#405

Post by azinman2 »

bruxis wrote: post #282
azinman2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visit Japan and you’ll hear ATMs play a little tune as they hand you money. The sound design everywhere you go is amazingly and thoughtful. America can be way too brutalist.

I'd love to find these, as I'm in Japan and the only ATMs I've used angrily yell at me with a loud "ERRR ERRR ERRR" sound. It comes off more like "Get your money and get the hell out" than a pleasant tune.

Not sure what to tell you. That’s not my (limited) experience. Certainly you’ve heard the sound design elsewhere — from trains boarding and leaving, to the sound of rice makers and dish washers letting you know they’re ready.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#407

Post by letsgetphysITal »

tetrep wrote: post #391

I've been drawing a horizontal line, sometimes with a slight arch, for years now. I almost never get a reaction and when I do, it is at most a laugh or giggle. Nobody cares (not that they should). Anything I scrawl is (more or less), by fiat, my signature . I'm glad we can finally stop wasting time (and resources, for physical signatures). This is especially fun with e-signatures in California: “Electronic signature”…

I write "Check I.D.". Merchants have typically been good at asking for some, especially the older ones. Teens and trainees tend to mumble and just process it anyway.

The thought process is that my UK drivers license has my picture, full name, and signature. The merchant looks at the ID and sees my photo next to my name, checks it with the name on the card to see if they match, then checks the signature against that on the ID. Unless a thief has the same name as me, they can't use the card as either the photo or the name won't match. The signature doesn't matter as it will be caught in fraud alerting / rejected by the bank.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#408

Post by Nursie »

ghaff wrote: post #370
Uehreka wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be faster if it works. If you try it and it doesn’t work and the cashier tries to help and then you have to go back to using a credit card anyway, it’s slow and people get annoyed. If that reliably didn’t happen, things would be fine. Unfortunately, payment processing in the US (or at least in Maryland where I live) is a mess: - Point-of-sale devices are frequently broken, with post-it notes taped over the c…

Exactly. If I'm in the grocery store, I know that I can take my credit card out of my wallet, insert it into the machine (or swipe it), maybe scrawl a wiggly line, and remove the card all in about 10 seconds. Alternatively, I can fiddle with my phone, get it to recognize me, hope it works, etc. which--even if it doesn't always take longer--is certainly less deterministic while the person behind me is probably going t…

> Alternatively, I can fiddle with my phone, get it to recognize me, hope it works, etc. which--even if it doesn't always take longer--is certainly less deterministic while the person behind me is probably going through their own version of the internal sigh I have when the person in front of me is fiddling with some non-routine payment method.

I don't recognise this at all.

Pull phone out of pocket, touch the fingerprint reader to unlock it, wave it at the reader.

Done.

That's quicker than getting my card out of my wallet, let alone swiping and then signing something.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#409

Post by leesalminen »

astura wrote: post #317
Uehreka wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be faster if it works. If you try it and it doesn’t work and the cashier tries to help and then you have to go back to using a credit card anyway, it’s slow and people get annoyed. If that reliably didn’t happen, things would be fine. Unfortunately, payment processing in the US (or at least in Maryland where I live) is a mess: - Point-of-sale devices are frequently broken, with post-it notes taped over the c…

The most bizarre one is at a Subway I go to once in a while: they have signs all over saying they accept Android Pay, but when I go to use it the phone vibrates like it worked but the terminal replies "insert chip," or maybe it's "chip required." The cashiers claim it works for other people though. I tried it several times over a year just to see if it was a one-off error, but it always did the same. I really like An…

> I'm pretty sure the “CHIP READER DISABLED” thing is just the merchant didn't set up their account with chip enabled.

It’s generally the fault of the POS software. In many (most?) cases, enabling EMV on the terminal requires the use of a new API. The POS software has to write code to support EMV.

Re: Credit Card Signatures Are About to Become Extinct in the U.S

#410

Post by JoeAltmaier »

gambiting wrote: post #384
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So its not up to you to enter a restaurant prepared to pay for the meal? You can do lots about it; in fact nobody else but you can do anything about it. I'd rant about "this generation is so entitled" but hey that post says it all.

>>So its not up to you to enter a restaurant prepared to pay for the meal? I have paid for the meal. At the end of my visit I was given a receipt and paid the indicated price - what else do you want? If the server is disappointed they didn't get a tip, then I think I know who is entitled in this relationship, and I have a very strong suspicion it's not me. >> in fact nobody else but you can do anything about it I pay…

There it is - the deliberate explaining away of personal responsibility to make oneself feel better. The last comment gives away how we all know the first is false.

The restaurant owner in America does not pay a good wage, because tipping is a thing and the market adjusted. Not tipping for service is victimizing the least powerful person in the relationship. And the need to make it 'ok' is self-serving doubletalk.

A famous dude said "I will judge you by how you treat the least powerful person in the room"

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