I purchased something at Rite Aid using my Citi Double cash card yesterday and the machine said to use the chip. The lady at the register said to ignore it and did some stuff at the register and told me to swipe. They can do that?
Probably.
The point of the EMV chip controls is to prevent fraud at the register, and depending on the purchase amount the cashier probably has some override authority to ensure the transaction can continue and the customer is not delayed in their $20 transaction because of some issue with the EMV validation. And I've experienced some issues with EMV validations and sometimes had to got back to a non-EMV card to complete a transaction.
Some stores have the EMV machine, but are still not yet set up to take it; Ergo, swipe.
@kuku4koco wrote:Some stores have the EMV machine, but are still not yet set up to take it; Ergo, swipe.
I said the machine said to insert pin.... and they told me to swipe it after they changed it.....
@NRB525 wrote:Probably.
The point of the EMV chip controls is to prevent fraud at the register, and depending on the purchase amount the cashier probably has some override authority to ensure the transaction can continue and the customer is not delayed in their $20 transaction because of some issue with the EMV validation. And I've experienced some issues with EMV validations and sometimes had to got back to a non-EMV card to complete a transaction.
It was only $3 bucks and was late at night like 11PM local time. I had no money in my wallet so I used my credit card and it was empty. Felt like she rather mess around with the system instead of me using my chip but probably would of been faster to just use the chip imo then go through wuth the hassle. I was just curious if they could do that since I thought you had to use chip if it has one and the reader is activated.
@Closingracer99 wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:Probably.
The point of the EMV chip controls is to prevent fraud at the register, and depending on the purchase amount the cashier probably has some override authority to ensure the transaction can continue and the customer is not delayed in their $20 transaction because of some issue with the EMV validation. And I've experienced some issues with EMV validations and sometimes had to got back to a non-EMV card to complete a transaction.
It was only $3 bucks and was late at night like 11PM local time. I had no money in my wallet so I used my credit card and it was empty. Felt like she rather mess around with the system instead of me using my chip but probably would of been faster to just use the chip imo then go through wuth the hassle. I was just curious if they could do that since I thought you had to use chip if it has one and the reader is activated.
This is an interesting thread... 
What a cashier can do is pretty much determined by how the store's POS system is set up. What the cashier should do is determined by circumstances and management.
Years ago the store I worked at had managers that were quite lenient on credit card acceptance (apparently our fraud wasn't bad). On the first day of each month, if an old person came in with an expired card (it expired the day before), our management would tell us to manually key in the number, and add a year to the date. Surprisingly, this always worked, although it seems to go against all the 'best practices' of accepting credit cards. (You would be shocked how often this happened).
Had there been a charge-back, clearly the store would have been out the money, since not only was the transaction a 'keyed entry', it wasn't even keyed directly from a valid card (i.e. the expiration date wouldn't be a match to the actual card). This was a risk they deemed acceptable from a customer-service standpoint.
It's likely the POS system at Rite Aid provides a way for a cashier to bypass the EMV, and I would think of this as a good thing, at least from a customer's perspective. If I go to purchase my medications and my chip malfunctions, if there's no way for the cashier to override the system the store could lose a sale (or even worse, a customer). Of course, it does leave the merchant open to a charge-back, but depending on the circumstances - and in your situation, the dollar amount - it's good to know that functionality is there.
@Anonymous wrote:That's very interesting, B! I didn't know that would work, either.
Thanks! 
It might not work as often anymore, since now when they manually key in a card they usually have to key in the CVV off the back, which is said to be tied to the expiration date (I know I've seen this at Wal-Mart, and once at KFC when their magstrip reader was down). Where I used to work the CVV was never used; if a card wouldn't swipe we just keyed in the card number and expiration, so there was no way for the system to check if we had the actual card, or just the number.
It's probably for the best that most POS systems do require the CVV now, as it tends to keep everybody honest. It's just too bad we have to be so concerned with fraud these days... 
