V-Flyer

Hi, is anyone else having problems with their new VAA Amex Chip & Pin.[n]
It seems certain types of card readers won't read Amex cards so it's back to the old signature.

My most recent experience was this morning in my local "Texaco" filling station. As I handed the card over the cashier said "I'll give it a go but I've not had one of these Amex cards work yet". This was even before I had made any suggestion that there may be a problem with it

Hi there

I have had an Amex charge card for a while and would say that most petrol stations still ask for a signature, but most shops accept pin entry. I believe it has something to so with upgrading the card swiping hardware. I suppose that most because most garages are run as a franchise these days they can't easily afford the expense of changing over yet, whereas most major stores can.

I wonder where this leaves them with respect to fraud though. I seem to remember something mentioned about liability for fraudulent transactions lying with the store owner if a signature is used, but lying with the card company if a pin is used. If this is the case, it might be false economy for these guys not to upgrade soon.

Should of mentioned, it appears that the machines that they swipe the card and the leave it in until the process is complete are OK, such as the tills at Tesco.
However, the machines that they just place it into (normally vertically) are the ones that won't read the card.

-Steve

Have had a couple of places where I have had to sign, but the majority of chip and pin machines read my Amex fine.

The only place I have to sign (regardless of card type) is at my local Shell filling station, but that was because Shell's C+P terminals had been tampered with so they have withdrawn all of them until further notice.

Regards