OT Credit card problems

[KenK]

Lately I've been having a lot of problems using credit cards in stores. I get a 'card problem' message from the card reader and have to use a different card. I phone the card service and they send me a new card in a week or two. After a few months the problem returns. I just recived a brand new card and this happened the first time I used it. I have to have four or five cards because one or two of them are usually not usable.

I don't physically abuse that cars. I carry them in my wallet. This had worked for decades in the past. Suddenly all these new problems.

Anyone else or just my bad luck?

TIA

[Jack G....]

A lot of stores do not clean their card readers and that will cause them to start rejecting cards that are hard to read.

[Ralph Mowery]

This is a wild shot. Is your wallet made of plastic ? Or something else that can generate static electricity ?

I just wonder how well the chip cards are protected from the static electricity that may be generated. Did this problem start when it turned cold and dry ?

[KenK]

Ralph Mowery [e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Yes, it's likely plastic.Possibly leather, but I doubt it.

It doesn't seem to be weather related. Also, the wallet has caused no credit card problems for the past few decades, or as long as I've had it.

[philo]

I have several credit cards and one of them does that too.

It sometimes helps to give it a good wiping off.

For whatever reason it usually works on the third try.

[Mark Lloyd]

I've had occasional failures, but usually it works to try the card again.

You said you only had problems recently. Could this change have anything to do with the cards now having chips?

[Clare Snyder]

Magnetic stripe or chip? I wiped out a whole lot of mag stripe cards with a combination of cell phone, magnetic clip-on sun glasses, and numerous other magnetic devices

[Clare Snyder]

Never had my chip card fail except on a few machines that basically failed every chip card. VERY rareoccurance and we've been chip for AGES.Actually been tap now for years too.

[Scott Lurndal]

Modern cards have a chip with exposed terminals. They've only been out for a few years now in general use in the US (they were available earlier in Europe). It's different from the magstripe on the back.

[Clare Snyder]

Actually "modern" card have RFID ships that can be read fromabout

8mm.

[gfretwell]

We are far from universal acceptance of either type of chip. Some small businesses are still just swiping the strip and some banks are still not issuing chip cards, even the "contact" chip. I see people swiping cards at the store all the time. I have a bunch of cards (from

4 banks) and only one has the RFID chip (Citi). They all do have the contact chip.

[Clare Snyder]

You guys need to get into the 21st century - you are 20 years late. Up here in Canada all credit cards are AT LEAST " chip and pin" - likely better than 90% are also "tap and go". It's been about 15 years since I had a credit card that wasn't "tap and go" aka "contactless chip".

[gfretwell]

It looks like we are going to skip chip and pin. I think tap and go is where we will end up. I think the contact chip idea sounds good but the readers seem to be getting flaky. It may just be a maintenance thing.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

About 15 years ago I had an American Express Blue card that had contactless payment. They've since then stopped doing that.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

Readers get flaky here, but it's usually not the chip contacts. It's the touchscreen.

[KenK]

Mark Lloyd [e-mail] wrote in news:ijaiG.665696$ [e-mail]:

I suspect that's possible.

[Clare Snyder]

We've expreienced a lot less trouble with the "contact" chips than with mag-stripe reaers by a factor of at least 5 or 10.

Tap readers can be flakey too. When they don't work we use the chip and pin.