Recently I was traveling around Costa Rica with a friend from Canada. I freakin’ LOVE Costa Rica!!! We saw some of the most beautiful sites that can be witnessed on the planet. I’m sure of it 🙂
I also saw my friend enter a PIN code every time she paid for anything with a credit card. It turns out this slight inconvenience provides enormous fraud protection. “Chip and PIN” credit cards are used by Canadians and Europeans and have proven to be powerful in the fight against credit card fraud.
As of October 1, Americans will have new credit cards with chips in them BUT, as I understand it, we will not enter a PIN. Instead, we’ll continue to sign for purchases. Obviously signatures are easier to fake than PIN codes so our cards will continue to be less secure.
Therefore we are more likely to be victims of credit card fraud than our Canadian and European friends. This means that our workshops for how to handle credit cards will remain the same. Specifically, we’ll still need to check our statements against receipts and reconcile our bank accounts.
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