Using Metal Card in USA - Not as shiny as it used to be

Which EU countries? I know the UK and Sweden protects consumers from liability in case of fraud. If there’s been a shift, it’s been from card issuers to retailers.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the US is holding back itself and the rest of the world when it comes to improving security of cards.

Not been to US yet, but from my EU citizen point of view there is many things wrong with US - probably most annoying is that prices in shops displayed without taxes included. That is sooo wrong. :-1:

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I’d second that. The second thing which irritates me is the all pervasive tipping culture.

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@dimitrism - this is not true. The card issuer’s liability is governed by Regulation 76 of the Payment Services Regulations 2017. The customer’s liability is governed by Regulation 77 of the Payment Services Regulations 2017. Although this legislation derives from an EU directive, I’m quoting the enacted UK legislation, because Revolut is a UK company. Which (Consumers’ Association) also publishes a guide about this.

The card holder is liable only where he/she has acted fraudulently or with gross negligence (e.g. writing one’s card number on the card). For those of you in the UK, watch Watchdog on BBC1 at 20:00 this evening, which will feature a story about a card holder who was mugged for his debit card, which was subsequently used to spend GBP 20,000 spend in 39 transactions while he was unconscious and in hospital. NatWest refused to reimburse him initially, saying that his PIN had been used, but eventually reimbursed him.

The purpose of a PIN is to prevent fraud. It does not transfer liability.

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Hi @NFH ,

You are right about the legislation, but my friend from Greece lost her card and during the night the criminal made successful transactions with her PIN and some contactless. She never wrote the PIN on the card or in her wallet.
The Greek bank couldn’t believe her and after the dispute and all the process, she never take her money back. So in this case how to trust your PIN card??? Maybe If the card was only with chip&signature, after the dispute probably she will take her money back.

So I don’t trust Chip&Pin anymore.

@dimitrism - you can’t blame the chip & PIN system for a Greek card issuer’s breach of Article 73(1) of Directive (EU) 2015/2366, which states:

Τα κράτη μέλη μεριμνούν ώστε, με την επιφύλαξη του άρθρου 71, σε περίπτωση μη εγκεκριμένης πράξης πληρωμής, ο πάροχος υπηρεσιών πληρωμών του πληρωτή να επιστρέφει στον πληρωτή το ποσό της μη εγκεκριμένης πράξης πληρωμής αμέσως, και σε κάθε περίπτωση το αργότερο έως το τέλος της επόμενης εργάσιμης ημέρας, μετά από ενημέρωση ή ειδοποίηση σχετικά με τη συναλλαγή, εκτός εάν ο πάροχος υπηρεσιών πληρωμής του πληρωτή έχει βάσιμες υπόνοιες απάτης και κοινοποιεί τους λόγους αυτούς στην αρμόδια εθνική αρχή γραπτώς. Κατά περίπτωση, ο πάροχος υπηρεσιών πληρωμών του πληρωτή επαναφέρει τον λογαριασμό πληρωμών που χρεώθηκε στην κατάσταση που θα βρισκόταν αν η μη εγκεκριμένη πράξη πληρωμής δεν είχε πραγματοποιηθεί. Η εν λόγω ενέργεια διασφαλίζει επίσης ότι η ημερομηνία αξίας για την πίστωση του λογαριασμού πληρωμών του πληρωτή δεν είναι μεταγενέστερη της ημερομηνίας κατά την οποία χρεώθηκε το ποσό.

Member States shall ensure that, without prejudice to Article 71, in the case of an unauthorised payment transaction, the payer’s payment service provider refunds the payer the amount of the unauthorised payment transaction immediately, and in any event no later than by the end of the following business day, after noting or being notified of the transaction, except where the payer’s payment service provider has reasonable grounds for suspecting fraud and communicates those grounds to the relevant national authority in writing. Where applicable, the payer’s payment service provider shall restore the debited payment account to the state in which it would have been had the unauthorised payment transaction not taken place. This shall also ensure that the credit value date for the payer’s payment account shall be no later than the date the amount had been debited.

Your friend should require the card issuer to comply with the Greek enactment of the above directive. Her failure to do so is not a shortcoming of, or a liability created by, chip & PIN.

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Thanks for the info @NFH .
I’ll tell her about this.

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Interesting topic and warning for everyone!

My Metal card is still new and shiny but every time when i see that someone is going to use chip&PIN machine on my Metal card i freak out! The problem with Metal card is also that contactless symbol is on the back side so even in the shops where they accept contactless cards most workers will not see that and will try to use chip&PIN method and potentialy scratch your card… (then ofcourse i am screaming “nooooooooo, this is contactless card God damn woman” … lol )

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The problem with Metal card is the contactless not working fully (for me).
Because I often face a read issue and have to try again 2-3 times or just give up and do chip&pin because it fails to read the card. :confused:

I’ve found when using contactless you need to place the rear of the card (ie the signature strip side) toward the contactless reader pad. The front (metal) side of the card blocks the radio signals - which makes sense when you think about it.

I have used my metal card for about 5 months and it’s still in pristine condition despite using it virtually every day. I rarely withdraw cash - preferring to use card whenever possible - but I do panic a little when inserting it into an ATM. I think the mechanisms within those machines can be quite rough; they’ve certainly causes severe scratches to some of my plastic cards in the past.

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That is exactly why most of the debit and credit cards issued in Switzerland have region restrictions active in the issuers authorization systems. My cards would not work in the US and many other world regions without chip authorization except if I tell my issuer to enable it beforehand. This is for good reason, as some years ago, mag stripe copying took place on a large scale, cards produced in the US/South America to then commit fraud there.

In Europe, EMV fallback (using mag stripe instead of chip and pin or contactless with or without pin) is phased out by all issuers. This has already started to take place. That is why I always keep mag stripe disabled on my cards in Europe. There are hardly any legitimate uses for it anymore.

Mastercard recently even introduced a chip only card, no magstripe anymore.

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VISA’s V-PAY (so Maestro of the VISA World) also doesn’t have a magstripe by design.

I have a V-Pay card and it has magstripe

Is it co-badged? With co-badged cards, not all applications are necessarily available on all mediums.

My traditional bank card is V-Pay & Girocard with magstripe and I’m very sure the magstripe comes from Girocard and not V-Pay :smile:

There are actually V Pay only cards with magstripe

https://www.hypovereinsbank.de/hvb/privatkunden/girokonten/bankkarten/v-pay-karte

(and yes, no girocard or any other functional AID on it)

Of course V Pay doesn’t work with the Magstripe data, but int this case it SEEMS it’s there as fallback for the german “ELV” (direct debit) thingy so that older POS can read the account number from the magstripe if they still want to use that for generating a direct debit mandate instead.

Not really sure why the magstripe tracks would be populated correctly otherwise on all three tracks.

Hey @slz, I wouldn’t see this card as V-Pay only if it supports ELV. It was @Karol who pointed out Vpay is chip only by design, which would be still the case with the HVB card. But good to know for HVB customers that their Vpay card will be accepted by merchants that accept ELV only.

Well in this case it’s because the debit system :smile: