What's better....chip/pin or chip/signature?

[pizza1]

Thoughts on this topic please, and why, thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hey dude. I think the majority of people would agree that chip/pin is better and more secure. It pretty much makes your credit card a debit card when paying since you need to enter numbers to ensure the transaction goes through so fraud would be harder to come by. Also, if someone found your card, they wouldn't be able to use them. However, this is sort of useless for the time being because most cards with any kind of chip still has a strip because chip payment isn't widely accepted yet. As for aesthetics, it's up to you. I think chip/pin chips are larger, so if you think bigger is better... there ya go.

[Pat94108]

I have used both chip and pin and chip and signature. I m not sure if one is better than the other, but I like chip and pin better as it is more secured, but as said by Hamsup, useless since they're not widely accepted in the US yet. 

[pizza1]

@ham... I'm a "she" btw, lol!!!! And thank you for your input! It's all new too me, and I'd like to do what's best. And your right, I've read stories that for instance at Walmart, someone tried to use chip/pin and it crashed their system lol!! Not everyone is on board with it yet I guess.

[Anonymous]

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@Pat94108 wrote:

I have used both chip and pin and chip and signature. I m not sure if one is better than the other, but I like chip and pin better as it is more secured, but as said by Hamsup, useless since they're not widely accepted in the US yet. 

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+1. Safety is important.

[Anonymous]

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@pizza1 wrote:
@Anonymous... I'm a "she" btw, lol!!!! And thank you for your input! It's all new too me, and I'd like to do what's best. And your right, I've read stories that for instance at Walmart, someone tried to use chip/pin and it crashed their system lol!! Not everyone is on board with it yet I guess.

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I think Walmart had trouble with the whole EMV thing and have, at least in some places, disabled a vital safeguard, that cards with a chip cannot be swiped.  Other countries managed pretty easy transitions to EMV technology, hopefully eventually the US will also manage.

Chip&Sig offers protection against cloning, but not against stolen cards (any more than a non-chip card today:  In theory they should check your sig against the back of the card, but with signature pads these days.....).   Chip&Pin gives that protection too, like an ATM or debit card, so long as you don't write down the pin on or near the card, unskilled theives won't be able to use it.

In many places, Chip & Pin is the norm, especially outside (US) toursisty areas, and clerks get surprised when a signature slip gets printed out.   In many cases, no-one had a pen, it is just so unusual.

[NRB525]

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@pizza1 wrote:

Thoughts on this topic please, and why, thanks!

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Diners Club Premier and Elite come with Chip and PIN... and also MasterCard PayPass NFC Contactless capability. So if the terminal is equiped to handle PayPass, you just wave the card over the terminal and the info goes through with no PIN, or perhaps with a prompt to get a signature.

So both PIN and Signature cards, in my opinion, are the same level of "security": Posession of the actual issued card is required, cloning is more difficult, but the PIN is often a hoped-for security feature that I think will be not so much additional security.

On the same terminal at a local drugstore chain, I've used both the Diners Club Premier with PayPass contactless (it is not set up for EMV chips of any kind), and Apple Pay with other credit cards off the iPhone. Annoyingly, the Apple Pay requires a signature step, even though it requires my thumbprint to authorize the initial transaction. SO I get to use Apple Pay for a $5 charge, then get to sign for the same $5 charge also. Technology will simplify our lives. Or not.

[Anonymous]

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@NRB525 wrote:

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@pizza1 wrote:

Thoughts on this topic please, and why, thanks!

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Diners Club Premier and Elite come with Chip and PIN... and also MasterCard PayPass NFC Contactless capability. So if the terminal is equiped to handle PayPass, you just wave the card over the terminal and the info goes through with no PIN, or perhaps with a prompt to get a signature.

So both PIN and Signature cards, in my opinion, are the same level of "security": Posession of the actual issued card is required, cloning is more difficult, but the PIN is often a hoped-for security feature that I think will be not so much additional security.

On the same terminal at a local drugstore chain, I've used both the Diners Club Premier with PayPass contactless (it is not set up for EMV chips of any kind), and Apple Pay with other credit cards off the iPhone. Annoyingly, the Apple Pay requires a signature step, even though it requires my thumbprint to authorize the initial transaction. SO I get to use Apple Pay for a $5 charge, then get to sign for the same $5 charge also. Technology will simplify our lives. Or not.

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At least in theory, contactless should work only for amounts up to some limit, then you will need a PIN.   But I think centurionking, and maybe others, said they were able to make very large charges with just a wave.

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@NRB525 wrote:

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@pizza1 wrote:

Thoughts on this topic please, and why, thanks!

---

Diners Club Premier and Elite come with Chip and PIN... and also MasterCard PayPass NFC Contactless capability. So if the terminal is equiped to handle PayPass, you just wave the card over the terminal and the info goes through with no PIN, or perhaps with a prompt to get a signature.

So both PIN and Signature cards, in my opinion, are the same level of "security": Posession of the actual issued card is required, cloning is more difficult, but the PIN is often a hoped-for security feature that I think will be not so much additional security.

On the same terminal at a local drugstore chain, I've used both the Diners Club Premier with PayPass contactless (it is not set up for EMV chips of any kind), and Apple Pay with other credit cards off the iPhone. Annoyingly, the Apple Pay requires a signature step, even though it requires my thumbprint to authorize the initial transaction. SO I get to use Apple Pay for a $5 charge, then get to sign for the same $5 charge also. Technology will simplify our lives. Or not.

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At least in theory, contactless should work only for amounts up to some limit, then you will need a PIN.   But I think centurionking, and maybe others, said they were able to make very large charges with just a wave.

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Yep, as in something like $10k for a single charge if I recall. I think the story was the EMV reader was not accepting the card, so they just waved it over the reader with no issues. And no PIN.

[Anonymous]

Chip and pin for the security. 

Swiping is fastest, so it has that going for it. Moreover with zero liability for the consumer, swiping works great because it is fast. However, I prefer not to deal with fixing fraudulent transactions, so more secure methods are probably better.