Rejection of credit cards abroad (Full NYT story)
For globe-trotting travelers, many countries in Europe, as well as Japan, Canada, Mexico and other nations, have adopted a type of credit card that has a chip and requires customers to enter a PIN number instead of the ones with a magnetic stripe on the back that we still use in the United States. Merchants that accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express are supposed to let customers pay with either type of card. But employees at some retailers outside the United States don’t always know what to do with the magnetic version. There are also automated kiosks that accept only the “chip and PIN” cards, particularly in European train stations, parking garages, gas stations and some tollbooths. In those cases, Americans with magnetic stripe cards usually have to wait in line to pay with cash or have a clerk swipe their cards. Travelers say those lines can be long, which is especially frustrating if you’re trying to catch a train. And at unattended tollbooths, you may get stuck if you don’t have coins you can pay with instead. So how common is this problem? In a study last September, the research company Aite Group found that nearly half of American cardholders who have traveled abroad in the past few years have had some problem using a debit or credit card, and 16 percent said their card was rejected because of this issue with magnetic stripe acceptance overseas.
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