No, but it certainly is inconvenient.It's also more dangerous. If your wallet gets stolen, you can't call your bank and tell them to give you back $300.
(I'm the same person who wrote that long pin-pad post, above. Same disclaimers apply here too.)The technology shift you're talking about has been underway for a while. The payment transfer associations (Visa and Mastercard for example) want to avoid implementing things which have a "chilling effect" on accepting their cards. The more sales run using their networks, the more profit they make. If they create a "technology divide", where some merchants have fancy new smartcard or contactless hardware and some merchants don't, and the system favors merchants who have that new tech, then that hurts the "without" merchants. Either customers perceive less security from these merchants, and some customers stop using their cards at these businesses; or these merchants only qualify for more expensive interchange programs and their cost for transactions goes up.So on one hand, you're right about security. More tech is coming. But it's difficult to deploy. Merchants won't spend extra money for the hardware unless you give them a reason -- but if you try to motivate them too much, they might just say "to heck with this" and stop taking cards.The "tighter corporate control" and "tracking" stuff is paranoid and delusional. Issuing banks have a good reason for knowing that the person presenting a card to a merchant is the same as the person who owns that card's account. This point-of-sale technology protects against fraud, and doesn't enable or disable any privacy-invasion stuff.
Just goes to show you that electronic money and transactions have a LONG way to go before they can truly replace hard cash.There would seem to be no end to the ingenuity of hackers. Although I'm a little concerned at the theft, it is still kind of intriguing to see system after system, network after network go down in flames as people (aka hackers or in this case thieves) shoot holes in things that are supposed to be "bullet proof"
mercatfatMar 10, 2006
No, but it certainly is inconvenient.It's also more dangerous. If your wallet gets stolen, you can't call your bank and tell them to give you back $300.
mspencer712Mar 11, 2006
(I'm the same person who wrote that long pin-pad post, above. Same disclaimers apply here too.)The technology shift you're talking about has been underway for a while. The payment transfer associations (Visa and Mastercard for example) want to avoid implementing things which have a "chilling effect" on accepting their cards. The more sales run using their networks, the more profit they make. If they create a "technology divide", where some merchants have fancy new smartcard or contactless hardware and some merchants don't, and the system favors merchants who have that new tech, then that hurts the "without" merchants. Either customers perceive less security from these merchants, and some customers stop using their cards at these businesses; or these merchants only qualify for more expensive interchange programs and their cost for transactions goes up.So on one hand, you're right about security. More tech is coming. But it's difficult to deploy. Merchants won't spend extra money for the hardware unless you give them a reason -- but if you try to motivate them too much, they might just say "to heck with this" and stop taking cards.The "tighter corporate control" and "tracking" stuff is paranoid and delusional. Issuing banks have a good reason for knowing that the person presenting a card to a merchant is the same as the person who owns that card's account. This point-of-sale technology protects against fraud, and doesn't enable or disable any privacy-invasion stuff.
acruxksaMar 13, 2006
Just goes to show you that electronic money and transactions have a LONG way to go before they can truly replace hard cash.There would seem to be no end to the ingenuity of hackers. Although I'm a little concerned at the theft, it is still kind of intriguing to see system after system, network after network go down in flames as people (aka hackers or in this case thieves) shoot holes in things that are supposed to be "bullet proof"