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Comment by showerst | Hacker News Reader

I always find these things to be much slower to process than the swipe-readers, which is pretty annoying when you're in a long line.

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They are much slower. Both perceptively because you have to leave your card in during the entire transaction, and we're sending/receiving more encrypted information.

My biggest gripe is the sound for a successful transaction is the same as an error sound. It always causes me to do a double take to ensure it went through.

Just wait till you get 'contactless' https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_payment

My card now has pay wave (contactless), chip (and pin when required), and magnetic stripe.

It's a crapshoot which one will work at any given store. I do prefer the chip over swiping due to having to replace cards so often when the stripe wears out.

Contactless is listed at a lot of places, but it doesn't work consistently for some reason. Makes it hard to trust using it when the store is busy.

It was very popular for a while. Some banks were even issuing little mini-cards that were just big enough to contain the NFC chip.

As of this month, all of my contactless cards have been replaced by EMV cards without NFC. Now I only have it on my phone and smart watch.

The US actually had a lot of contactless cards for a while, before EMV, but it seems like that's been phased out (outside of the use of NFC via Apple Pay / Android Pay.

The US had NFC which just sent the magstripe which is different from EMV NFC.

That's true, especially if you have someone with a chip card who, out of habit, first tries swiping it. It takes him awhile to realize the swipe didn't work and that the reader is prompting him to insert the card into the chip reader.

That "someone" is me, by the way.

The first time I used a chip reader I kept pulling the card out because I just assumed it was like a swipe. The guy at the till didn't seem too pleased when I kept canceling the transaction.

I am also that someone, as well as the someone who further slows lines down doing the reverse—expecting the chip reader to work, inserting my card, only to be told by the cashier (after waiting for a few moments with nothing happening, of course), "Oh, that thing doesn't work. I don't even know why it's there. Just swipe it."

This is so true. It's an annoying guessing game during this transition period.

We've been using these for decades here, and they are not slow at all. Maybe it's the implementation you are using.

Also you can't start the process early. At Trader Joe's I always swiped and entered pin before the clerk finished, but it's no longer possible. :(

At least TJ's allows Apple Pay and other contactless methods. Stupid places like Home Depot and others that intentionally block Apple Pay and require the super slow chip really annoy me.

They are slower, but I'm more than happy to stand in line longer each time if it means those of us in line aren't having to deal with fraud as often.

Let's go further: I'm happy to pay with cash, if it means I don't have to deal with fraud.

In all seriousness, using cards used to be super-fast. Remember those Visa commercials - swipe and go, swipe and go, oh no someone with cash ugh it will take forever.

Now in CVS I have to swipe the card, tap NO (I don't want to donate), YES (this is debit card), my pin, YES (is $9.75 correct?) and then wait for transaction to be completed. Meanwhile a guy next to me handed $10 bill and got quarter back. He left before I finished swiping my card..

Absolutely this. I'm so sick of all the damn prompts when using a card.

Donate?! WTF, go away. I want to swipe and go, damnit. I didn't come to your establishment to take part in your charity drive.

Debit? Credit? WTF, can't you tell?!

Is this the correct amount? Shit, I don't know. Did the computer add correctly? Is this a bartering interface, where I get to say "NO", and make a counteroffer? No? Then why the hell are you asking me when I don't have a real alternative choice to make?

My personal supreme pet peeve is going to a gas pump, pressing the credit button at the pump (which has both credit and debit buttons), then being asked if the credit card I just swiped is in fact a debit card.

They really want you to use the debit card portion of your card. I believe it involves the retailer paying lower fees. It's why every terminal is trying to funnel us into it, and doesn't have an obvious way to choose credit half the time.

Yeah, I get that. But 100% of the time, I'm swiping a credit card—so there is no debit portion. And I can't believe they don't know this, and still prompt to choose credit vs debit.

> Debit? Credit? WTF, can't you tell?!

No, they can't tell when the same card can be processed in both ways. Just for fun, check out your bank's debit card fraud protection details - odds are you're much better protected if you run your debit card as a credit card (i.e. no PIN, but a signature), that way visa/MC takes on the fraud risk.

Interesting. Are you sure about this? I typically only use a credit card. They can't tell there's no debit capability?

Also, on some rare occasions when I use my debit card, the PIN entry pops up without prompting. If I don't trust the place or don't want to divulge my PIN to prying eyes, I have to hit a cancel button to process as credit. I've never seen a PIN prompt show up when swiping my credit card. If they can't tell, how does the terminal prompt for PIN only when a debit card is swiped?

Come on, you know why it asks you if it's the correct amount. There are plenty of instances when it is not (item is mistagged, scanned twice, etc.)

I have never once used that prompt to catch or respond to an error. It gives so little actionable information. That's what watching the display that totals up your scanned purchases is for. Sure, I guess some people might use that screen as their method for catching an error, but it should be caught before you're given a number and asked if its correct.

Why I think that screen is there is to shield a merchant from someone coming back after the purchase to complain. And I doubt any merchant would use that confirmation to defend an error and risk losing a customer. Which, to me, makes it even more useless.

According to the article Visa is releasing a software update to make the transactions faster.

Chip cards with contactless ability work great for speed, but I'm not sure about safety and fraud thing. It's also a matter of having people trained. I rarely need to use swipe, so naturally it takes me longer than entering pin.

The slowness is implementation.

It's not slow outside the US, where it's been in use for a long time.

In the US, it depends on the POS. At Walgreens it's basically instant, whereas at Target it takes like 8-10 seconds. It's just poor implementation.

That and when you accidentally pull your card out before the transaction finishes because your patience wanes. Then I just end up using the old magnetic swipe out of guilt.

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