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Swiping left on magnetic stripes

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Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#81
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate – who cares? We've had magnetic strips for decades and they work fine. Yes, they're insecure but anti-fraud measures taken by the bank can mitigate that. If this helps more stores accept payments without having a painful transition isn't that worth it? I use Apple Pay most places but I don't mind having to use a strip once in a while or if others do.

Think about who is paying for that fraud. Prior to EMV liability shift, Banks paid for the fraud. After Liability Shift, merchants are paying for fraud using magstripe. Merchants don't want to be responsible for the fraud, so they are incentivized to get rid of the mag stripe.

I really doubt that banks will pass on the savings onto the consumer of fraud mitigation once EMV is fully implemented.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#82
post #12

Why does it take so long? Where’s the bottleneck? Where I lived over the last years (two countries in Europe), I don’t even have to use the physical card. I just use contactless payments with the phone. Prior to that, it was contactless with card. Even ATMs work with contactless (not all, yet). Prior to that, it was chip. I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. (edit) Think of this:…

> I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. Every time I've been to the US it's still magnetic stripe in places like restaurants/bars where the wait staff whisk your card away and then 4 days later the charge ends up appearing on your card. I saw chip and pin (or sometimes the odd chip and sign) appearing in the big shops/chains like walgreens though so I guess it's slowly changing. I…

[deleted]

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The holdouts have long been the gas station fuel pumps. Though that is finally changing at least where I am many stations now support chip and tap card payments.

Gas stations around me (Utah) have all replaced their magstripe with a dual magstripe/chip reader. It drives me nuts though, because you still have to insert your card ALL THE WAY IN as if you're using the mag stripe, and then it decides which one to use. Are gas stations not a big target for skimmers? Why didn't they design it to avoid the magstripe-skimmers? have two inserts or something, I don't care. But now we'r…

What I like about the gas station ones, at least where I am, is that they use Zero insertion force contacts instead of brush contacts, so they won’t wear out the connector or your card. You can hear the machine click up and down as it engages.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#84

I hope that means Home Depot and Target have to accept tap to pay…

Target, at least in the USA, supports tap & pay. Home Depot is still holding out, though.

Do mobile devices work? The Target here does not accept Apple Pay…

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#85
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NFC (EMV Mode) is partially encrypted and much more secure than magnetic stripe

I wasn't aware of that mode. Is there a way of figuring out if your card has NFC (EMV Mode), or is just blasting out the CC number/expiration date when powered up via induction?

Note that the CC number / expiration date are not used for contactless payment, and should not be enough to make a payment online.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#86
post #6

So most of my current cards (in Europe) have 3 interaction methods: In order of decreasing readability/communication reliability: 1. Magnetic stripe 2. NFC 3. EMV The EMV ("chip") method is the least insecure, but lately all of my cards have been started oxidating. And it seems like the pogo pins in almost all readers also started wearing out too. Chip reader failures have become very common lately. It's very common…

I have never had to use the mag stripe, ever. Failures happen sometimes with the chip as you mention, but it usually works on the second try.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#87
Why wouldn’t everywhere be supporting contactless payments by this point?

And that’s not me being snippy, because perplexingly, Mariano’s, a grocery store chain in Chicago owned by Kroger’s, does not support NFC payments. (I assume Kroger’s stores proper don’t either.) You have to swipe, use the chip, or use the dedicated Kroger Pay app to scan a QR code to use your digital wallet. (Yes, really. Took them forever to even support chips instead of magstripes.)

I have absolutely no idea why they do this. Is there a higher interchange fee for contactless? Kroger’s isn’t some mom-and-pop convenience store—they’re the largest supermarket company by revenue.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#88
post #6

So most of my current cards (in Europe) have 3 interaction methods: In order of decreasing readability/communication reliability: 1. Magnetic stripe 2. NFC 3. EMV The EMV ("chip") method is the least insecure, but lately all of my cards have been started oxidating. And it seems like the pogo pins in almost all readers also started wearing out too. Chip reader failures have become very common lately. It's very common…

>it's cleartext, after all What do you mean by "cleartext" exactly ? When I pay using my card with NFC, it's not really cleartext.

Real-world demo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.dev...

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#89
post #2

I'll believe it when I see it. I heard signatures were going away years ago and yet I keep getting asked for signatures.

There are some reasons it still exists, however, it is no longer required and merchants/POS systems ought to start phasing it out. In the US, the way we do tip on receipt is a lot more natural if you're asking for a signature. Without a signature, you're just handing someone a tip option, which is awkward with our current way of doing things. Some merchants opt to keep signature enabled because it gives them a fuzzy…

For those abroad, even the notion of tipping can be absurd. Using that notion as a point of support for a payment system the levies fraud responsibilities onto the merchant and is very easy to circumvent, and the reason most other places moved to chip+pin, or contactless a long time ago is even more amusing.

I understand what you're saying, and how its locally relevant, but from the outside looking in the US is a long way behind on keeping up with the tech in this space.

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