I used to think the same thing, but it turns out it actually makes sense (at least in the US): the vast majority of credit card fraud is counterfeit cards, not

I used to think the same thing, but it turns out it actually makes sense (at least in the US): the vast majority of credit card fraud is counterfeit cards, not stolen cards. Requiring a chip which can’t be counterfeited from a list of lifted CC numbers (and sometimes track codes) solves most of the problem as far as card present purchases are concerned. That and shifting more liability to merchants if they don’t support chip readers.