[Jensson]

Not more crazy than giving it at the restaurant or store. They can easily memorize or take a picture the last secret digits and the system has written down the rest.

The whole system builds on trust and humans are pretty trustworthy. Bots are much less trustworthy, since untrustworthy humans can leverage bots or spam to contact millions of people each.

[orf]

> Not more crazy than giving it at the restaurant or store

But why would you let your card leave your sight? I don’t understand.

The waiter brings over a payment terminal or you go over to it, then you tap or insert your card. When could they take a picture? How would they even use the details without your PIN number? The whole system isn’t built on trust because that would be stupid when it comes to money.

Or are you saying the trust element is that they are not using a terminal that somehow clones your card and pin?

[hansvm]

> why would you let your card leave your sight?

That's the status quo for how those transactions work in the US.

> When could they take a picture, how could they even use the details without our PIN, the whole system isn't buit with trust because that woudl be stupid when it comes to money

The average person with no training can remember 8 uniformly random digits, and an hour of training bumps that up to 20 -- more than enough to recall a credit card and its PIN, even ignoring the immense amount of redundant information in how those are constructed. Plus nearly invisible video feeds are a reality. Plus pass-through broken credit card capture systems are a cheap reality, and one that claims untold billions of dollars at US gas stations, and many multiples of that amount at european ATMs. Any system that depends on the secrecy of those digits is fundamentally broken, and our payment system does, so it's fundamentally broken. The only reason it doesn't appear that way is that most people don't try to exploit it, and most of the rest leave enough breadcrumbs that after enough 10s of millions of fraud they can be arrested. The remaining few percent of fraud is baked into the prices you see and the taxes you pay.

[orf]

I wasn’t aware that this was the situation in the US.

> and one that claims untold billions of dollars at US gas stations, and many multiples of that amount at european ATMs

I’m interested in why you think this - from everything I can find US card fraud rates are at a minimum 10x compared to the EU.

The way the US makes payments seems very insecure/backwards, with a lack of chip and pin, relying on signatures and even using cheques still.

A 10x reduction in fraud by using basic measures other countries have adopted seems sensible.

Decrying them because there is no perfect system and “anyone can remember a pin” is a call to keep the status quo and the fraud that comes with it.