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Comment by usaphp | Hacker News Reader

> so the facilities for reading them simply didn't (widely) exist

I live in San Diego, 8/10 places where I shop still have chip slot taped closed with a handwritten message "Does not work".

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Which is problematic when you visit with a European card where only the chip works (swiping always gets declined). Luckily, some have contactless (mostly without the staff knowing about it) and for others it usually turns out that the chip reader does actually work.

I wonder how many of them actually work.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that most of them work but that businesses want to avoid them because they slow down the checkout process.

Out of curiosity... Do these same places accept contactless payment, either by card, or e-wallet (Google/Apple Pay etc.) ?

The only place so far where I can safely use Apple Pay without causing any frustration from cashiers is Whole Foods, cashiers in the rest of the stores either have no idea if the Apple Pay is supported or the terminal itself is not "enabled" to support Apple Pay.

Interestingly, I have been traveling in Ireland recently, and well over 90% of my transactions are Apple Pay.

Some of the retailers in the States are protesting Apple Pay and disabling it on the terminals even though it would otherwise be fully supported. Home Depot did this awhile back, they were one of the first places where Apple Pay worked and then it stopped working due to some corporate hissy fit.

That's a political decision. Stores like you to use store cards wherever possible (where they get a profile of what you've bought). Banks have to share profits with Apple for Apple Pay which is why they try to avoid it.

when visiting Austin, US I went for a burger in Fridays near a highway and cashier was like "Oh my god, I have never seen this thing working!!!" after my contactless worked on their terminal :D Apparently it's too much magic and people just stopped trying to use chip, contactless or anything else. Just cash and swipe :)

Had the same at a McDonald's in Boston. They even called the manager to show him what happened. Turned out that no one working there was aware that they had contactless functions, despite the advertisement at the machine.

I even get that in Belgium. And the occasional cashier that double-checks the terminal's ticket/output because they suspect the transaction is invalid because "as far as they know contactless doesn't work".

I think McDonald's was the first time I ever encountered a contactless terminal. It goes much faster than inserting the chip for some reason.

I love the system and like that it's being used extensively in some countries (e.g. UK) and becoming more prevalent in others (e.g. Germany). What's annoying are the differences in rules. In the UK it only works up to £30 (but terminals show the logo for any amount), in Spain it will work but I'll have to enter a PIN for higher amounts, other countries have completely different rules around that.

For those of us stuck in 2007. Can you briefly describe how the contactless payment works ?

You just hold the card over the screen and it reads (I believe) an RFID chip in the card. No swiping or card insertion required.

And it's much faster most of the time.

How do you know if your card supports it? Try it and see if it works?

I had no clue until a cashier did it for me in a European country. There may be a little logo like this either on your card or on the materials when you get your card: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_smart_card#/media/....

Once it was demonstrated to me, I went back and found out the cards I've had since 2013 (pre-chip).

RFID Cards or NFC from your phone. Hold your payment method near the reader and it pulls the card info wirelessly.

Contactless was narrowly deployed in the US 10ish years ago. It never took off as too few vendors had the terminals to support it. I only ever used mine at the local grocery store. I don't think you can get an RFID card from a US bank any more.

Capital One has started issuing contactless credit cards. They began in late June, I think. I have one.

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