Can shops still take payment from cards without a "chip"?

Hi

Even in the UK there are a number of card types with chips which are designed to fallback to signature (for reasons such as disability), I have come across some of these while running accreditation tests for rollouts of POS solutions for a number of customers.
When you insert the card the kit is instructed to inform the user/operator to swipe instead.
Amex cards issued in the UK still don't have chips (at least my work one doesn't), not sure when they plan to do this.
Some of the test cards I have used have deliberately faulty chips to check that fallback works when it detects a bad chip.

Neill
 
Work fine at our store, you've just got to put them in the card reader first before it allows you to swipe.

AmEx uk cards certainly do have chips, we take a lot at work.
 
None of my Jersey based cards have chips and I've never had any problems in the UK no matter how small or large the purchase was. I've never been asked for additional ID also.
 
i had a girl in boots try to refuse my AMEX because it didn't have a pin.... bless. must have been her first day or something.

I was very calm and asked her to check that policy with another member of staff.

:p
 
other day in morrisons my chip wouldnt work so the woman swiped it and asked me to sign.

there wasnt a signature on my card :o , she just said "sign your card for me too"

how safe
 
Neill_J said:
Hi

Even in the UK there are a number of card types with chips which are designed to fallback to signature (for reasons such as disability), I have come across some of these while running accreditation tests for rollouts of POS solutions for a number of customers.
When you insert the card the kit is instructed to inform the user/operator to swipe instead.
Amex cards issued in the UK still don't have chips (at least my work one doesn't), not sure when they plan to do this.
Some of the test cards I have used have deliberately faulty chips to check that fallback works when it detects a bad chip.

Neill
Click to expand...
The ones for people with disabilities are different and are known as chip and signature cards.

AmEx certainly do issue chipped cards now - and the Underground started accepting them a year or two ago after neglecting them for many years :D

Basically, the idea is that if a card is chip and pin enabled, then it must be used in chip mode. If it isn't, then swiping is fine. The ruling on failed chips seems to have made a bit of a u-turn recently. When the system first arrived, if a chip & pin card was presented and the chip had failed, that card was unusable and the customer had to be asked for an alternative method of payment. Now, it seems like swipe fallback is ok - either that or I've been processing the damn things illegally!

This is based on Barclays Merchant Services - other systems may vary.
 
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