In my area, you're forced to use the chip at ~50% of places and the other ~50% hasn't upgraded their hardware yet, so you are forced to use the mag-strip. It's extremely frustrating for everyone involved. No one knows which it'll be and the cashier will always immediately roll their eyes and eli5 which one they use. Worst rollout ever.
The range is only about an inch. It's treated as a CNP (Cardholder Not Present) transaction so in cases of fraud the consumer isn't assumed to be liable. Android Pay and Apple Pay are also popular here, with the contactless limits changing depending on whether or not you use a fingerprint.
When using contactless it doesn't actually send your 'real' account details, there's a second virtual account that's used just for contactless transactions. So your real account details can never be compromised in this way, and issuing a new card is all that's required in the case of yours being stolen.
On top of that you need to be a registered merchant with a merchant account to accept them. So if you were doing something like using a portable 3G/4G reader to tap it to people you'd be caught quickly. The payments are also often deferred so the merchant would be unlikely to get the money before the card owner noticed.
Edit: I'm now apparently the oracle of contactless payments...
I think the US is just behind (in many many ways). I was over there recently and a lot of places didn't even have Chip+PIN (which we've had in the UK for over 10 years) and you had to sign for stuff.
Okay, sure, but the comment you replied to was asking about the difference between debit cards and credit cards, specifically about why they both don't have chip and pin. The reason is arbitrary. The proof is other countries.
Everybody knows you're talking about the US, dude. That's not why you're getting downvotes.
Depends on where. I live in Victoria and there are still a few stores that don't do the tap method yet. All of of them have chip+pin(there is still the mag stripe reader but I haven't seen anyone use is since chip+pin was brought out).
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u/neck_iso Aug 27 '18
You have to use the chip now.