it is starting to make sense why people are reporting probs with atms

Jill -- Come on -- don't be an alarmist !!! Read the article carefully. Primarily referring to credit cards and a known problem for a long time. Nothing said about ATM/debit cards not working. Where are all the people reporting problems with ATMs? Not on this site. Everyone here says ATMs and debit cards work fine. Sometimes an ATM might not function but it is an ATM problem and not a card problem. Relax, you debit card at an ATM will work fine everywhere.

Frank is right. There have been no issues with debit cards in Italy. I must say that not a lot of people have troubles with their credit cards either. You'll find the main complain about credit cards has to do with the trenitalia website which is not set up to take CC's from the U.S., Canada or Australia.

Donna

Jill, this is no big deal. It has been this way for a while. No one refused my VISA credit card when I was in Italy/Sardinia a couple of weeks ago, nor when I was in France last year. This was true in the smallest shop in the smallest town.

But when I went to self-service gas station my credit card would not work, but if I gave it to an attendant, in a regular gas station, he had no problem. Yes, it would ask for a pin number, but they taught me in Portugul to press "enter" twice to be able to use my US VISA credit card. And yes, we had to pay cash on the Metro in Paris, or go to the attended window.

We NEVER had any problems with ATM's and true Debit cards...anywhere, at any time. Sometimes we might run into a machine that was not working.....just like here...so we just moved on.

We just returned from Italy and Malta. My wife still has not received her new VISA card with a chip and not once was there a problem with a retailer refusing the no chip card. They just swiped it through the machine as in the past. I only experienced a "problem" twice at an ATM machine where there was a transmission problem. So went to the next bank and it worked fine. As far as I am concerned, this is not a problem and not one to be getting stressed over.

We had a shop in Dover, England refuse our Mastercard because it was not "chipped" two years ago. Other then that, no problems with it.

However, on our last trip to Italy just last month, a Bankomat machine (BTW, please get in the habit of calling them Bankomats - if you ask someone where the nearest ATM is located, you are likely not going to be understood), the machine in Venice jammed on a 400.00 Euro transaction. We got the receipt that we were given the money - but no money came out. Since it was at 8:00pm, we had to fret for a day until we resolved the problem at the bank the next day. Since that was our rent money on the apartment, we also had an irate (momentarily) landlord on our hands. But it worked out.

In my case, I always look for the Cirrus sign on the Bankomat. These tend to be the easiest to work and almost never give problems. The two times I used my card in Venice, it was with other types of Bankomats and both times it was, shall we say, less convenient, though eventually still manageable as long as they don't jam up on you.

One other thing. Before we take Europeon trips, we notify our credit card company that we will be in Europe visiting, say Italy and Greece. We use only one credit card while there.