to not want a contactless card?

[muminhants]

I didn't realise until about a year ago that my debit card is contactless, when I was in a cafe close to work and the waitress used the contactless thing on her machine. I was a bit shocked as I hadn't realised it was contactless. I'm not keen but the limit was only £10 then.

Anyway now it's £20 per transaction. My debit card expires soon so I asked my bank if I could have a non-contactless one when it comes up for renewal. They said I can but if I do, I can't use it at a fuel pump or on a train or anywhere where the machine isn't "plugged" in. So it would be limited.

I have a joint account with another bank with my husband and that card is not contactless and I can use it at a fuel pump etc.

Why should I have to have the hassle of proving that I didn't spend money on the card if it gets nicked or I lose it. Imagine I'm in my local town centre and I buy a few things in say Boots and Sainsburys using chip and PIN. I lose my card, someone finds it and goes on a contactless spending spree. How on earth do I prove that it wasn't me? I know there's a daily limit but I don't want to lose any money. At least if there's a PIN number requirement there is some sort of security.

What do the banks get out of this?

Fraud prevention for contactless is much better. Essentially, the risk is the banks, not yours. The bank would need to prove that it was you, rather than the other way round.

The benefit of contact less is the increased transaction speed for customer and vendor.

Contact less cards are generally set up to ask for a pun number every 5th or so transaction so there's a limit to how much of a spree a thief could go on.

I use mine as contactless all the time and its never asked for a pin

YANBU

My latest card came through contactless and I dont want it to be! Like you I think that its a bigger security risk, but I dont think we have any choice.

I've had no problems using my contact-only credit card on trains.

Contactless bank cards are actually causing problems on some train journeys. Londoners used to just tap their wallet and Oyster card on the reader. Now they have to take the Oyster card out of the wallet to stop the reader debiting their credit card.

My wallet was stolen on holidays and the thieves spent about $500 on it before I cancelled it. However I got the money refunded from the bank immediately.

It's £20 max and can only be used contact less 3 times before you need to enter pin. So max £60 can be taken

pun number

fife oh ate ?

A taxi driver once double charged me with contactless payment. Waved card at thing looked at printout said oh it didn't work popped it into machine for me to put in pin. Didn't realise till I got my statement that there two identical payments deducted. Fecker. Apparently it's a common scam so do be careful.

Personally I like contactless, used it for years - even before the cards worked. Barclaycard issued a stick on card (like a SIM) you could put inside your phone (well I put mine inside, as I didn't see the need in advertising it to crims).

One nice touch was it allowed me to sit down, whilst DS paid in McDonalds .

What do the banks get out of this?

Well, if enough people find contactless as convenient as I do, it becomes a selling point. Barclays were one of the first, whereas Nationwide were positively glacial (my NW card still isn't contactless).

The main thrust will come from retailers. Handling cash is the most expensive way of doing business.

Wait until you're in a car park which can't take cash[1] but only C&P/contactless/phone/SMS payments.

[1] It's 2015, yet only last week I found a car park - in a major city - which only took cash. As in exact coins only. So I went to the one 1 minute down the road which uses RingGo.

Almost the same arguments, word for word, were used by people to complain about chip and pin (who remembers all the bollocks from people who claimed they would never use them and insisted on chip and signature cards?), you still meet people who complain about on-line use of debit cards, etc.

If you're paranoid:

www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Disable-Contactless-Payment-on-Your-Debit-C/

If you want to use it but are worried about people using big batteries and aerials (really, reading the cards from more than five cm requires vast amounts of power):

www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/RFIDWallet.php

Academic paper on some theoretical weaknesses, which also contains a good explanation of how the cards work:

www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~tpc/Relay/stoppingRelay.pdf

So max £60 can be taken

I don't really want to lose £60. And later in the year the amount is being increased to £30 (so will the limit become £90?)

I totally accept that some people find it really convenient, but I think we should have a choice about it. And I think being effectively blackmailed by being told you won't be able to use it at a fuel pump or on a train isn't on.

"Choice" is what the market will bear. As an example is the growing trend of companies to only be contactable by Facebook, which I don't use, and would rather not use.

However, I can see a day in the future where I will need to get a FB account, or basically have a little bit of life pass me by.

Bear in mind the unspoken agenda of all governments to try and eliminate that pesky cash stuff ...

I wasn't against chip and PIN - using a PIN is more secure than someone being able to copy your signature (which most sales staff never looked at anyway). And I am quite happy using my card online as well and have done since the internet began (well since about 1998 anyway).

My point is that if my card gets nicked or I lose it, and I don't realise right away (and am in a position to call the bank right away), someone can very easily use my card in the period before I realise. With a PIN it is more difficult (though clearly not impossible if you are good at guessing PIN numbers).

So someone spends £60 (£90 later in the year) and the bank says "sorry that was spent before you reported it" and I lose the money. £60 is a lot of money to most people.

What, people were complaining chip and pin would allow the card to be debited (intentionally or inadvertently) without them even knowing about it?

The big difference between contactless and all other forms of on-the-spot payment is that you needn't be aware a transaction has even happened.

Oyster system debiting credit cards being a case in point. M&S contactless terminals debiting nearby cards is another.

Of course this "can't happen". But it does.

And I think being effectively blackmailed by being told you won't be able to use it at a fuel pump or on a train isn't on.

It's also simply untrue. Fuel pumps are one of the last places where contactless would be used because (a) a tank of petrol is more than any plausible limit on contactless (b) petrol stations are very risk averse about transfer of risk and most importantly (c) designing a pump that is safe with built-in contactless payment would be very, very hard.

I have no idea why someone would claim you can't use non-contactless cards on trains.

What, people were complaining chip and pin would allow the card to be debited (intentionally or inadvertently) without them even knowing about it?

Yes. It was the lack of a receipt that scared them.

That's not the same as not being aware you're actually making a transaction.

(And looks like someone's straw man anyway, since shops give receipts even if you buy with cash.)

That M&S story is 2 years old, the technology has moved on a lot since then, the majority of terminals now require you to hold your card in physical contact with them and hold for a couple of seconds. And plenty has been done to tell people about the Oyster issue, you can't move in London without seeing the ads, so that's hardly a reason to stop it.

Yes, they've done a lot to raise awareness of the problem contactless cards cause travellers, and things travellers can do to work round this problem.

Remind me, what problem were contactless cards solving?

muminhants I got all my money back even though the money was spent before I realised card was gone and reported it. No arguments at all.

Also for those saying it's limited to 3 transactions a day - be aware the limits are different in other countries so when my card was stolen abroad they made 8 transactions totalling $500

Perhaps they meant that the only non-contactless cards they do are online only. This is what used to be called solo or electron cards (before some bright sparks decided to merge brandings with the main visa and MasterCard brands) and require authorisation from the bank at the time of purchase. These cards therefore cannot be used on board a train because the readers they use have no means of contacting the bank to authorise the transaction.

I don't think contactless cards are solving a problem, they are just using tech advances to make life easier and transactions faster. That's what most technology developments are about these days. iPods weren't "solving a problem" but I'd much rather have one of them than a walkman, which essentially did the same job.

I love mine. No more leaving the card in the machine either. I have managed to have a debit card for decades and never had it nicked. Cloned yes, but not nicked.

Remind me, what problem were contactless cards solving?

Time. It's fast enough to, for example, replace Oyster. TfL want Oyster PAYG out, and they definitely want auto-topup out, because the FCA is getting very interested in the bank-like properties of Oyster PAYG.

Perhaps they meant that the only non-contactless cards they do are online only.

It's possible. In which case, if you feel that strongly about it, either drill a contactless card or change bank.