Credit card chip vs. scan purchase

I have a Chase Card and Chase doesn't care one way or another. It is up to the vendor's card reader. Remember it is just a card reader for all credit cards, Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, etc. Sometimes the vendors machine, even though it has a chip slot, only uses the swipe strip. At this point I would say 99% of my transactions are chip rather than scan or strip reading.

Just a note, Karen, but my SIL who lives in Nice and a friend who lives in Rouen had their cards compromised when using a scanner. Need to be cautious.

When a card is compromised it very difficult to determine exactly when and where it was compromised. Can almost guarantee it was not the last time the card was used. Many times cards are compromised but the delay for usage can be several weeks.

I've been able to use tap, some I've had to insert, and a few I even had to sign the slip - and this was on a trip a few weeks ago thru Prague, Austria and Italy (I can't recall where I had to sign, but it was at least twice). And I have a true tap/chip/pin as I'm in Canada.

Often the sign-or-not decision is driven by the value of the purchase. And I think the same applies to tapping vs. inserting.

The ones I had to sign weren’t any great amount, which was why it seemed strange.. I have to insert for anything over about $100.

I've had people mention 30 as the limit for tapping, but I don't remember whether that was in Spain, France, or the UK--probably in the UK where there's no language issue for me. Obviously, "30" in the UK would be close to $40 US and just over $50 Canadian.

There is a £30 limit for contactless card purchases in the UK. Apple Pay does not have this limit (I got this information from our poster Nigel, personally).

I don't know how it works in other places. Contactless is slowly being rolled out in the US; none of my cards have it yet.

As to what you have to do with your card, it varies in the US as well. At my supermarket, I have to insert the chip and then sign, regardless of how low the amount is. At Trader Joes (another supermarket), I only insert the chip, regardless of how high the amount is (once it was almost $100, and it still went through without signing). At my dentist's office, they have the weirdest machines I've seen. These require that I first swipe the card, then insert the chip, then sign! And of course, at some stores there is a price differential - below a certain amount you don't sign, above that amount you do.

So, in the US there's a lot of variety in the machines used and their requirements. I'm sure this is true in other countries as well.

One that my sister reminded me of - you can only use a credit card on London buses if it is contactless; you can't use the magnetic stripe or the chip to pay with a card on the bus.

This site shows the different limit value for contacted cards in Europe and further afield in different countries: https://merchantmachine.co.uk/contactless-limits/

This was compiled at the beginning of the year but may now be out of date as there have been a few rises through the year.

My last trip (Ireland in May) I used scan sparingly. Merchants told me they are limited to no more than 30 euro purchases and no more than three per day. I'm guessing it's an EU limit set to limit fraudulent transactions with stolen cards. At first I thought it was a specific merchant but heard the exact same numbers at multiple places around the country.

Normally, every merchant knows how to run your card - even that you need to sign rather than enter your PIN. I don't think I've had what you experienced other than at multiple French toll booths. Usually I can get something to go through, sometimes on the second try.