Can a shop refuse to take a chip & sig card?

gordikin

marleyboy wrote: »

I dont think the OP was demanding the shop sell the items.

The clue is in the question........
Prompting a simple, yet polite Yes or No answer.

Yes, that's the title. What about the doubly thick unhelpful till trout comment and the 'any regulations' question?

marleyboy

Sorry gordikin, I thought you were better than this, it turns out I was mistaken.

The simple answer OP is Yes they can refuse to take a Chip & Sig card.

mo786uk

Signatures were not that secure anyway

Having worked at a large supermarket I can tell you that most of the time a lot of staff didnt even look at the signatures.

They both have their flaws.

Jakg

teabelly wrote: »

My mum has a chip & signature card. Today a shop assistant refused to let her pay with it saying it was for her own good.

A lot of merchant agreements say that the card company provide protection in the event of a dodgy card IF the pin is used... if it's a signature the merchant bears the cost - thus why some shops (rightly or wrongly) are reluctant to take them.

However, legally they can refuse any payment they like, and refuse to serve anyone they like. The only exception is the settlement of debt (i.e. a restaurant, where you eat the meal "on credit" and then pay at the end), where they must take cash (but only have to accept a certain number of each denomination of coins).

tehone

gordikin wrote: »

Any shop can choose what payment they accept. Are you, to use your own words 'doubly thick' in not understanding this?

That's true, but perhaps having agreed with their payment processor (e.g. Lloyds TSB Cardnet) to accept cards, you may find that the terms and conditions of their contract with the payment processor what card types they must accept and under what conditions. For example some contracts will allow payments to be made via the old fashioned card imprint method as well (in case of communications failure) and some won't.

I expect that you'll find that if you accept chip and pin you may have to accept chip and signature as well (and that's ignoring any DDA implications that may have relevance)

teabelly

Compromised cash points are more likely to put my mum at risk of theft than the shop is to be at risk from accepting chip and sig cards. So the 'for your own good' is nonsense and it is more for the shops own good. If a chip and sig card won't be taken then it needs to be displayed clearly so that customers know in advance rather than waiting until they offer a legitimate payment method for it to be refused.

Coopdivi

Well done Marleyboy. It took you three attempts to answer the original question

teabelly

mo786uk wrote: »

Signatures were not that secure anyway

Having worked at a large supermarket I can tell you that most of the time a lot of staff didnt even look at the signatures.

They both have their flaws.

That's an easily fixed human error though.

gordikin

marleyboy wrote: »

Sorry gordikin, I thought you were better than this, it turns out I was mistaken.

The simple answer OP is Yes they can refuse to take a Chip & Sig card.

If the OP was not demanding the shop sell them goods on chip & sig. why were they looking for regulations they could cite? I find the till trout and doubly thick comment from the OP objectionable...so yes, maybe we have different standards and I am better than you thought.

marleyboy

mo786uk wrote: »

Signatures were not that secure anyway

Having worked at a large supermarket I can tell you that most of the time a lot of staff didnt even look at the signatures.

They both have their flaws.

Would have to agree, however I do think the signature was more difficult than four numbers.

In truth, nothing is safe, I never liked the idea of online banking when banks first introduced it, I thought it very risky and insecure, the idea that someone could withdraw money from somebody else's account or purchase items without even leaving a bedroom, a faceless, anonymous, criminal.

Nowadays even my phone has app's for Paypal and banking, gone are the days when we had to physically go into a shop or bank to buy items.