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Swiping left on magnetic stripes

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Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#221

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

dvdkon wrote: post #218
Animats wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where’s the bottleneck? Gas stations. The gas station industry has been avoiding upgrading pumps. It's expensive. Retail checkouts usually just need a replacement of the desktop unit, but gas pumps require actual modification. They got a 3-year delay, until October 2020. Then April 17, 2021. Then they got hit by the coronavirus epidemic. The upgrade has to be done by a qualified installer; you don't want someone who…

That's interesting, maybe we adopted contactless payments faster in part because in our gas stations you'd usually pay inside the shop. I have to think that was only one of many reasons, though.

Partly that, and the USA's much higher car dependence in general. I'd wager the average adult in the USA spends more time in a petrol station than the average European.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#222

Post by nsizx »

onion2k wrote: post #211
dazc wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, the machines fail quite often in cabs.

I've always suspected they don't, but the cab driver says it's not working so you pay cash that they don't to declare as income in order to minimize their tax liability. I have no real basis for this suspicion though, besides knowing that taxi drivers were notorious for tax dodging before card readers were common (like most cash-based businesses really).

Same in restaurants. They hate it when you pay with your card. They love untaxed income and I don't blame them.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#223

Post by Broken_Hippo »

akg_67 wrote: post #187
a254613e wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just US. Take for example Germany, the largest country in EU and most places are cash-only. Although due to coronavirus adoption of different payment methods (apple pay, contactless, card, etc) has been increasing.

What is wrong with cash? It is one of the most fail proof form of payment. Stripe fail, chip fail, NFC fail, internet connection fail, phone line fail. But cash work almost all the time. In last year, I have bailed out quite a few people stuck in the checkout lines because whatever hi tech form of payment, they were using, didn’t work and had no cash.

I live in Norway, and cannot remember the last time my card wouldn't work - period. Not just with the reasons stated.

When I lived in the states and worked retail, your cash wouldn't be accepted at a lot of stores if the power was out (or if internet/phone lines caused the registers to fail). To complicate things, I worked in a pharmacy, so accepting cash for the medicine without it going through the system might have actually been illegal.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#224

Post by bserge »

akg_67 wrote: post #187
a254613e wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just US. Take for example Germany, the largest country in EU and most places are cash-only. Although due to coronavirus adoption of different payment methods (apple pay, contactless, card, etc) has been increasing.

What is wrong with cash? It is one of the most fail proof form of payment. Stripe fail, chip fail, NFC fail, internet connection fail, phone line fail. But cash work almost all the time. In last year, I have bailed out quite a few people stuck in the checkout lines because whatever hi tech form of payment, they were using, didn’t work and had no cash.

Notes get wet, rip, and fall out of pockets. Everything fails.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#225

Post by detaro »

a254613e wrote: post #179
aidenn0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is a big holdup. I just traveled across the country and there are still filling (petrol) stations where the only card reader is stripe. See also other comments about the stripe being a fallback for chip as chip readers on POS terminals seem to be more fragile than magnetic stripe readers. FWIW, Contactless is very hit-or-miss for me in the US; about 1/3 the time it just doesn't work at all (even with multiple…

Not just US. Take for example Germany, the largest country in EU and most places are cash-only. Although due to coronavirus adoption of different payment methods (apple pay, contactless, card, etc) has been increasing.

I'd actually be curious about the numbers/actual ratio. I can't think of a single chain of stores that takes cash only, which will make up a huge percentage. On the other hand, restaurants, food stalls, ... are hit and miss.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#226

Post by coldtea »

Johnny555 wrote: post #162
gruez wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Especially in a pandemic, why why why require a signature for anything? This is one of the few things that would reduce exposure that we already have a technical solution for. Turns out infection from surfaces is basically a non-issue. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/health/coronavirus-hygien...

Coronavirus isn't the only virus to be concerned with, Norovirus is a well known one that can spread through surfaces, which is why it can be so rampant on cruise ships -- and it can live for weeks on surfaces. https://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/about/transmission.html

Yes, but microphobia is more annoying than most viruses, and keeping the immune system unprepared due to lack of exposure is potentially fatal, so perhaps they don't want to encourage those...

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#227

Post by hocuspocus »

xattt wrote: post #81
Johnie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Force them. The EU has successfully capped interchange fees in 4-party schemes.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#228

Post by coldtea »

bamboozled wrote: post #138
drclau wrote: 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:…

Try visiting Japan, it's like 1989, everywhere you go.

Except for the excellent infrastructure, public transit, trains, roads, quality of food, safety, lack of junkies and meth addicts and mass homelessness, and so on, whereas its the US that is increasingly like 1880 almost everywhere you go...

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#229

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

wcarss wrote: post #113
ryandrake wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, the Achilles Heel of contactless (or phone/NFC) in the USA is the uncertainty that it's supported and the terrible UX for failure cases. How many times have you had this happen? Your groceries are all rung up and the POS terminal is waiting. You dig out your phone or contactless card and try to invoke the contactless payment system. Nothing's happening. You wave it around a little. Still nothing. Grocery cashier…

Coming from Canada: my last experience with the stripe, >3-4 years ago, was more like: pull out the card. Swipe it (it doesn't work), Swipe it (it doesn't work), Swipe it slowly (it doesn't work), wrap a garbage bag around it and Swipe it slowly (it doesn't work), Swipe it one last time -- hey, it works! Then, physically sign my name on some piece of paper with a gross pen they had lying around. vs my last 100 contac…

The stripes used to be embedded in the plastic and much more durable. Now we get cruddy surface printed stripes that aren't a reliable backup.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#230

Post by Accacin »

chousuke wrote: post #131
drclau wrote: 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:…

Living in Europe, I genuinely had no idea cards with magnetic stripes were still in use. I thought everything used chips nowadays. I still prefer my card for contactless payments though; using my phone is not really much more convenient since my phone case holds the card anyway and it at least works consistently.

My Monzo card has a magstripe still, but I have to enable it in the app if I want to use it.
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