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?

I dont either and wrote to bank to ask them to remove it, they said its what customers want and cant remove it but can take my card down a level which will effect my credit rating which is very good. Strangely i didnt want that. Wrote a general letter asking for my unhappy with being forced to have contactless card on to their unhappy with card pile. Most people i speak to (job...means i see alot if older people) dont want to either. Just write a letter to the bank. If enough write maybe they can do a switch off scheme.....

It's great that the card never leaves your hand. Much quicker and safer.

YANBU. The risk isn't biggest for the bank and the security is not better.

Unless you forensically go through each statement validating each small transaction you will not pick up on fraudlent transactions and so the bank won't take the hit, the consumer will. You would also have to ring them for every transaction under 20 on your card that you were unsure of the origin of. As the name on the statement is often different from the name they trade under that would mean consumers having to ring up the bank and confirm up to 20, 30+ transactions a month. People just don't do it.

Of course the banks wouldn't take the risk of leaving themselves open to more liability than the consumer! This is why the limit has been increased to 20. They're getting hardly any claims for 10 transactions so they know that they can increase their exposure to risk.

Personally I love it. Huge queue in boots the other day moved a lot quicker for the fact several in front of me used contactless. Shame they don't make the boots cards contactless as well

Unless you forensically go through each statement validating each small transaction you will not pick up on fraudlent transactions and so the bank won't take the hit, the consumer will.

Do people not do this? I check my online banking regularly and would know if there was any odd transactions.

And WIzard since your card would have to be out of your possession for fraudulent transactions you'd have to know if you were at risk?

You are a fool if you don't forensically go through your bank statements. I check mine online every day, it takes minutes.

So the problem contactless cards are solving in that example is not time, namechange. It is TfL's desire to replace Oyster for their own reasons.

This is a bit of a theme - changes are always announced as being "better", without asking "better for whom?"

Or "worse for whom?"

All systems have costs and benefits which are unevenly distributed over banks, vendors and different types of customers.

Unless you forensically go through each statement validating each small transaction you will not pick up on fraudlent transactions

How do you anticipate said fraudulent transactions occurring? You're implying that all over the country, people are being defrauded on contactless cards in their possession. You would, obviously, check your statements or online banking in the aftermath of your card being stolen.

The problem with M&S was M&S's: they screwed up implementing contactless on their point-of-sale machines so that the machine would take payment from the contactless and still proceed to take payment via another route. It was straightforwardly their fault (the claim that people can remember, days later, how close their wallet got to a reader is implausible) and people were refunded.

The physics of near-field and far-field communications means that the claims that you can read contactless cards at a distance are just implausible. Not because of the assurances of banks, but because of the physics of the near field.

A researcher managed to read data from a contactless card (although not perform transactions, which is harder) using a shopping trolley as an aerial, along with a lot of other equipment (including, presumably, a bloody great big power supply). You can read the whole account here (might not work for everyone):

digital-library.theiet.org/content/journals/10.1049/joe.2013.0087

Even with all that equipment, including the huge aerial, he managed to read at 45cm distance. If you're nervous about that, Amazon will sell you a wallet which will shield the cards so the attack isn't possible. Next?

Just to clarify here as well, even if your card has the contactless function, you don't have to use it! You can still stick it in the machine and use your pin as before. They may eventually phase that out but for the time being it's not an issue.

Card wallet I had no idea.

All systems have costs and benefits which are unevenly distributed over banks, vendors and different types of customers.

Of course. So if you don't want to use it, don't use it. You may find that excludes you from certain markets, in the way that refusing to use a card online make buying stuff rather tricky.

You can trivially disable contactless by either keeping the card in a conductive envelope or by drilling a hole in the right place. You could probably also, were you so minded, just wind a few turns of thin wire around it until it didn't work any more, or experiment with gluing foil to your hat to the back.

Just to clarify here as well, even if your card has the contactless function, you don't have to use it!

But the card still has it enabled, so if you believe that you are at risk of fraud via the contactless feature, your not using it does not reduce that risk.

In five/ten years time, it won't matter whether you want it to be contactless or not, you won't have the choice unless you want to pay in cash all the time.

Anyway, I don't understand people not checking their bank accounts everyday. I check my account regularly and make sure nothing has gone out that shouldn't have. Even if you haven't lost your card, people can make mistakes and cards can easily get charged twice, even if not on purpose.

If you don't check your bank statements and lose out on money as a result, that's your own fault, tbh.

There was an item on You and Yours on radio 4 this lunchtime (sad gimmer ) that suggested some clubs and bars are stopping using contactless due to fraud with stolen cards.

Goog im now using cash rather than a card. Main reason was i needed to control how much money went out but side effect means im not using my card...

Every change in personal finance has been met with howls of protest.

Direct debits. Cheque guarantee cards. The removal of cheque guarantee cards. Cheques. The removal of cheques. ATM cards. Debit cards. Credit cards. Chip and PIN. Online banking. Online BACS transfers. Salaries paid by BACS rather than cash. The withdrawal of one pound notes. Decimalisation. Availability of debit cards to children (whatever happened to the arguments about that?) Now it's contactless.

If you're old enough, you probably remember your grandparents or some of their friends refusing to have bank accounts full stop. We've just about finished the ludicrous cries of end times associated with the ending of the cheque guarantee scheme (nothing happened, right?) and outside the USA, Chip and Signature cards for practical purposes don't exist. Direct Debits are no longer the topic of fevered debate. Online banking hasn't caused mass fraud. The world, in general, continues to turn.

YY name, I worked in banking for over 20 years and hear what you say.

I sometimes wonder, in these days of card payments, contactless, phone scan payment, internet shopping etc. is why is there always a queue at the cashpoint?

Every change in everything ever has been met with howls of protest. Just ask the Luddites.

Does that mean all technology since the power loom has always been safe and beneficial to all?

Or is there a possibility that say, x-rays and factory smoke and even the internet can also cause actual problems which really can't be dealt with by going "Chuh! You complain about everything!"

Are banks now replacing all credit/debit cards with contactless enabled ones? Does anyone know?

I have two debit cards which both expire in October this year. So when the new ones are issued will they be contactless? Will I need to get some of those protective wallets?

My credit card was renewed in February, and as far as I can see (just looked) it isn't contactless.

I haven't yet had cause to really look into the implications of contactless, though with my replacement cards due around the end of the summer I should probably start to inform myself now.

It sounds like the sort of thing that in years to come we will not have a choice over. Banks will move towards it anyway, just as they did with chip and pin, and just like the open secret that they intend to finally kill off the cheque (can't actually recall the last time I wrote one of those).

I do check my accounts via online banking a couple of times a week, just to ensure there are no transactions I don't recognise. It only takes a 5 minutes.

just like the open secret that they intend to finally kill off the cheque (can't actually recall the last time I wrote one of those).

Do you think those two facts might possibly be related?

"Chuh! You complain about everything!"

The boy that cried wolf, perhaps.

Are banks now replacing all credit/debit cards with contactless enabled ones? Does anyone know?

Most debit cards.

Credit cards are less common, but probably coming.

Banks will move towards it anyway, just as they did with chip and pin

Can you remind us of which of the claimed problems with Chip and PIN turned out to be real? Were old people unable to use it? Did it turn out that there was massive fraud on a hitherto unimagined scale? Are the people who refused to have Chip and PIN still working only in cash?

Or was it, instead, a small but beneficial security improvement which was introduced with little trouble, and is now used as a matter of course by the vast majority of the economically active population? Are there any C&P refuseniks left? Aren't their tinfoil hats rather sweaty in the summer?

Were old people unable to use it?

You tell me.

Cheques will not be pulled anytime soon. The banks have admitted as such. I asked and they admitted theres nothing to replace it yet. I write one three or four times a month. I also receive cheques on a daily basis. If yiu havent got a cheque book yiu do have to request one now.