7 ms·
Do US credit cards even have PINs?
by ihuman 6y ago
Do US credit cards even have PINs?
- milkytron 6y agoNone of mine have a PIN as far as I'm aware.
- chrisseaton 6y agoHow do you authorise payment?
- pyromine 6y agoYou have the card. Not a joke, that's really it
- umanwizard 6y agoDebit cards have PINs; credit cards don’t (edit: or maybe they do, but I don’t know what mine is). For credit cards usually just presenting it physically is enough to authorize anything. Online you usually have to provide the card number, verification code (printed on the back of most cards), and postal code of the billing address.
- SaintGhurka 6y agoJust insert your card. That's it. Occasionally they ask you to sign on the past or hit the ok button but usually not even that.
- chrisseaton 6y agoIf someone steals your wallet, or just picks it up off the street after you drop it, what stops them burning through tens of thousands of dollars before anyone notices? I know you can claim it back due to consumer laws... but who's covering the actual goods and services that are consumed until they get to your credit limit?
- SaintGhurka 6y agoNothing. And algorithms. I've had a card number ripped off via an online retailer and Visa figured it out on the first fraudulent charge.
- chrisseaton 6y agoRight... but someone somewhere must be paying the bill? If I buy a sandwich with a card I found on the ground and get away with it who's paying for that sandwich? The card owner? The store owner? The card provider? In the UK it's the store... unless they made you use chip and a PIN. Which is why they all use the chip and a PIN. Then it's the card provider, but it's not because the chip and PIN prevents fraud before that point. I think the card provider eats contactless payments because they encourage more of them so it adds up in the end.
- toast0 6y agoIn the US, if it was a chip and nothing transaction, the bank probably covers it. If it was a magstripe transaction not at a gas pump, the merchant covers it. Card holder liability on timely reported loss or stolen card is capped at $50 or something.
- dylz 6y agoUS only uses chip (and chip is optional in many places!!!! , if you scratch it out it'll fail a few times then let you swipe) (and signature). There is generally no chip and pin. Some older terminals hard crash on PINs on credit. Some older terminals hard crash on PINs exceeding 4 chars
- ars 6y agoThey do have a PIN, you probably just don't know the number. Go on your Credit Card website and there will be a place to request that they send you the number.
- beckler 6y agoMine has a PIN, but I only have to use it if I'm calling support, getting a gift card, or trying to use it at an ATM to get a cash advance. I'm not 100% sure about the ATM though, I've never tried to use it, plus the interest rate for a cash advance is nuts.
- bergstromm466 6y ago> Mine has a PIN, but I only have to use it if I'm calling support Really? You say your pin code over the phone?
- phatfish 6y agoI think we have found the reason for all the credit card fraud in the US ;)
- minitoar 6y agoUsually they have some sort of system where you use touch tone.
- jessaustin 6y agoSome humans may have a hard time deciphering touch tone by ear, but anyone who can eavesdrop a phone conversation can use a program to do the translation.
- Godel_unicode 6y agoNo we don't.
- phatfish 6y agoIn Europe at least the PIN for making payments on your "Chip & PIN" card is to NEVER be given to anyone (or typed on a phone call). Banks will make this very clear. A security "password" for doing phone banking is different.
- testplzignore 6y agoMine has a PIN. Only place that ever asks for it are gas pumps.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- robotnikman 6y agoCredit Card, no Debit Card, yes
- blackaspen 6y agoIt's very few and far between. I have a US-bank issues commercial card that requires a PIN. At least circa a year ago or so I hadn't found a personal one that did.
- CincinnatiMan 6y agoPIN isn't really needed. PINs are only more secure than chip in scenarios where the physical card is stolen, which is an extremely small portion of credit card fraud. Most physical fraud was from skimming, which chip blocks equally well as a PIN, but chip is more convenient. Using a chip reader for their point of sale system would have prevented the breach in this article. Source: used to work adjacent to the fraud analysis group at a large bank.
- dwighttk 6y agoMine does not.
- abawany 6y agoMy MC, issued by a US credit union, does require PINs. Most checkouts in the US or Canada require me to enter a PIN when using this card, though this somewhat seems to also be a function of the purchase amount.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> My MC, issued by a US credit union, does require PINs. Most checkouts in the US or Canada require me to enter a PIN when using this card If you can checkout some places without it, the card does not require a PIN, it provides it as an option.
- tialaramex 6y agoEMV has a negotiation step. As is often the case this step is flawed, but generally the idea is the card (well the chip on the card) and the terminal get to negotiate about what's going to happen next. So I think it's possible for a card to insist upon doing a PIN transaction if that's possible, while still retaining the ability to authorize a no-PIN transaction if the terminal says it doesn't do PINs. It's also possible for the card or the terminal to have value-related thresholds, in line with the issuer's appetite for risk so e.g. maybe a bag of chips from a vending machine with no PIN is a risk the bank can live with, but a $3000 diamond engagement ring not so much. Because the chip has (some) memory it can even have state, maybe one $1.50 bag of popcorn from an offline no-PIN terminal is fine, and so is two, but before you can do a third tiny off-line transaction you'll need to do a real transaction or visit an ATM or other online system with the card so it be reassured everything is on the up-and-up.