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Is anyone else annoyed that: - We could have had chip & PIN, but for some reason (I'm guessing it's to do with how merchants take the hit for card fraud and VIS
by seanp2k2 4y ago
Is anyone else annoyed that:
- We could have had chip & PIN, but for some reason (I'm guessing it's to do with how merchants take the hit for card fraud and VISA + MC think having to punch in a few numbers each sale will lead to fewer sales)
- Those tap targets on CC readers sometimes aren't where the antenna is, and you have to rub your card all over the reader to get it to work?
- Chip transactions take way longer than tap transactions, like 10 seconds? Why?
- gpt5 4y agoContactless transactions using your phone are fast, secure and easy. Over time they will replace almost all current usage of chip & pin or magnetic stripe.
- akira2501 4y agoNo thanks. I like things that work without having to be charged.
- tempofinale 4y agoCharged for what? I have payment options on my phone so I don't have to bring my wallet everywhere. Works great, even for public transit and it's the same price as the card.
- lolinder 4y agoCharged with electricity.
- akira2501 4y agoCharged as in has a full and operational battery. A card with a chip in this does not require that. I can also intentionally give someone else my card to effect a purchase and neither myself nor my phone actually has to be there. Fraud clearly hasn't had a deleterious effect on the entire system, and the penalties for fraud align incentives to fight fraud properly. It's not such a large problem that I'm willing to take steps backwards in terms of functionality and privacy to digitize my purchasing.
- unstatusthequo 4y agoIf your threat model is a modern phone running out of battery, I suggest an external battery pack. Portable, powerful, and allows you not to carry a slow chip and pin.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- iggldiggl 4y agoMaybe I've picked the wrong phones, but I've also found them to occasionally completely die without any advance warning even if treated carefully, so I remain a bit wary about using them for anything ultra-critical. And mobile phone providers over here don't guarantee even two nines of reliability, never mind that even 3½ days of no service per year is already too much for some critical things, like being able to get at your money. And the local public transport association for example tries to disclaim any responsibility for any sort of problems if you're using their mobile ticketing app – if it doesn't work, though luck, your problem, buy a new ticket or pay a fine. Even if you've bought a monthly season ticket there are no special provisions, and the rules don't even differentiate between technical issues caused by myself [1], those caused by third parties (like the mobile service provider) or those caused by the public transport provider respectively its app developers themselves. [1] Although while I can take care to keep it sufficiently charged, not letting it fall to the ground or whatever, I still can't prevent it from just randomly dying anyway, or the manufacturer issuing some borked update or whatever
- arjvik 4y agoModern iPhones actually support being used for NFC payments even when they're dead (using a tiny bit of reserve power)
- toomuchtodo 4y agoWouldn’t it be cool if payment terminals were also Qi enabled so even if the phone was dead it could provide enough power wirelessly to enable payments to be made?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoOr require an account from Apple or Google or other hurdles between me and my bank. I now need a phone that I keep charged, up to date, with cellular connectivity, and logged into some tech behemoth in order to pay for goods?
- schwartzworld 4y agoSounds like a nightmare
- grishka 4y agoYou can also tap with the card but you'll have to enter the PIN if you're paying more than some amount (different for different currencies and/or banks).
- zepppotemkin 4y agopersonally I hate the idea of always needing a phone with me -- i leave mine at home most of the time just using my wallet and nfc transit card to get around
- TillE 4y agoDifficult to overstate how much you're in an extreme, extreme minority position if you own a smartphone and don't carry it around pretty much everywhere.
- jjav 4y agoMy phone lives in my backpack, if I don't have my backpack on me (which is most of the time) I'm not going to have a phone.
- zepppotemkin 4y agothat's one of the pirmary things for me too even as a guy with usually large pockets i find it annoying to walk around with them in my pocket espcially in the summer plus on the bus or train I usually use a book or my kindle so it's easy to forget the phone
- cuteboy19 4y agoYou can use a phone for everything but a card for only one thing. The choice is clear
- MBCook 4y agoYou may think that, but get an Apple Watch or other smart watch that can do it. 10x better than the phone was. Don’t need to get anything out of your pocket or even carry the phone in the first place.
- fastball 4y agoAlthough GP did say "phone", I don't think they really intended to exclude even better NFC form factors from their prophesy.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago> - Those tap targets on CC readers sometimes aren't where the antenna is, and you have to rub your card all over the reader to get it to work? I have no issues with the icon for tap. Although they do seem to rub off and I wonder if they are meant to have an accessible braille pattern. My dislike is tapping the screen, because then you block the visual feedback mechanism that lets you know whether it worked.
- MBCook 4y agoThat’s what the tone is for. I have OP’s problem too. When there’s an icon it’s easy, but some terminals (older ones?) don’t have the icon anywhere but support the functionality so you just have to sort of try to figure out where it is. It can also be a problem on small terminals. The bigger ones have plenty of room, but sometimes the small ones put it awkwardly on the back where you would never look for it.
- mrguyorama 4y agoThe really annoying part is that some terminals beep when the card read is done, while others beep at the start of the read, meaning if you are primed for the first type, you will prematurely take your card away and cause an error, requiring a second attempt. This gets me every time I actually find the "Square" based nfc readers to be the best. There's no real feedback because it's just a tiny, watch sized brick that you pass your card anywhere in the vicinity of and it reads it so fast you basically can't screw it up.
- iudqnolq 4y agoMaybe you only go to stores that happen to use a specific brand of reader? About a third of the machines I tap on place the sensor somewhere different from the icon, and the staff just continually tell people to tap some other hidden location like a specific corner or the bottom middle of the screen. (Colorodo and California)
- toast0 4y agoHow am I supposed to remember good PINs for the tenish payment cards in my wallet without writing them down (probably on the card itself), setting them all to the same thing, or setting them to poor choices?
- tzs 4y agoSetting them all to the same is probably not unreasonable. You could also do something like set the PIN for a given card to the security code backwards or to the last two digits of the account number concatenated with the first two digits of the security code. Either of those should be fine under the threat models applicable to most HN readers.
- wildrhythms 4y agoWhen I take the NYC subway, which now accepts contactless payment at the turnstile[1], I simply hover my card or device over the terminal and it completes the transaction in less than a second. Is there some trickery happening here? Why are tap transactions taking 10 seconds in other cases? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMNY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMNY