Unless its changed recently, they still use signatures at the ticket office at the KC Stadium. The post office and bank lets my parents elderly friend who is 97 use a signature instead of chip & pin.

When you are sent a new card you are clearly advised in the letter to sign it immediately. If you choose not to, it's you that is jeopardizing your security, as if you lose it, someone else can sign it and use it.

Signing for transactions is still the norm in some banks never mind other outlets. Chip and Pin is open to fraud as much as signing is, imo, probably more so, and was brought in as an additional way to transact, not to replace signing yet.

Then they are idiots.
You are still advised to sign as soon as you receive your new card.
C&P is the new primary way to authorise card transactions but signing is still the back up system.

my C&P changes for each transaction, accessed via a dongle (a bit like secure VPN), how much more secure can you get?

You're the only person I've heard of whose bank offers that service. Most of us have only one PIN which can be cloned, spied or intercepted. The only fraud I've had on my account was after my card was cloned - not in an ATM machine - in a C&P machine. This would have been impossible under the signature system.

C&P relies on computers which are never 100% secure. The signature system relies on self diligence, and is controlled by the individual.

Who on earth doesn't sign their cards anymore?

Nowhere near as good as Fish and Cushion.

I walked into a car park and all i had to do to pay for my parking charges, was put it in a slot.

If you walked into a car park, why would you feel obliged to pay anything?

He was liberating a Vauxhall Corsa?

generally you pay to get out of car parks, not into them.

You can still sign for card payments and you can also swipe the card to use the magnetic stripe instead of the chip and pin (EMV) technology. These are fall back situations in case (as you found) there is a problem with the chip and pin reader (in your case none available).

When a retailer in the UK doesn't use chip and pin they are liable for any fraud. When it was mag stripe or signature verification it was the banks who were liable. When chip and pin came in it became the[i customer [/iwho was liable as the banks argued chip and pin was completely secure (it isn't). That changed a bit in 2009 when the government made the banks have to prove you were negligent in some way such that your chip and pin card being compromised really was your fault.

So while signature or mag stripe based verification is less secure you are not liable.

Years ago when testing EFT software we used to clone out own cards using the innards of a cassette player, some plastic card and tape from a video cassette. It was THAT easy to clone a card.

You can't clone an EMV card but it is possible to intercept what goes on with the interaction between the chip and the reader but you really need to know what you are doing to do that.

Card fraud these days is much more likely to be due to theft having watched you enter your pin previously. We know of someone who recently got hit for £7000 after their purse was nicked in a scam in the local Morrisons car park. They used the same PIN for all their cards and the thief's know a lot of people do this

If your card isnt signed, they can refuse to let you use it even for C&P

Yep.

Going slightly OT. Anyone ever behind me in the queue for a cash machine must think I'm breaking the damn thing when I get there. First job is to see if I can pull if off the wall, which is then followed by me grasping anything above the screen or key pad to see if It can be pulled off. If it passes those test's I'll use it.

Nothing wrong with that. I do similar myself.

Don't get me started on having to tell folk to back off when I'm entering my pin at a Cash Machine or in a shop for Chip and Pin.

I much prefer to use cash than my card. If i'm going to do a big shop, I'll go into my bank's branch, use the indoor cash machine there, as they're likely the most secure, and take out the amount i'm giving myself to spend. Also stops me going stupid with spending, as I've effectively given myself a limit.

If I'm buying something online, my password for card transactions kicks in, and if anyone can crack it, they deserve to get at my money.

I returned to the car park where I had parked my car and paid for the parking.

Better?

Much better, thank you

No worries.

Was still shocked that paying for the parking was done so easily. Just swiping the card and walking.

Believe 'contactless' payment is going to be the way forward also?

Payment via mobile devices.

Chips that slide into your mobile phone cover - I think Barclays are looking at doing that? So let me get this right - you steal my phone, which has some of my internet stuff on to start with, and you get my swipe chip at the same time? Not going on in my house!


And am I the only person who uses pay and display car parks then?

You are correct in that is what Barclays are doing, however that is not the direction most are aiming at.
Apps which connect to an agreed payment provider portal allowing access to your existing account which in turn is used to pay for services or goods. Pretty much like anybody who uses Amazon or e-bay does right now. Already in existence in many service areas such as hospitality, and will mushroom over the coming 24 months.

Your mobile acts in much the same way as your home PC does now, except nowhere on the phone are your account details stored, all that is stored is the app to link to the portal where your pin or password is used to access your account, Far easier for anybody to hack your PC and place a keyboard logger on it than to try to gain access to your A/C via your phone.

That's the theory anyway

Yes, and C&P is more secure than signing.

That's the theory, anyway....

The reality of chip and pin is that it's not to do with being more secure but more about banks being able to pass responsibility for fraud back to the client. Don't even get me started on PCI-DSS!