Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

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I'm surprised, Capital One are idiots.

I was travelling to Europe but the Capital One card I had only had a magnetic strip. I've had this issue before with other US banks and it was fairly trivial to get a Chip & Pin card instead.

So I spoke to Capital One's CS, I explained I was going to Europe and needed a C&P card. They then read out this statement about C&P rollout in the US and how they would be replacing all Capital One cards within the next 12 months (or similar).

I told them I was leaving in just over a month, and that magnetic strip cards don't work in much of Europe (which is true, a lot of places have physically removed magnetic strip readers now).

So they re-read out selective parts of the statement about the US rollout and said they cannot provide me with a C&P card and "not to worry your card will work fine until then."

I was and still am flabbergasted. It is like they weren't even listening to what I had just said. The worst part? This is a card which advertises itself as having "No foreign transactions fees" as a major perk, yet they don't offer C&P for people who, you know, actually travel? Mind boggling.

I bet before this US C&P rollout they were providing C&P to people who asked for them, then they set up some internal process for C&P rollout for all of their customers but confused themselves and now think that they cannot provide it unless you're rolled out to...

Regardless I just gave up. Their brand of stupid was too much for me, their CS just ignored what I said and keeped on parroting.

As an aside, no USA banks issue chip and PIN cards. The EMV-capable cards being rolled out are chip and sign cards. This usually doesn't matter but can cause issues at fully automated tills (the common example being issues when trying to purchase transit tickets).

Wikipedia's article on EMV has a section explaining the technical differences[0] between the card types.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV#Chip_and_PIN_vs._Chip_and_...

Yes they do. Wells Fargo issued me one to use on my trip to Paris. It worked fine in Paris, plug it in, enter the pin, and done. It does take some getting used to, but my Target Red Card works the same way now in the US (enter a pin, etc).

Also your link contradicts your point:

> As an aside, no USA banks issue chip and PIN cards. The EMV-capable cards being rolled out are chip and sign cards.

But if you actually read the very section you linked it says that they are Chip and Pin and not only are they Chip and Pin, but they're the exact same "EuroPay" compatible cards issued in much of Europe.

Did you even read what you linked to, like at all..? Because:

> The chips in these cards feature "PIN" ranked first in the list of possible cardholder verification methods (CVM), but with signature allowed as a fall-back option (or even no verification at unattended terminals).

So you're wrong. Every USA bank is issuing Chip and Pin you just cannot read.

I wasn't aware of Wells Fargo issuing Chip and PIN cards[0] and I appreciate you pointing that out!

The other USA banks that I've looked at (Bank of America[1], for example) issue signature-only cards. These not working in unattended kiosks is mentioned in the last paragraph of the Wikipedia section we're both referring to.

The main problem with Chip and PIN cards in the USA is PIN management. Since EMV was developed before every ATM was online, the card needs to be aware of its PIN. Not many USA ATMs support reading EMV cards, which makes changing the PIN on the card difficult.

This is why Wells Fargo[0] don't allow you to change your card's PIN and is why many USA banks simply chose to skip PINs altogether. The last sentence of the Wikipedia section we're referring to mentions this.

[0]: https://www.wellsfargo.com/credit-cards/features/chip-card/f... [1]: https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/faq/emv-chip-card-faq.... under "Using chip credit cards" see "Bank of America doesn't currently offer consumer credit cards that include PIN authorization for purchases." Debit cards can be PIN authorised when running them over the online interbank networks, which makes offline PIN management irrelevant.

Try calling again. It sounds like you talked to only 1 or 2 people; sometimes it takes a few tries with call centers to get to someone who will listen to you. It's totally annoying, but in the end maybe the person you talked to was distracted and was just having a bad day. It was wrong of them to not listen to you, but if it's a chronic problem with that person, some sort of automated satisfaction survey should eventually pick that up.

And this is why I closed my ING Direct account very shortly after they were bought by Capital One.

On the other hand when I called USAA with a question about Apple Pay, within about five minutes I was talking to a specially trained Apple Pay expert that they had on hand.

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