But that's the whole point. It's not available to the general public if you must pay a fee and register as a member.

Unless you want to redefine words and terms specifically for Uber/Lyft?

Which is even more wrong and corrupt.

Uber/Lyft and similar services are a threat to the comfortable little crony relationship between taxi companies and politicians, and a threat to government's desire to regulate, monitor, and control every aspect of society and all social interactions.

This is just another example of the fascist oligarchy at work protecting itself and it's cronies.

Strat

What we *should* be debating is how much tar, feathers, and hanging-rope we need for those in power who pass and use laws in such manner.

Strat

As I said, people who believe assurances of government over the clear track record of history are doomed to repeat that history. That is no straw man, that is historical fact.

Nothing you have said diminishes this. It does not matter how "clear" the law appears. Words will be redefined and reinterpreted to suit government's goals, as history has shown us again and again.

You sticking your fingers in your ears and going "lalalala I can't hear you" and "straw man! straw man!" does not change the clear track record of history on this matter.

Strat

I'm sure we can all agree that these are comparable to someone sharing a song.

You make a good emotional appeal, but the reality is that someone just casually sharing a song isn't likely to be subject to these penalties at all.

Unless you annoy someone in power, hold 'dangerous' or 'inconvenient' political/ideological/religious views, or for whatever reason the government wants to destroy some individual.

History teaches us that whenever government enacts a law for which they claim "it will never be used for 'X'" you can be assured that's precisely what it will be used for eventually.

Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Strat

Super informative post - thank you very much! I think you pretty much answered all my questions. I appreciate it.

That's funny, I just linked the same article above and had not noticed this point because I was looking for something else! Anyway, thanks - it's encouraging to hear that they seem to be planning to go all the way to chip and pin, and that some banks are already issuing cards for both signature/pin.

I hope that they won't eventually try to push fraud liability to the consumer, as apparently they do in Europe! I definitely wouldn't put it past the financial industry though.

Some banks do have some better facilities for this. Someone replied above me about Chase Quickpay (I'm not familiar with it), and I use the P2P transfer at Capital One 360 all the time. It does still use ACH so it's a two-business day wait for the money to become available at the other end, but it's very easy to use from the bank's website.

That's interesting. I would like to learn more, if you have any references you can provide. I vaguely recall reading something to that effect, but I think I wrote it off as being either subtly implied, or just conjecture on someone's part, or it being dependent on some onerous pre-conditions. In other words, it seemed to me to be something that was not very likely to happen. I would love to get some confirmation otherwise.

That's not always the case. Regarding the actual exchange rate, I had read before that the exchange rate on card transactions are more favorable to the traveler than doing a cash exchange (likely because of the volume that the banks do).

Regarding the extra fees that some banks charge on foreign transactions (many charge 3%), thankfully not all banks charge that! For instance, Capital One is one of the few that does not charge a foreign transaction fee to their cardholders.

While I kind of agree with your sentiment, the signature in chip and signature refers to the signature you have to make on the terminal, not the signature on the back of the card.

Thanks for the confirmation, and additional info about the bike rental stations. I don't think the Target breach had anything to do with the move to chip cards. There was a deadline established years ago for everyone to move to the new system by October 2015 (in most cases). This article has some pretty good information on this shift, and current progress.

Let us know which banks you've found so far that are issuing chip and pin cards. I've been following this for a while and looked a few months ago and they were very rare. However, someone commented further down that Wells Fargo cards are both signature and pin, which is pretty cool.

Good point, I think I remember reading this justification as well. Oh well, give the customer a substandard product that doesn't cause them any inconvenience.

From that page, it sounds like Wells Fargo did the right thing and enabled PIN as well as signature. Good to know for the future if I need a US credit card with chip and pin. Thanks!

In case you didn't know, the cards that most banks are now issuing in the US are chip and signature, not chip and pin like in Europe, and I understand that there are some spots that DO NOT accept chip and signature, like unattended tolls, unattended gas stations, and possibly some unattended transportation ticket purchases (trains, etc).

Pretty frustrating that credit card issuers decided to go this route in the US with some bullshit justification that people wouldn't know how to use the cards (WTF?).

While the chip and signature is more resistant to skimming and duplication, it is no more secure than the old magnetic stripe cards if your physical card is stolen. I think they did this to prevent an increase in support costs instead (people requesting to reset PIN numbers, etc).