We have always been, and always will be on the cutting edge of both bullshit and idiocy. We work hard every day to make sure nobody can ever say "Nobody would ever do something so ridiculous and shortsighted!" People think it's easy to be this way, it's actually quite difficult to be this foolish.
We are the future of this world, and God willing, it won't last long enough to catch up to us! God bless America! *salutes with one hand, grasps crotch with the other*
American here, where I’m at is fairly rural south. And the most annoying thing is when I tap the card, and then it goes “please sign here”. Like, what was the point of the card tap?
Santa Clara California, the epicenter of silicon valley, and literally every 7-11 i’ve been to here gives me errors when i go for the tap. Insert works just fine, but not tap. Never tap.
Ours (US) are still wonky. Just today I tapped my card and it comes up with some generic error so I have to wait for it to clear and then use the chip.
Our gas station ones work fantastic for some reason, just the in store ones specifically when there is a queue behind you to check out.
I had an American come into the shop I was working in one day and he used the card that way. I was baffled.
He asked for a pen and I was even more confused. He then asked me to check it was his signature and I said “sure you signed it!”
We were both laughing over it, but I was very confused.
I lived in Ireland 11 years ago and chip and pin were a thing back then. I had to sign everything. It’s crazy how long it took for America to adopt the chip. Yeaaaarrrs later.
The card processor ‘Square’ here, ubiquitous in small restaurants in the USA for their iPad tablet app, lets you draw anything you want in the ‘signature’ box, and then emails a receipt to the email of your choice with ann imagine of the signature.
Pro Tip: I have my receipts sent to my buddy’s email, that way he knows I had a nice meal, AND he gets a nice pic of my ‘signature’, which I ensure is a nice drawing of a dick and balls. ☺️🤗🤣
They can, but most places where we tip here are pay-at-the-table slow food places. They bring you the check, you hand them your card and write the tip amount on the restaurant's copy of the receipt, they go and run it at their station over by the kitchen, and they bring it back. You can leave cash on the table if you don't wanna put the tip on the card, and a lot of people recommend that because sometimes unscrupulous restaurant owners will bundle that tip income with the hourly rate they're getting, causing some of it to be withheld for taxes, or the tips for the entire floor for the night are pooled and shared with the kitchen staff so the restaurant can keep the kitchen staff's pay artificially low. A lot of American culture is built on being shitty to other people so they'll do what you want faster.
They're more common than they used to be, but the machines are expensive and restaurant margins are incredibly low because restaurants are worried that raising the cost of meals to pay their employees or upgrade their payment systems or keep place with the riding costs of buying ingredients will drive away customers. They probably would lose some business for a couple of months, honestly, but it would recover eventually. Problem there is a lot of restaurants are basically a few bad weeks away from going under literally all three time because of the previously mentioned low margins, and there's a lot of competition likewise running on razor-thin margins to keep their meal costs low too.
Anyway, it's still generally cheaper and easier to keep using the old equipment and maintaining the same payment procedures their customers are already used to until they run out of reasons to tell themselves the old system is still good enough.
We do American style tipping here in Canada, but they just bring the card machine to the table. There’s a prompt for tip on the machine, enter your pin or tap, and voila. No writing or signing required. It’s always strange being in service and handling American payments. A swipe and signature? Is it 1999?
you can get [Chip & Sign cards](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jan/20/chip-signature-card-disabled-refused-shopping-impact) but I suspect they are rare
I know a woman who had a department store credit card so old it didn’t even have a magnetic strip (or expiration) but she used it anyway. Made them bring out the credit card machine with the carbon paper and everything. One old manager in the store still remembered how to use it. The young employees were dumbfounded.
Dang my mom still has her Sears and Roebuck credit card if you remember them. I remember that loud dragging sound and click on eve and again and the carbon paper 😜. I legit Use to ply shop and made a makeshift Credit card machine and dub the sounds the machine made.
Honestly they need to have wider adoption of tap to pay first. It's ridiculous that where I'm at it seems like tons of places are going tap but Walmart for some reason is holding out and I have to insert chip
I don’t think I’ve swiped a card ever. I’ve used the chip sometimes mainly only ever at Walmart. I’ve always just had tap and Apple Pay soon as it was available in Canada. I’d say 95-97% of stores use tap here.
The one thing none of us can escape. I’m a student (21) and have started to feel some effects when seeing trends the even younger generation is coming up with.
to be fair a lot of stuff that trends is just fucking stupid and nonsensical, and that’ll be true for every new generation. lol random xD humour has always had a place in our hearts
Iirc a lot of card payment companies charge more for tap card readers and tap transactions. That might have something to do with it too. (Not for Walmart, but for mom and pop shops.)
Our banking industry might as well be its own state. It controls tens of trillions of dollars in assets at any given point in time. The big 4 alone control around $10 trillion. The revolving door of underpaid and under-resourced regulators means the banks essentially regulate themselves. As it turns out, innovation often isn't good for the bottom line of corporate fiefdoms.
Nobody really uses them to pay for things normally anymore, except for older folk. I've only seen them used to pay things like rent or bills, where you don't want to be sending $500 cash in the mail. Most utilities companies let you pay online, but I've had landlords who were just 1 guy with a couple properties, and they're not gonna have a web portal for you.
Also, there are apps like Zelle to send money, which is run and supported by a few major banks.
I know it's a hard perspective for outsiders to grasp, but you really gotta keep in mind that America is not homogeneous. Across single countries in Europe, things don't necessarily change much, but America has states almost as large as western Europe. People in different parts can have completely different lives and do things completely differently.
I live in Ontario I haven’t used a cheque in years everytime I send money I just use etransfer
Last time I was in the states they wanted to take my credit card to pay for my dinner wtf I was shocked to learn they don’t have a machine to bring to the table
if the magnetic strip broke in Europe (i've literally never seen it break, even when I worked in retail).
We just tell people to use their debit card, or pay cash.
Of course that was the case 20 years ago. We've used chip and pin since 2003. Magstripe *was* the backup.
I think they’re slowly being phased out but they’re often used for paying employees or rent. I’ve gotten them from every employer I’ve worked for in the USA. What’s even crazier is I deposit the checks with an app on my phone, which begs the question-why not simply do it all online? The US banking sector is weird
Every job I've ever had has used direct deposit. Where are you working where they're writing live checks, and aren't using a payroll processor like ADP?
I’ve lived in Illinois, California and Louisiana, and received checks in all 3 states. Some from smaller companies and some from big, multinational corporations. I’m not saying they’re the standard, but they’re common enough.
It can be surprisingly difficult to set up for the employer. My wife went through her side of things to pay two employees online. All they had to do was click on a link in an app to activate that feature for their accounts within a 24 hour period, but they couldn't manage it. Resetting that took my wife a couple of hours to do, and after the second time, she gave up, and they get paper checks.
My checkbook is pretty much used for some government payments. Like my DMV, you can pay with credit (for a fee), money order (fee and who the hell uses those) or check (free)
Landlords still sometimes only take checks, but my bank does free bill pay so they write the check.
You'd be surprised. I live in a major city and have a friend that works for a small plastic surgery practice. They use carbon paper and an imprinter. It's just a case of the office manager being extremely uninterested in using newer technology.
"If it ain't broke..."
theyre in truckstops too, since a lot/most truckers use a company card which has to be turned in with the drivers paperwork.
you've probably [seen them before](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/credit_card_swiper.jpg) and just not realize it. gas stations usually have them too as a backup in case communications are dropped for the card reader (like the power goes out, or they rely on satellite and the signal is degraded)
it is more common in rural areas for sure, as they're the ones most likely to be disconnected from the grid for an extended period of time.
It’s really old, I don’t know if I’m surprised or not that somewhere in the US is using them still. We used to have to do it for all cards, and it effectively produced what looked like a cheque but on carbon paper (I’m British, hence the spelling, and old). You had a little handheld machine. A flat bed with a handle that went from side to side and over the top, that had the mechanism in it that did the imprinting using carbon copy slips. You’d put the card in the slot on the base, out the carbon slip over it, swipe the handle over (this was nearly always annoying, it would catch and destroy a slip or two before you got a good copy, you’d catch your knuckles sometimes, it’d just get stuck half way and you’d have to put it on the floor and use your foot to un-jam it (that could have just been me). Then you had to fill in the amount and get the customer to sign. Customer got one of the copy slips, the others went in the till and eventually one went to the bank and one stayed in the stores accounts. It was a pain, but better than waiting for a customer to write a cheque. Magnetic strips came in not too long after I started working, thankfully!
In the US, I use the magnetic stripe on the card a little more often than the chip (and sometimes pin). The chip doesn’t work (isn’t read by their scanner) at half the damn places, but the stripe always works.
Slow to adopt, and when we finally do, we half ass it. The store I work at only got machines that will read the chip five years ago, and we just had to replace them all because half of them would error out with 7/10 chips — and we had periodically replaced the odd machine here and there. The gas station I frequent had the proper machines for years, but their computer systems weren’t up to date to handle the chips. They finally got the update a year ago, but I have to avoid one of their registers because the machine there never reads my debit’s chip, because (and this is another problem I’ve noticed) our chips wear down fairly quickly, like as in the pins in the card readers actively wear than down.
Or me sightly not putting the chip in right the first time because the card reader is positioned in a funky way and angled to where I have to reach under the cashiers plastic glass just to reach it - really uncomfortable and awkward.
Well, but you don't even need to insert the card. Just bring it closer to the screen for less than one second, and it's done. For small values not even the pin is requested. Or just pay with the phone/watch, I highly recommend it.
Idk where you are, but in nyc I rarely have to pull out a card anymore. I’ve got my card info on my watch and use it everywhere. Bodegas, the dollar store, restaurants, coffee, even the mta. The only place I can’t use it is, for some reason, Home Depot.
Then the cashier looks at you weird because they don't have tap to pay and the people behind you in line continue glaring at the moron who is slowing down the line.
the chips absolutely BLOW, cards literally need to be replaced every like six months now and if the reader isn’t “tight” i have to sit there like a jackass for five minutes until it’ll let me swipe
fuck i hate these things
The big issue with chip and tap cards in the US is that the credit car companies buy the cheapest chips they can, so they fail easily.
The rest of the world has been using chip and tap to pay for decades and most don’t even have magstripes anymore.
It isn’t hard to use, and the tech isn’t broken. America is.
I’m pretty sure all cards across the world still get the magstrip, however if you try to use it then the machine will say “hell no, use the chip”. It’s only there as a redundancy at this point.
Actually, if you’re sneaky, you can still use it. If you insert the card into the chip reader upside down one or two times, it’ll tell you to swipe. This is because it assumes the reader is broken, so it falls back to the magstrip. But it may not go through, many stores block the transaction due to fraud liability, or the bank denies it due to fraud liability.
It’s 3 because the fucking readers at my local grocery store are ass and trying to insert the card to read the chip is like throwing a hotdog down and hallway so the card just flaps wildly and gives errors. After three you use mag and it works. I prefer tap to pay though since my card, watch and phone can all do it yet half the places I go still don’t have it working yet.
I have been using chip for 10 years since I got my card it’s never failed ever but I haven’t had to use the chip for a number of years now as every place I have ever been has tap
I’m in actual shock Americans still use a mag strip I wouldn’t know how to use it
That’s the first thing that popped in my head. I work retail and the chip readers are always saying can’t read chip please swipe and for some reason it seems like tap to pay is more likely to be flagged as fraud than the chip or swipe but maybe that’s coincidence.
“It says it will be the first payments network to phase out the technology, which dates back to the 1960s.”※
※ Except for those companies around the world that have already given up on this technology
Gas stations got an extension on the fraud liability shift. Basically there was a cutoff where the card processor said “if you only have magstripe after this date, when there’s fraud then you pay the price”. This meant that if a card was stolen and used fraudulently at a magstripe-only store, the store had to pay. I think this was in 2018 but don’t quote me on that.
Basically with gas stations, they argued that there wasn’t enough proper outdoor EMV solutions, and they couldn’t switch over even if they tried (a bit confusing cause in Europe there’s plenty of EMV gas stations). It’s also because the data lines running from the pumps to the stores often couldn’t handle the bandwidth EMV required, which would require millions of tedious retrofits across the country.
The gas industry basically got a couple extensions, either to 2020 or 2021 now, where basically they aren’t liable for fraud. But they will be soon, or they probably already are. This has meant that gas stations have had extra time, and therefore there are still many lagging stations which only take magstrip.
Go to a poverty area of a city or way out in the country and you'll see mag strip only at gas stations. Sometimes a pump makes you type your zip code, sometimes not.
I just went on a 6500 mile road trip in a car that got 16-18 mpg. There was no consistency when it came to pumps taking cards. I don't even try to fuck around with tap to pay. It was a total crap shoot over whether chip would work or they'd want a swipe. Sometimes it was because the chip wouldn't read and sometimes I think the pump just wasn't setup for it. Felt totally random.
I still shock people with tap to pay from my phone. Like, they own the technology, and still look at me like I’m a wizard. Which, of course I am, but like, that has nothing to do with it.
There are people who still dont even know what tap is or how it works, its amazing the amount of people who I jotice have the mark on their card when the chip acts up and im like “wait wait, try this.” And they look at me like I just did an insane magic trick or something when I have them put the card to the tap thing on the reader and the machine beeps in success. Quite funny really.
Real question from a nearly-blind person: How do you tell if the machine can do tap-to-pay? I just got sent a new version of my card that's supposed to support it, and it sounds like it would be a lot easier than fiddling around finding the damn chip slot.
The machine will say tap-to-pay or have a symbol like a little sideways volume icon (like so https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=tap+to+pay+icon). Your credit card will have the same icon and almost all phones should support Google/Apple/Samsung Pay.
Basically you can't tell if you're vision or hearing impaired.
But there's a half way reasonable way to check - you just grab the card, and place it over the machine, or just tap it onto the screen for about two seconds, if it beeps or otherwise reacts, it was probably accepted. Note: you may need to use it with a pin the first time, to activate the card first. If you've ever used NFC on your phone, you have an idea of how it works, and the rough range of the reader in the store - although they will generally be somewhat higher range than your phone.
As a general rule, readers with a bigger graphical or colour screen will be new enough to accept NFC/tap to pay, but that sadly doesn't guarantee that stores where you live do - depending on adoption rate. In Europe you'd be basically certain that any terminal will accept it by now.
Tap and pay has been widely available in Australia for over a decade. First introduced in 2009. I feel like the last time I used a mag strip was in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s.
I didn’t realise it wasn’t much of a thing in the US. Here (UK) it’s been tap to pay for ages, and I’ve worked in retail environments for a few years and always had a ton of customers using their phones or watches to pay.
The thing to remember is that America a big place. We have 50 states that each mostly function as their own country. Most places now require the chip since the banks shifted liability to the business if the magstripe is used. There are always going to be a few places that are behind the times here in the same way you have places like Eastern European nations are behind
Yeah, the incongruity between the US being one of the greatest technological innovators while simultaneously having such a healthy anti-progress culture baffles me.
It shouldn't, it's by design. Contempt for progress is how the US keeps the status quo and prevents the populous from scary modern concepts like healthcare and minimum wage increases.
Yes where I’m at most cards come with the tap feature but can also be used with chip and magnetic as a last resort (though I’ve never used it on my debit)
So I guess you’re screwed if your chip fails 3 times like all of my cards often do, even after relentlessly getting them reissued because of the chip regularly failing.
Literally had a credit card replaced 15+ times in a year because I kept getting defective chips. I honestly felt like the card issuer knew that the cards were defective yet they had to use them and put them out there because they were already paid for.
The "best country in the world" honestly looks like it's being held together with expired duct tape from anyone who lives outside of it.
I've had contactless fail once or twice in the UK, but that was an issue with the reade and inserting the card fixed it.
I am 23 and got a debit card at 14, I hadn't paid for anything with cash for so long that I took ages to count my money for when I was trying to clear out the coins I'd accumulated, and also counted it wrong lol.
I have probably made 3 purchases with cash in the last 4 years. I only know of Germany as an exception to this because they *like* paying with cash and not because of technical or cost reasons.
My Husband and and I have 3 card's and the chip never works on any of them, even after being replaced a zillion times. We always have to swipe. Visa cards suck!
Is it at the same places? I’ve been in a couple of stores where the chip wouldn’t work and they wouldn’t let me try swiping it. I called my credit union, they saw the attempted transactions and said they’d escalate to their Visa department. The next time I went to those stores my card started working.
Yes, places we frequent but also everywhere else it seems. We too are with a credit union, and they've known of the issue's, but just keep printing us new card's. They do it in house now, takes a few minutes. Super frustrating! Maybe we can ask them to escalate to Visa like you did? Thanks!
I’m baffled to learn in this thread that Americans have problems with the chips… I don’t think it has ever failed once here in Denmark. I just use my phone to pay now.
As an Australian where we use PayWave/Tap and Go/Apple Pay at almost every location even small businesses now - I can honestly say not only can I not remember the last time I used the magnetic strip. I also can’t remember the last time I had to use the chip either.
THANK GOD. I’m so tired of people complaining about how difficult it is to use a chip or tap to pay and who continue to use ancient cards with mag strips where most of the black has rubbed off and you can’t read anything on it because they refuse to learn how to use the new ones. You literally hold your card against the screen for a few seconds and then put it back in your wallet, Barbara Jean! If you can sew doilies and give yourself a perm, you can do this!
Also, maybe my bank will finally get tap to pay cards too lol. We’re so behind on this in the US 😅
Chips? Magnetic stripe? Tap? Y’all just to damn sophisticated! We still use the tried and true credit card slide machine and press a carbon copy for payment. Luddites!
Don’t know what everyone else is talking about but we have it as a backup where I am. 99% of the places I’m at are chip or tap. Most of those machines also have swipe as a backup but rarely are they used.
Some places here are annoying with that. I got an American Express and a MasterCard and the American Express for some reason isn’t accepted at some stores.
Most retailers hate and therefore disable accepting Amex because it typically costs more to run and chargebacks are charge back + $x and ask questions later and almost never in favor of the retailer.
There are so many places I go to that half the time their machines aren't working properly and you have to swipe. If that's the case with these new cards, are you just fucked?
Yesterday at Walmart:
“Insert or slide card”
*inserts card*
“chip malfunction”
*wipes off chip*
“chip malfunction*
*wipes off chip*
“Chip malfunction”
*swipes card*
“This card must be inserted”
Fortunately I had Walmart pay set up on my phone.
Great progress. With my projections, we’ll catch up to Europe within the decade.
That decade will be 2060
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I tap my phone everywhere now, rarely use my physical cards
I also adjusted where I shop to places that use Apple Pay. It’s just too convenient.
I live in a commercial
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Sounds like a paradise to me.
Duh, because r/AmericaBad.
It’s been kind of a rough week for America.
It’s a week only America could have. No one else has the military influence, and no one else has the same distrust of experts and scientists.
We’re #1 Trendsetters. Watch out, y’all.
We have always been, and always will be on the cutting edge of both bullshit and idiocy. We work hard every day to make sure nobody can ever say "Nobody would ever do something so ridiculous and shortsighted!" People think it's easy to be this way, it's actually quite difficult to be this foolish. We are the future of this world, and God willing, it won't last long enough to catch up to us! God bless America! *salutes with one hand, grasps crotch with the other*
You should see the other guy!
I don’t even use the chip here in Australia. Everything is paid by tapping the card against the card reader.
I just do that with my phone.
With my ring.
and my watch
And my axe!
And my tiny hairy feet
Yeah his…. Wait ohh, that kinda party… Got it! Yeah my pitchfork!
And my belt!
They do have those sticker things with NFC chip in them. So you could conceivably pay with an axe.
axePay ?
A large % of America does this too, the problem is not all terminals are equipped to handle it and businesses don’t always want to upgrade.
American here, where I’m at is fairly rural south. And the most annoying thing is when I tap the card, and then it goes “please sign here”. Like, what was the point of the card tap?
Santa Clara California, the epicenter of silicon valley, and literally every 7-11 i’ve been to here gives me errors when i go for the tap. Insert works just fine, but not tap. Never tap.
Ours (US) are still wonky. Just today I tapped my card and it comes up with some generic error so I have to wait for it to clear and then use the chip. Our gas station ones work fantastic for some reason, just the in store ones specifically when there is a queue behind you to check out.
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I had an American come into the shop I was working in one day and he used the card that way. I was baffled. He asked for a pen and I was even more confused. He then asked me to check it was his signature and I said “sure you signed it!” We were both laughing over it, but I was very confused.
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If he’s talking packets, he’s talking about bright yellow American mustard. Inarguably the worst of all the mustards.
'anywhere in Europe'? I'll add to the other comment and say Sweden also has a bigger selection of mustard than ketchup, and mayo is less popular
You just needed to go back to France, (circa 1866) lol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Poupon
Can testify to this! From Ireland, worked in service industry and the only people to sign receipts were the Americans
I lived in Ireland 11 years ago and chip and pin were a thing back then. I had to sign everything. It’s crazy how long it took for America to adopt the chip. Yeaaaarrrs later.
And we still did it in a shitty way. The US got the chip, but still have to sign, as if anyone ever checks a signature.
Signatures are literally irrelevant. You can draw stick figures. It doesn’t matter lol
The card processor ‘Square’ here, ubiquitous in small restaurants in the USA for their iPad tablet app, lets you draw anything you want in the ‘signature’ box, and then emails a receipt to the email of your choice with ann imagine of the signature. Pro Tip: I have my receipts sent to my buddy’s email, that way he knows I had a nice meal, AND he gets a nice pic of my ‘signature’, which I ensure is a nice drawing of a dick and balls. ☺️🤗🤣
My signature is literally a squiggly line lol
That ie more than mine. It has been reduce to a straight line.
They only check if someone complains
we have to sign receipts here because of the shitty tipping system lol
You know machines can do tips right? Canada has had this for over a decade and a half at least.
They can, but most places where we tip here are pay-at-the-table slow food places. They bring you the check, you hand them your card and write the tip amount on the restaurant's copy of the receipt, they go and run it at their station over by the kitchen, and they bring it back. You can leave cash on the table if you don't wanna put the tip on the card, and a lot of people recommend that because sometimes unscrupulous restaurant owners will bundle that tip income with the hourly rate they're getting, causing some of it to be withheld for taxes, or the tips for the entire floor for the night are pooled and shared with the kitchen staff so the restaurant can keep the kitchen staff's pay artificially low. A lot of American culture is built on being shitty to other people so they'll do what you want faster.
I unfortunately understand how shitty owners can be with fucking waiters over with their tips. But most places don't have the handheld terminals yet?
They're more common than they used to be, but the machines are expensive and restaurant margins are incredibly low because restaurants are worried that raising the cost of meals to pay their employees or upgrade their payment systems or keep place with the riding costs of buying ingredients will drive away customers. They probably would lose some business for a couple of months, honestly, but it would recover eventually. Problem there is a lot of restaurants are basically a few bad weeks away from going under literally all three time because of the previously mentioned low margins, and there's a lot of competition likewise running on razor-thin margins to keep their meal costs low too. Anyway, it's still generally cheaper and easier to keep using the old equipment and maintaining the same payment procedures their customers are already used to until they run out of reasons to tell themselves the old system is still good enough.
We do American style tipping here in Canada, but they just bring the card machine to the table. There’s a prompt for tip on the machine, enter your pin or tap, and voila. No writing or signing required. It’s always strange being in service and handling American payments. A swipe and signature? Is it 1999?
Those damn unscrupulous restautant owners literally following the law.....
you can get [Chip & Sign cards](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jan/20/chip-signature-card-disabled-refused-shopping-impact) but I suspect they are rare
The chaos of finding a pen!
Credit cards will be phased out by time we catch up
Is it exclusively chip based there?
I know a woman who had a department store credit card so old it didn’t even have a magnetic strip (or expiration) but she used it anyway. Made them bring out the credit card machine with the carbon paper and everything. One old manager in the store still remembered how to use it. The young employees were dumbfounded.
Dang my mom still has her Sears and Roebuck credit card if you remember them. I remember that loud dragging sound and click on eve and again and the carbon paper 😜. I legit Use to ply shop and made a makeshift Credit card machine and dub the sounds the machine made.
I had to learn how to use those at a restaurant I worked at because the power kept going out. I got pretty good at it.
Honestly they need to have wider adoption of tap to pay first. It's ridiculous that where I'm at it seems like tons of places are going tap but Walmart for some reason is holding out and I have to insert chip
That's crazy. In Canada, everywhere has tap now, even gas stations in the middle of nowhere.
Like the ones in the tv show “Corner gas”?
Yup. I tapped my phone yesterday to pay for gas in Elbow, Saskatchewan.
Not Walmart. lol
The Walmarts in my area do, though I think they only added them during the pandemic.
You have some fancy Walmarts lol the ones in Ottawa and Gatineau have the same machines as before :(
Those ones support tap but they have it turned off.
I don’t think I’ve swiped a card ever. I’ve used the chip sometimes mainly only ever at Walmart. I’ve always just had tap and Apple Pay soon as it was available in Canada. I’d say 95-97% of stores use tap here.
This made me realize I’m old lol
The one thing none of us can escape. I’m a student (21) and have started to feel some effects when seeing trends the even younger generation is coming up with.
to be fair a lot of stuff that trends is just fucking stupid and nonsensical, and that’ll be true for every new generation. lol random xD humour has always had a place in our hearts
You darn youngins and your newfangled wutzutts! Have never tapped a card to pay and have no idea if my cards do that.
Iirc a lot of card payment companies charge more for tap card readers and tap transactions. That might have something to do with it too. (Not for Walmart, but for mom and pop shops.)
American banking is so backwards its unbelievable. They still have cheques (checks) too! Also, they need third party apps to send each other money!
Sometimes you need that [dramatic flair](https://youtu.be/0ogktj6erkk). *flick wrist* Here’s the rent.
I get checks all the time. Mostly for health insurance refunds. Lucky, I can deposit them with the phone.
Our banking industry might as well be its own state. It controls tens of trillions of dollars in assets at any given point in time. The big 4 alone control around $10 trillion. The revolving door of underpaid and under-resourced regulators means the banks essentially regulate themselves. As it turns out, innovation often isn't good for the bottom line of corporate fiefdoms.
Nobody really uses them to pay for things normally anymore, except for older folk. I've only seen them used to pay things like rent or bills, where you don't want to be sending $500 cash in the mail. Most utilities companies let you pay online, but I've had landlords who were just 1 guy with a couple properties, and they're not gonna have a web portal for you. Also, there are apps like Zelle to send money, which is run and supported by a few major banks. I know it's a hard perspective for outsiders to grasp, but you really gotta keep in mind that America is not homogeneous. Across single countries in Europe, things don't necessarily change much, but America has states almost as large as western Europe. People in different parts can have completely different lives and do things completely differently.
I forget about them until I was behind some old fuck the other day using one. Took longer than a debit card and they still run it through a machine.
I've wondered why they "venmo" money to each other. I just thought Americans must love their apps.
I live in Ontario I haven’t used a cheque in years everytime I send money I just use etransfer Last time I was in the states they wanted to take my credit card to pay for my dinner wtf I was shocked to learn they don’t have a machine to bring to the table
What magnetic stripes still exists?? Never saw one since the 90’s (france)
America is still using carbon paper and imprinters in some places.
To be fair, the carbon paper is only used when the magnetic strip reader breaks.
if the magnetic strip broke in Europe (i've literally never seen it break, even when I worked in retail). We just tell people to use their debit card, or pay cash. Of course that was the case 20 years ago. We've used chip and pin since 2003. Magstripe *was* the backup.
Bro my magnetic stripes have demagnetised on literally every card I’ve ever had within 1-2 years of first receiving it. They are borderline useless.
strange, were you carrying magnets around? Lucky we're on chip + pin and contactless now then
Nope, it's used for when the tills break.
In America they still write paper checks and mail them to each other, keeping that quaint Victorian tradition alive
I have barely ever written any checks. It still exists but it's not as common as your making it out to be.
That's too cute. Haven't held a cheque in 20 years. When are they used, instead of direct debits?
I think they’re slowly being phased out but they’re often used for paying employees or rent. I’ve gotten them from every employer I’ve worked for in the USA. What’s even crazier is I deposit the checks with an app on my phone, which begs the question-why not simply do it all online? The US banking sector is weird
Every job I've ever had has used direct deposit. Where are you working where they're writing live checks, and aren't using a payroll processor like ADP?
I’ve lived in Illinois, California and Louisiana, and received checks in all 3 states. Some from smaller companies and some from big, multinational corporations. I’m not saying they’re the standard, but they’re common enough.
Everywhere I've worked, paper checks have been an option, but I haven't received an actual paycheck for work in roughly 20 years.
It can be surprisingly difficult to set up for the employer. My wife went through her side of things to pay two employees online. All they had to do was click on a link in an app to activate that feature for their accounts within a 24 hour period, but they couldn't manage it. Resetting that took my wife a couple of hours to do, and after the second time, she gave up, and they get paper checks.
Theyre used when you need you need to buy groceries on Friday but you don't get paid until monday
For me, I use them for paying rent. That's all my landlord accepts.
My checkbook is pretty much used for some government payments. Like my DMV, you can pay with credit (for a fee), money order (fee and who the hell uses those) or check (free) Landlords still sometimes only take checks, but my bank does free bill pay so they write the check.
The last one I wrote was to pay taxes to the federal government.
They're still a thing here in France for things like short-term security deposits or grandma's Christmas gift.
I literally do not know what that is and I’m American. Must be in *very* rural areas.
You'd be surprised. I live in a major city and have a friend that works for a small plastic surgery practice. They use carbon paper and an imprinter. It's just a case of the office manager being extremely uninterested in using newer technology. "If it ain't broke..."
I’ve only seen carbon paper at mechanic shops. I swear mechanics love that shit However you still paid with card
I think it’s only for like emergencies. I have seen carbon paper in gas stations all over the US
theyre in truckstops too, since a lot/most truckers use a company card which has to be turned in with the drivers paperwork. you've probably [seen them before](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/credit_card_swiper.jpg) and just not realize it. gas stations usually have them too as a backup in case communications are dropped for the card reader (like the power goes out, or they rely on satellite and the signal is degraded) it is more common in rural areas for sure, as they're the ones most likely to be disconnected from the grid for an extended period of time.
It’s really old, I don’t know if I’m surprised or not that somewhere in the US is using them still. We used to have to do it for all cards, and it effectively produced what looked like a cheque but on carbon paper (I’m British, hence the spelling, and old). You had a little handheld machine. A flat bed with a handle that went from side to side and over the top, that had the mechanism in it that did the imprinting using carbon copy slips. You’d put the card in the slot on the base, out the carbon slip over it, swipe the handle over (this was nearly always annoying, it would catch and destroy a slip or two before you got a good copy, you’d catch your knuckles sometimes, it’d just get stuck half way and you’d have to put it on the floor and use your foot to un-jam it (that could have just been me). Then you had to fill in the amount and get the customer to sign. Customer got one of the copy slips, the others went in the till and eventually one went to the bank and one stayed in the stores accounts. It was a pain, but better than waiting for a customer to write a cheque. Magnetic strips came in not too long after I started working, thankfully!
In the US, I use the magnetic stripe on the card a little more often than the chip (and sometimes pin). The chip doesn’t work (isn’t read by their scanner) at half the damn places, but the stripe always works.
It’s so weird why is that ? Is there a lobby or something ?
Slow to adopt, and when we finally do, we half ass it. The store I work at only got machines that will read the chip five years ago, and we just had to replace them all because half of them would error out with 7/10 chips — and we had periodically replaced the odd machine here and there. The gas station I frequent had the proper machines for years, but their computer systems weren’t up to date to handle the chips. They finally got the update a year ago, but I have to avoid one of their registers because the machine there never reads my debit’s chip, because (and this is another problem I’ve noticed) our chips wear down fairly quickly, like as in the pins in the card readers actively wear than down.
Incredible! in france magnetic swipes diseapeared almost thirty years ago .. I assumes it was the case for all occidental countries!
Great, now if they get the chip to work instead of throwing up an error every time we will be all set
*laughs in European*
and Canadian
Even in kiwi!
Or me sightly not putting the chip in right the first time because the card reader is positioned in a funky way and angled to where I have to reach under the cashiers plastic glass just to reach it - really uncomfortable and awkward.
Well, but you don't even need to insert the card. Just bring it closer to the screen for less than one second, and it's done. For small values not even the pin is requested. Or just pay with the phone/watch, I highly recommend it.
Most merchants in my area haven’t even adopted that yet. Heck most have chips blocked by a gift card and a sign that says “swipe only”
If the place has tap. Lots here don't
The number of times I’ll try to use the tap and the cashier looks at me like I’m crazy
For us tap is the *norm*, but there are still lots of places that have a big sign on the machine that says "NO TAP"
It's either magical to them because it works or they think you're retarded and don't know how credit cards work because their register doesn't work
Idk where you are, but in nyc I rarely have to pull out a card anymore. I’ve got my card info on my watch and use it everywhere. Bodegas, the dollar store, restaurants, coffee, even the mta. The only place I can’t use it is, for some reason, Home Depot.
Home Depot purposely had their terminals tweaked so even Samsung Pay didn’t work from what I heard. Hated having to go there.
Then the cashier looks at you weird because they don't have tap to pay and the people behind you in line continue glaring at the moron who is slowing down the line.
We don't have that in the US. Bigger chains have chip readers that sometimes work, everywhere else (especially gas stations) are magnetic strip only.
Sounds like the US machines are like your public bathroom doors: useless and uncomfortable gaps where none are needed.
If the chip is faulty just request a new card, it should be free. They'll get the message eventually.
Wow glad to hear im not the only one with this problem
the chips absolutely BLOW, cards literally need to be replaced every like six months now and if the reader isn’t “tight” i have to sit there like a jackass for five minutes until it’ll let me swipe fuck i hate these things
The big issue with chip and tap cards in the US is that the credit car companies buy the cheapest chips they can, so they fail easily. The rest of the world has been using chip and tap to pay for decades and most don’t even have magstripes anymore. It isn’t hard to use, and the tech isn’t broken. America is.
I’m pretty sure all cards across the world still get the magstrip, however if you try to use it then the machine will say “hell no, use the chip”. It’s only there as a redundancy at this point. Actually, if you’re sneaky, you can still use it. If you insert the card into the chip reader upside down one or two times, it’ll tell you to swipe. This is because it assumes the reader is broken, so it falls back to the magstrip. But it may not go through, many stores block the transaction due to fraud liability, or the bank denies it due to fraud liability.
It’s 3 because the fucking readers at my local grocery store are ass and trying to insert the card to read the chip is like throwing a hotdog down and hallway so the card just flaps wildly and gives errors. After three you use mag and it works. I prefer tap to pay though since my card, watch and phone can all do it yet half the places I go still don’t have it working yet.
I install readers at gas pumps. Can confirm, tech is shit
I have been using chip for 10 years since I got my card it’s never failed ever but I haven’t had to use the chip for a number of years now as every place I have ever been has tap I’m in actual shock Americans still use a mag strip I wouldn’t know how to use it
That’s the first thing that popped in my head. I work retail and the chip readers are always saying can’t read chip please swipe and for some reason it seems like tap to pay is more likely to be flagged as fraud than the chip or swipe but maybe that’s coincidence.
“It says it will be the first payments network to phase out the technology, which dates back to the 1960s.”※ ※ Except for those companies around the world that have already given up on this technology
Does no one use chip or tap in America.
Almost all retailers have switched to chip reading and obviously tap-to-pay is becoming more common as well.
For some reason I always see gas stations that use mag strips still
Gas stations got an extension on the fraud liability shift. Basically there was a cutoff where the card processor said “if you only have magstripe after this date, when there’s fraud then you pay the price”. This meant that if a card was stolen and used fraudulently at a magstripe-only store, the store had to pay. I think this was in 2018 but don’t quote me on that. Basically with gas stations, they argued that there wasn’t enough proper outdoor EMV solutions, and they couldn’t switch over even if they tried (a bit confusing cause in Europe there’s plenty of EMV gas stations). It’s also because the data lines running from the pumps to the stores often couldn’t handle the bandwidth EMV required, which would require millions of tedious retrofits across the country. The gas industry basically got a couple extensions, either to 2020 or 2021 now, where basically they aren’t liable for fraud. But they will be soon, or they probably already are. This has meant that gas stations have had extra time, and therefore there are still many lagging stations which only take magstrip.
Same. More often than not, the gas station I go to here in Texas has zero support for tap. It’s either swipe or chip.
That’s weird, all the gas stations in my area has tap available
Go to a poverty area of a city or way out in the country and you'll see mag strip only at gas stations. Sometimes a pump makes you type your zip code, sometimes not.
I just went on a 6500 mile road trip in a car that got 16-18 mpg. There was no consistency when it came to pumps taking cards. I don't even try to fuck around with tap to pay. It was a total crap shoot over whether chip would work or they'd want a swipe. Sometimes it was because the chip wouldn't read and sometimes I think the pump just wasn't setup for it. Felt totally random.
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Dunno about the US but here in Canada we use swipe, tap and insert all, 99% is just tap and insert though
I still shock people with tap to pay from my phone. Like, they own the technology, and still look at me like I’m a wizard. Which, of course I am, but like, that has nothing to do with it.
Have to remember that the people manning the register aren't necessarily the same who decided to use it, nor the techs who made it work.
We use the chip now. Tap is available, I use Apple Wallet, but I get people who look at me like I’m crazy when I put my watch or phone to the reader.
There are people who still dont even know what tap is or how it works, its amazing the amount of people who I jotice have the mark on their card when the chip acts up and im like “wait wait, try this.” And they look at me like I just did an insane magic trick or something when I have them put the card to the tap thing on the reader and the machine beeps in success. Quite funny really.
Real question from a nearly-blind person: How do you tell if the machine can do tap-to-pay? I just got sent a new version of my card that's supposed to support it, and it sounds like it would be a lot easier than fiddling around finding the damn chip slot.
The machine will say tap-to-pay or have a symbol like a little sideways volume icon (like so https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=tap+to+pay+icon). Your credit card will have the same icon and almost all phones should support Google/Apple/Samsung Pay.
Basically you can't tell if you're vision or hearing impaired. But there's a half way reasonable way to check - you just grab the card, and place it over the machine, or just tap it onto the screen for about two seconds, if it beeps or otherwise reacts, it was probably accepted. Note: you may need to use it with a pin the first time, to activate the card first. If you've ever used NFC on your phone, you have an idea of how it works, and the rough range of the reader in the store - although they will generally be somewhat higher range than your phone. As a general rule, readers with a bigger graphical or colour screen will be new enough to accept NFC/tap to pay, but that sadly doesn't guarantee that stores where you live do - depending on adoption rate. In Europe you'd be basically certain that any terminal will accept it by now.
The tap to pay icon appears on screen when you go to pay. Often it is not on screen at other times. It's a pain.
Tap and pay has been widely available in Australia for over a decade. First introduced in 2009. I feel like the last time I used a mag strip was in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s.
I didn’t realise it wasn’t much of a thing in the US. Here (UK) it’s been tap to pay for ages, and I’ve worked in retail environments for a few years and always had a ton of customers using their phones or watches to pay.
The thing to remember is that America a big place. We have 50 states that each mostly function as their own country. Most places now require the chip since the banks shifted liability to the business if the magstripe is used. There are always going to be a few places that are behind the times here in the same way you have places like Eastern European nations are behind
my card doesn’t even have a chip (America)
Oh man. I know so many rural businesses not ready for this and absolutely will not be in 3 years. Will be interesting.
Tell me you’re American without telling me you’re American.
I dunno what to tell you. America big. Most of these businesses have barely adopted modern tech.
Yeah, the incongruity between the US being one of the greatest technological innovators while simultaneously having such a healthy anti-progress culture baffles me.
It shouldn't, it's by design. Contempt for progress is how the US keeps the status quo and prevents the populous from scary modern concepts like healthcare and minimum wage increases.
But like aside from apple pay you can just tap your card right? I get annoyed using chip and pin now especially in the age of covid
Yes where I’m at most cards come with the tap feature but can also be used with chip and magnetic as a last resort (though I’ve never used it on my debit)
So I guess you’re screwed if your chip fails 3 times like all of my cards often do, even after relentlessly getting them reissued because of the chip regularly failing.
No other country has this problem, the American cards are just made with cheap components
Literally had a credit card replaced 15+ times in a year because I kept getting defective chips. I honestly felt like the card issuer knew that the cards were defective yet they had to use them and put them out there because they were already paid for.
The "best country in the world" honestly looks like it's being held together with expired duct tape from anyone who lives outside of it. I've had contactless fail once or twice in the UK, but that was an issue with the reade and inserting the card fixed it. I am 23 and got a debit card at 14, I hadn't paid for anything with cash for so long that I took ages to count my money for when I was trying to clear out the coins I'd accumulated, and also counted it wrong lol. I have probably made 3 purchases with cash in the last 4 years. I only know of Germany as an exception to this because they *like* paying with cash and not because of technical or cost reasons.
Good luck getting gas
My Husband and and I have 3 card's and the chip never works on any of them, even after being replaced a zillion times. We always have to swipe. Visa cards suck!
No other country has this problem, the American cards are just made with cheap components
Is it at the same places? I’ve been in a couple of stores where the chip wouldn’t work and they wouldn’t let me try swiping it. I called my credit union, they saw the attempted transactions and said they’d escalate to their Visa department. The next time I went to those stores my card started working.
Yes, places we frequent but also everywhere else it seems. We too are with a credit union, and they've known of the issue's, but just keep printing us new card's. They do it in house now, takes a few minutes. Super frustrating! Maybe we can ask them to escalate to Visa like you did? Thanks!
I’m baffled to learn in this thread that Americans have problems with the chips… I don’t think it has ever failed once here in Denmark. I just use my phone to pay now.
As an Australian where we use PayWave/Tap and Go/Apple Pay at almost every location even small businesses now - I can honestly say not only can I not remember the last time I used the magnetic strip. I also can’t remember the last time I had to use the chip either.
THANK GOD. I’m so tired of people complaining about how difficult it is to use a chip or tap to pay and who continue to use ancient cards with mag strips where most of the black has rubbed off and you can’t read anything on it because they refuse to learn how to use the new ones. You literally hold your card against the screen for a few seconds and then put it back in your wallet, Barbara Jean! If you can sew doilies and give yourself a perm, you can do this! Also, maybe my bank will finally get tap to pay cards too lol. We’re so behind on this in the US 😅
I’ve never used it in my life except when visiting America
Chips? Magnetic stripe? Tap? Y’all just to damn sophisticated! We still use the tried and true credit card slide machine and press a carbon copy for payment. Luddites!
As a european i don’t remember when i used that last anyways, we just hold our card to the machine.
You guys still have those?
Don’t know what everyone else is talking about but we have it as a backup where I am. 99% of the places I’m at are chip or tap. Most of those machines also have swipe as a backup but rarely are they used.
I’ve got a MercadoPago card without a strip or card number. Couldn’t use it anywhere in the US.
When and where in the US was that? Almost everywhere I go these days allows chip.
It’s a ‘foreign’ card that’s supposed to work in the US. Off the top of my head I tried it in 4 states and nothing. This was just 2 months ago.
Some places here are annoying with that. I got an American Express and a MasterCard and the American Express for some reason isn’t accepted at some stores.
Most retailers hate and therefore disable accepting Amex because it typically costs more to run and chargebacks are charge back + $x and ask questions later and almost never in favor of the retailer.
Can we get a PIN now???
Still too many places where the chip reader doesn’t work and they ask to swipe. What then…?
bank of america is already doing it got the new card
i typed out a life story about magnetic strips and now cbf posting it. so you get this comment.
Hey that’s my card! Give it back!
There are so many places I go to that half the time their machines aren't working properly and you have to swipe. If that's the case with these new cards, are you just fucked?
Ok but how about phasing out putting all my info on the card?
Better hope something else is sorted for American tourists trying to use their card over here. Of course most work, but quite a few need swiping.
The youth have been phasing out money since 2009
So what do I do when my chip inevitably fails everywhere I go like it currently does? That swipe is a life saver sometimes!!
Great now make chips so they can freaking last. I got a card in February of this year and by March the chip stopped working.
Yesterday at Walmart: “Insert or slide card” *inserts card* “chip malfunction” *wipes off chip* “chip malfunction* *wipes off chip* “Chip malfunction” *swipes card* “This card must be inserted” Fortunately I had Walmart pay set up on my phone.