> I tapped anyway and it went through, after they tried to grab my card out of my hand to swipe it. I'm gonna guess since that I don't know the full details, b

> I tapped anyway and it went through, after they tried to grab my card out of my hand to swipe it. I'm gonna guess since that I don't know the full details, but some merchants' POS and payment terminal are not connected. The swiping is intended for the POS machine to retrieve the card details (like your name and the last 4 digits of your card*) to be printed on your receipt. Good luck on them in the near future when a tourist pays with an European-issued card (which in 2025 will allow banks in Europe to issue cards without the magstripe at all). * For purposes outside of direct payment processing (like recordkeeping), PCI standards only allow the first six digits (which was the Bank Identification Number/Institution Identification Number, but now BIN/IIN are now at least eight digits long) and the last four digits of PAN (primary account number, formal name of that 16ish-digit card number) while US federal law only allow to store the last five digits of PAN. This results in US merchants (in theory) only storing the last four digits of the PAN.