Contactless credit cards.

bxboards

Arleen wrote: »

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And while I won't say that contactless is more secure than non-contactless, I would say it's a lot more secure than carrying cash around. Because if they will nick your wallet with cash, the cash is gone. But if they steal your card, you get the money back, and the procedure of getting it back is a short and straightforward phone call (been through it myself). So there really is nothing to fear here.

I think the cash is less secure is a bit of a strawman argument.

The fact remains that if I lose my contactless card in a street, it's very easy for someone to spend x amounts up to 30 pounds before a PIN is requested. This cannot be done with non-contactless cards. Again, why make it easy for a casual thief? Are we in the situation where low level fraud / theft is basically tolerated, and indeed we put technology in place to enable it?

I do not think contactless should be the default option for cards - if folks want it fine, but I the status quo I think should be PIN only with an opt-in for contactless.

Arleen

It's more in the line of whether you allow this one criminal, who by all statistics you will not run into in your lifetime even once (it's a minority of people who are a victim of theft) rule your life decisions, and rob you of the convenience of contactless without even robbing you? Let the police and courts worry about criminals, and let people live their lives.

And no, it's not a strawman argument as cash is the only real alternative for most use cases for contactless. Unless of you want to spend ~30 seconds+ when paying for pints at the local pub, assuming that they even allow for card payments for low sums .

eddddy

bxboards wrote: »

There can be no credible argument that removing a layer of security from a payment system makes it more secure. I think it must make the lives of pick-pockets easier, which is a civilized society is counter-intuitive to me.

The goal of contactless is to replace cash. So the pickpocket gets a contactless card instead of cash.

To illustrate...

I just checked my statement - last month I did 53 contactless transactions. The three smallest where 10p, 15p and 36p.

So, if I didn't have a contactless card (and only had chip and pin), I'd probably be carrying more cash to cover the smaller transactions.

I only ever carry contactless cards and perhaps a max of £5 in cash - in case of 'emergencies'.


A friend of mine doesn't like using cards much (including contactless). So he takes £100 at a time out of an ATM, and gradually works his way through it.

..and sure enough, he got his wallet stolen with about £80 or £90 in it.

If my wallet is stolen, I lose £5 and perhaps the bank loses £80 or £90.

takman

bxboards wrote: »

I think the cash is less secure is a bit of a strawman argument.

The fact remains that if I lose my contactless card in a street, it's very easy for someone to spend x amounts up to 30 pounds before a PIN is requested. This cannot be done with non-contactless cards. Again, why make it easy for a casual thief? Are we in the situation where low level fraud / theft is basically tolerated, and indeed we put technology in place to enable it?

I do not think contactless should be the default option for cards - if folks want it fine, but I the status quo I think should be PIN only with an opt-in for contactless.

If contactless was optional then the uptake would be minimal and only a small amount of shops would accept it as a payment method. People do not like change so giving people the option would result in nothing changing!.

In regards to theft you can't let the chance of theft rule your life and impact your decisions. How far do you take it maybe we should get rid of mobile phones because they are high value and easy to steal and loose, so let's go back to telephone boxes?. Get rid of Internet banking because it's not as secure as going to the bank with a set of ID to carry out transactions?.

hasdogs

Arleen wrote: »

I think that is the onus where the misconception about the insecurity of contactless comes from, that pin-coded card is otherwise safe to hand to someone, or lose. It isn't, as it still can be used for online/phone payments

While a crook can obtain enough information for such online transactions from your contactless card without it even leaving your pocket (as demonstrated by 'Rip off Britain' on the beeb).

hasdogs

takman wrote: »

People do not like change so giving people the option would result in nothing changing!

So people must be forced to have what is good for them, as long as you are the arbiter of what is good.

Are you in politics?

Arleen

hasdogs wrote: »

While a crook can obtain enough information for such online transactions from your contactless card without it even leaving your pocket (as demonstrated by 'Rip off Britain' on the beeb).

I don't pay tv tax so can't comment on the program. But while poorly implemented card could reveal your number and expiry date (although those are either out or on their way out of circulation) but you are still missing the name, CVV and address (last bit relevant only in the UK). And without those you cannot use a card to make online/telephone payments, even more so with the ever frequent rollout of 3D authentication.
You could of course also set up crooked vendor store, which will accept payments with the wrong data (to a certain point) but that means some seriously organized crime.

It's also worth mentioning that to skim a contactless card from, let's say, a pocket of your jeans, someone would have to very much tap a scanner against your lap, because they have really poor range. And all that reflects in statistics, wherein 2014 for the 2.4b spent with the contactless card the total amount of loss due to fraud was way under 200k.

hasdogs wrote: »

So people must be forced to have what is good for them, as long as you are the arbiter of what is good.

.
The free market is. You are welcome to cancel your accounts with providers who force contactless cards on you and take your business to ones who do not. And if they all will, you are free to start your credit card company that will fill that niche and become rich like a mad person. Assuming that there truly is a niche to serve.