4 ms·

Many places nowadays seem to have card readers that accept swipe, chip or tap. Yet many of them don't seem to have tap activated, and if someone else handles yo

Many places nowadays seem to have card readers that accept swipe, chip or tap. Yet many of them don't seem to have tap activated, and if someone else handles your card (very common in bars and restaurants), you can be sure they will swipe it. I was in NYC for a week and had to swipe my card at least 6 times during that period. I imagine the rest of the country isn't leaps and bounds ahead.

vonmoltke 7y ago
> I was in NYC for a week and had to swipe my card at least 6 times during that period. I imagine the rest of the country isn't leaps and bounds ahead. Really? I have worked in NYC for over three years, and the only card I have ever had to swipe in that time is my FSA/transit card that, inexplicably, does not have a chip yet. There were a few smaller merchants in suburban New Jersey that lagged behind, but even they were on chip by 2017.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  If the chip interface doesn't work, the backup is swiping. People talk like everything always works perfectly every time. The shinier a new technology is, the more unprepared people usually are for it breaking. “The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    My point is that I have never had to resort to said backup. I have had problems with my chip from time to time, but even in those cases the chip has gone through eventually.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Well, philosophically, you could convince yourself that the chip will always work if you try it enough times. One can't prove that's false. I have no interest in arguing angels on the head of a pin; what I know is that after a few failures, a cashier will tell you to swipe it, and it's obvious it isn't an unusual experience for them, seeing a ton of transactions per day. So any argument you may have based on technical, logical, or scientific grounds seems beside the point. Let alone plain incredulity.
- superhuzza 7y ago
  Yep. Swiped at least 3 or 4 times by servers in bars and restaurants, had to 'dip' in the MTA machines a few times (which I assume is a swipe), a few times at random bodegas, and once at a CVS. In all of the cases there was no other working/active option besides cash.

vonmoltke 7y ago

> I was in NYC for a week and had to swipe my card at least 6 times during that period. I imagine the rest of the country isn't leaps and bounds ahead. Really? I have worked in NYC for over three years, and the only card I have ever had to swipe in that time is my FSA/transit card that, inexplicably, does not have a chip yet. There were a few smaller merchants in suburban New Jersey that lagged behind, but even they were on chip by 2017.

perl4ever 7y ago
If the chip interface doesn't work, the backup is swiping. People talk like everything always works perfectly every time. The shinier a new technology is, the more unprepared people usually are for it breaking. “The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  My point is that I have never had to resort to said backup. I have had problems with my chip from time to time, but even in those cases the chip has gone through eventually.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Well, philosophically, you could convince yourself that the chip will always work if you try it enough times. One can't prove that's false. I have no interest in arguing angels on the head of a pin; what I know is that after a few failures, a cashier will tell you to swipe it, and it's obvious it isn't an unusual experience for them, seeing a ton of transactions per day. So any argument you may have based on technical, logical, or scientific grounds seems beside the point. Let alone plain incredulity.
superhuzza 7y ago
Yep. Swiped at least 3 or 4 times by servers in bars and restaurants, had to 'dip' in the MTA machines a few times (which I assume is a swipe), a few times at random bodegas, and once at a CVS. In all of the cases there was no other working/active option besides cash.