Credit Cards: US vs the World
Americans are idiosyncratic these days when it comes to bank cards.
I noticed on my travels in Europe and Asia that our paranoia of theft, both of identity and money, doesn’t match our actions.
In the US, you go to a late-night diner, with bathrooms of dubious quality and waiters of ulterior motives. (Stereotyping hard, but anecdotally true.One sneakily moved a decimal point to the right some distance.)
You ask for the check, the waiter asks for your card, then TAKES your card to a back room. They have the 16 digits, the date, the name, the 3-digit CVV. There is not too much stopping them from stealing all that with no one watching. Then they bring back the card, ask you to physically write a tip amount that you surely won’t remember. Now they have your signature and reasonable access to change a tip amount.
I’m not saying all waitstaff are shady people. I’m saying I know of at least a handful. And I’m saying that for a country scared of this exact behavior, in a country that has the technical means to avoid it, why why why do we continue this way?
Stone Age Tech
The technology behind a bank card strip is the same as a cassette tape. I’m not in this space, but it’s apparently quite simple to steal this information. We swiped our cards for years while Europe and Asia used the chip. This is the same country where people think password storage apps are sill
Part of my current job as a soccer coach involves running a shop. Inventory, staffing, sales, retail. Part of retail involves…retail. So, there’s dozens of transactions a night in the shop.
For every single one, the customer hands me their card, even though we have Square and the card reader is right in front of them. If I indicate to them they can insert it and remove it themselves, they tilt their head to the side ever so slightly, exuding nothing but awkwardness.
It’s a small gesture but it’s telling. We have tons of financial apps at our disposal and means to avoid fraud. But we willingly hand restaurants our bank card information and are skeptical of password storage.
In Europe, in Asia and non-US countries in the Americas, they have portable card readers. They take it off the charger, bring it to the table, and the transaction is conducted in front of you. They never have your card. There’s no strange chargers. It’s safe, secure, reliable.
In fact, when I was in Quebec City at one remarkably tasty farm-to-table restaurant, Tournebroche, the card reader stopped working and they made us go behind the bar and ring it up ourselves. In fact, we were sitting at the bar. So even less than four feet away, they didn’t handle our card.
It’s self-defeatist behavior of the highest order. Yanks want security, yet hand bank cards to strangers.
Americans are a curious people. <3
Like what you’re reading on the US? Check out some other related articles in: The US Chronicles!!
