Disney Visa cards now have chips!

[TheVBs]

We just got our new Disney visas with chips. I'm so glad they're doing this, hopefully it will cut down on theft. When I was in England last summer, the merchants there couldn't believe that I had a card with no chip, only one that could be swiped.

[BrerGnat]

I got my new card last week. I wonder though...what does the chip actually DO? How is it more secure?

[disneymom15]

We've had ours for several months already.

[faline]

Good!! We should be getting new cards in the next few weeks so I welcome this change.

[allgiggles]

We got ours a few months ago. While it's great that they have the chips in them, I find there are very few places that have the chip readers activated. I use my Disney Visa for nearly every purchase I make and the only places I've found that have the chip readers activated are Walmart and Target -- maybe 1 other place. We were part of that Target data breach a few years ago so I'm happy that at least *they* have it. The chips aren't really effective if most merchants can't accept them. Hopefully that will change soon but I haven't seen any changes in the last 3 months.

[Goofy4TheWorld]

Those chips are a joke. EMV (the name for the chip technology) is a ridiculously futile attempt to reduce only one type of credit card fraud, the type where somewhere captures your card's magnetic data and actually makes a copy of your card to use in-person at retail stores. Your card will still have a standard 16-digit number that will continue to be used in card-not-present transactions (Online, Phone Order, etc...) and fraudsters will continue to spend your money with ease online. Seriously, far more of my monthly transactions are not in-person, and every database containing credit card numbers will remain exactly the same after the EMV conversion, and will be just as easy to breech. All EMV chips do is make it practically impossible to clone a physical card (of course the Titanic was also unsinkable).

You can't compare any success Europe may have had with EMV (which really, there is still plenty of fraud in Europe too) because Europe almost exclusively uses chip-and-PIN where all transactions require a PIN number be used. In fact, if you try to use one of the American EMV cards in Europe, it still won't work because American cards still don't require a PIN. The fact that the credit card industry uses the term "signature verification" is laughable, I could sign Santa Clause on every transaction I ever sign for and nobody would notice (and for the record my name is not Santa Clause).

The fact that American banks have refused to adopt an absolute PIN requirement is obscene. I get so angry that I have a Visa Debit which doesn't give me the option to disallow non-PIN based transactions, so I am forced to expose by bank account to anyone who picks my card up and can sign the letter X on a tiny screen. Of course this is why I never use my Debit card. It's an absolute money racket by the banking industry that 85% of Debit card fraud is when a Debit card is used as signature-based, but yet they continue to allow PIN-less even though they could cut out 85% of all fraud, a statistic EMV doesn't come anywhere close to obtaining!

If you think the Government is a heavy-handed, you should try being a retailer on the receiving end of the Visa/MasterCard/Discover cartel that has absolute control of American commerce with practically no oversight. If your local water utility is private and wants to raise rates, the State has to approve it. If Visa announced tomorrow that all transactions require a pig to be sacrificed, there is nothing the retail industry can do except buy more pigs, and the pigs will have to have a chip embedded in them!

The reason no one but Wal-Mart and Target process cards using EMV is that EMV acceptance is a moving target that is incredibly difficult to integrate into every version of software retailers use for cash registers. Most industries are left with no solutions to a deadline imposed from the cartel who is determined to wash their hands of fraud and blame the retailers for not updating to a system that, for most, hasn't been built yet.

Well, at least that's my two cents!

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

We have chip & pin here in Canada, and it has reduced fraud, at least I've noticed it on a personal level. They are harder to clone, and that is an improvement over the swipe card. It isn't perfect, but I'm a happy customer.

Here's my funny chip story:
I was shopping last fall at a grocery store in New Hampshire. The cashier rings up the order and tells me the total. I tell her I'll use my VISA and I swipe my card. The machine asks for a pin. I think "hmmm, I didn't use my chip, and it still wants my pin". I enter my pin. The transaction fails.

The cashier says, oh, you said VISA, not debit. Try again. Then she looks at me and says "aren't you cute. You actually thought that your VISA had a pin number. Isn't that adorable". Well, I got a bit huffy and said something not that nice, since my VISA DOES have a pin number.

Anyways, I swiped, no pin required and me and my groceries leave the store.

[magicofdisney]

In my local town, we have 2 stores I shop that can process those chip cards. Half the time my card gets rejected with the chip and I have to run it through the magnetic strip, anyway.

[i'm grumpy]

Sis got a pin card. She noticed some charges from 2 state away on her last bill. They thought they were odd, but never called!!

[TheVBs]

I did think it was odd that there's no requirement for a PIN with the chip. That's half the security. However, I'm so glad that we're at least headed in the right direction for better security. With the chips in the cards, hopefully the readers will start showing up in more places. Then, I hope the banks start requiring a PIN.

[BrerGnat]

Those chip card readers at Target are SO slow and prone to errors. I hate them.

[VWL Mom]

In 2010 when my oldest went off to college I got a GAP card for back to school shopping. Used it once after that and then forgot I even had it. Fast forward to the beginning of July, received a new GAP Visa from them (with a chip) telling me they had switched systems and to destroy the old card. Must be activated before use., enhanced security, etc. I never activated the card with a new number but last Sunday I get a call that there were over $500 in charges processed to it the previous night. I am starting to believe most of there security breaches are inside jobs and no chip is going to stop that.