Visa Debit Card

[englishpremier]

Then, of course, there's the much simpler reduction in security caused by the fact that contactless cards require only possession of the card for payments under £45. If someone steals my card, they could probably get away with stealing hundreds of pounds at <£45 each time. A serious thief wouldn't bother but casual thieves might.

Personally, I use a contactless card because I couldn't be bothered with the fuss required to get one that isn't. I don't consider the reduction in security significant enough to care about. But I understand why some people do.

The limit for contactless is now £100 a time. You card provider will set how many transactions can be done before a pin is required. The card provider is liable in the case of fraud so long as you haven't been negligent which wouldn't be the case in the scenarios you've outlined.

As you say, each unto their own. For me but convenience trumps extra security for me. Though mostly I only use a phone as cards are pretty antiquated these days.

 

[Scam]

As I understand it, this is effectively what VISA was in Europe until recently - it was the act of VISA 'Group' buying VISA Europe from the banks that resulted in MasterCard getting a look in on debit cards now - because they no longer had the incentive to effectively default to using VISA.

The interchange fee regulation brought in by the EU in 2015 forced Visa (and I think Mastercard?) to separate scheme and processing.

With a good enough scanner the range is large enough to, for example, farm details from passersby while sitting on a bench at a train station. Literal blindness is not required. It doesn't matter if people see you. It matters if they notice you and suspect you.

There's literally no risk from someone scanning your card without you knowing it. Not to say it couldn't happen, but the stories about people going round on the tube and crunching up against people are complete nonsense. For the monetary outlay for a crim to get a reader, register it with a bank etc and that's before they could even start scanning. Once they start scanning they could only get the max from anyone's card (I think circa £300 but I might be wrong) until it needs a pin. Sure, they could do that a few times but the transactions would soon be flagged as suspicious (any bank would flag multiple maximum duplicate transactions on the same contactless reader pretty sharpish) and the reader/machine would soon be blocked and investigated. There's no reason anyone would go to all that trouble rather than e.g. hacking a database of card details, or physically cloning cards etc.

Anyhoo, who actually cares about contactless security when it's a credit card and it's your banks money at risk and not yours. I certainly don't care

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Sorry if I'm missing the point, but without numbers how do you use the card online.

Theres an app for that.

 

[Deleted User 298457]

Anyhoo, who actually cares about contactless security when it's a credit card and it's your banks money at risk and not yours. I certainly don't care

100%, although it could be problematic if you're close to the bread line (i.e. thief takes your last fiver and you can't get home/go hungry).