how secure are chip and pin cards?

arsenalboy

I had believed that your card cannot be used without the pin except for online purchases, even then most card companies have introduced passwords for buying on line.

I have just returned from Prague after a break. I used different chip and pin cards whilst there. Perhaps only 50% of the time was it treated as chip and pin. The rest of the time I was asked to sign. On the first occassion I gave a proper signature, on subsequent occassions I used a signature nothing like that on the card.
When I get my next statement i fully expect all transactions to appear. But what would have happened if I had lost my card without realising it?

ShelfStacker_3

In the UK, Chip and PIN is secure enough for day to day usage without much worry (despite what certain people on here say - cover the keypad with your hand while you enter and you've pretty much closed off one avenue for card fraud straight away) and widespread enough due to the widespread switchover campaign a few years back. Other countries may well not have been so thorough, and so may insist on a swipe (the main one being the USA.)

If you'd lost your card and it was used in a signature transaction, you'd have a good case for reimbursement, as there would be no concrete proof you'd been the one who authorised it - the card company could request the merchant's signed copy, see that the signature was crap and BAM, open and shut case.