Apple Card to Lose Magnetic Stripe By 2029

[macsound1]

My experience as well. I have a different gas station to go to get the points with the card.

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is dedicated store credit cards.

I assume they have less security to worry about because it can only be used at a single retailer, so those cards never have chips.
Gas stations are one of the huge uses of these because every car dealership, government agency, rental car place, and large corporation has "fleet" gas credit cards where they get a special discount using one of their gas brand specific cards.
Also, gift cards. Gas and store gift cards are huge and they are always swipe.

Are all those cheap cards going to go away and be replaced with barcodes or something cheaper like what Starbucks does? Because there's no way they're going to do tap to pay on $5 disposable gift cards

 

[tmiw]

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is dedicated store credit cards.

I assume they have less security to worry about because it can only be used at a single retailer, so those cards never have chips.
Gas stations are one of the huge uses of these because every car dealership, government agency, rental car place, and large corporation has "fleet" gas credit cards where they get a special discount using one of their gas brand specific cards.
Also, gift cards. Gas and store gift cards are huge and they are always swipe.

Are all those cheap cards going to go away and be replaced with barcodes or something cheaper like what Starbucks does? Because there's no way they're going to do tap to pay on $5 disposable gift cards

"Prepaid" cards (which presumably includes gift cards) are currently exempt from this mandate from what I understand. Also, I imagine we'll still have magstripe readers for store/fleet cards; the purpose of this mandate seems to be to force EMV compliance among the places still lagging who want to continue to accept regular credit and debit cards.

 

[macsound1]

"Prepaid" cards (which presumably includes gift cards) are currently exempt from this mandate from what I understand. Also, I imagine we'll still have magstripe readers for store/fleet cards; the purpose of this mandate seems to be to force EMV compliance among the places still lagging who want to continue to accept regular credit and debit cards.

But those prepaid and fleet cards being exempt means retailers won't want to replace hardware.
Companies like Square are creating hardware that's essentially chip only and if we want gas stations to move forward, removing the swipe hardware seems to be an obvious answer.

 

[tmiw]

But those prepaid and fleet cards being exempt means retailers won't want to replace hardware.
Companies like Square are creating hardware that's essentially chip only and if we want gas stations to move forward, removing the swipe hardware seems to be an obvious answer.

Not every customer uses one of those cards, though, by a long shot. Even 10% of the non-fleet card users having to go inside to pay could potentially cause issues (e.g. people going to competitors instead, long lines inside, etc.)

 

[xyz01]

[about using zip code instead of pin codes for credit cards]

I never thought about that for international visitors. Did you ever find a way around it with your cards?

No, I never found a way around it other than to go inside and prepay with cash. Annoying. I tried a couple of versions of prefixing or suffixing a zero, using all zeros.

 

[xyz01]

The gas pumps will use a pin if it’s a debit card, but will require your home zip code for a credit card, as a sort of very weak “did you just find this card laying on the ground” test - because the pump has only a numeric keypad and no way to accept a signature (and yes, that’s archaic from every angle).

Even when we could swipe credit cards here - it stopped a decade ago - we still had to use a pin rather than a signature.

The only time I remember using a signature is in restaurants in the US and the Philippines. Here in Europe, it's been pin a chip for a decade - except for the places where they have gone contactless, or use various national mobile pay apps (very convenient nationally, extremely inconvenient when you go abroad)

 

[ijordano]

Absolutely mad to me that the USA still uses this and doesn't focus on chip & pin

 

[tmiw]

Absolutely mad to me that the USA still uses this and doesn't focus on chip & pin

Although in fairness, the vast majority of stores do run the chip now. Just...there are way more that don't than there frankly should be. (I honestly think it should have been flat out mandated from the start rather than relying on the liability shift, but on the other hand I imagine most had far more faith in various companies than I do.)

 

[Henry S]

Oh yes. VERY common at gas stations. It's very uncommon for me to use contactless at the pump.

Oh yes. VERY common at gas stations. It's very uncommon for me to use contactless at the pump.

Gas stations were exempted from the deadline to convert to chip readers in the US. That said, the one I use most often has jumped to contactless, so I can use my phone.