Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: ATM fraud and C&P
From: Henning Makholm 
Date: 20 Nov 2004 03:07:10 +0000

Scripsit john boyle 
> Henning Makholm  writes
> >Scripsit Alex 

> >> You will *not* be asked for a PIN unless the transaction is processed via
> >> the chip, since it's the chip that authenticates your PIN.

> >Then how come I've been using PIN for >10 years but only got a card
> >with a chip on it this spring?

> Because youve only ever been asked at an ATMs.

Actually not, but I was playing the deliberately-obtuse game and
immediately thought better of it and tried to cancel my message.
Unfortunately many news servers do not (for excellent reasons)
process cancels.

The full story, now that the cat is out of the box, is that my >10
years of PIN use did not happen in the UK.  Since the mid-1980's,
retail transactions in Denmark using Danish-issued cards have been
swipe-and-PIN.  When going (and, recently, moving) abroad I have
always been stuck by the sheer bother of signing and passing little
paper slips back and forth each time I wanted to pay something with
plastic. Nowadays I prefer using cash. It feels easier and safer than
the paper slip merry-go-round. I do find it somewhat bemusing to read
these discussions where PINs are invariably presented as something
that is tied to having a chip on the card.

But all of this is admittedly only tangentially relevant, if at all,
to the thread, and I apologize for having the bad idea to try to angle
it in sideways.

-- 
Henning Makholm             "Jeg forstår mig på at anvende sådanne midler på
                           folks legemer, at jeg kan varme eller afkøle dem,
                    som jeg vil, og få dem til at kaste op, hvis det er det,
                  jeg vil, eller give afføring og meget andet af den slags."