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jimmysofat6864 OP t1_j6h1o41 wrote

Reply to comment by saywherefore in ELI5: Why are contactless payment methods faster than inserting the chip? by jimmysofat6864

If contactless doesn’t verify authenticity what’s stopping criminals from scamming retailers and using fake contactless cards with accounts that don’t exist at checkout?

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MoarHawk t1_j6j499c wrote

In an offline EMV transaction (i.e. bank isn't contacted) they verify that the card is genuine, they don't verify funds are available in the account. If the card is used fraudulently then the bank eats the cost in the UK, not the merchant.

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Captain-Griffen t1_j6jq76q wrote

What stops it is that they do, in fact, verify authenticity and even places a hold on your account immediately. They're talking complete bollocks.

The reason why contactless has limits is because of the lack of a pin. If you steal a card, you can use it up to certain amount of times for a certain amount of money before you need to do a pin transaction. The limits are there to stop a genuine but stolen card being used too much without a PIN.

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saywherefore t1_j6h8b3j wrote

The threat of being caught after the fact. The scammer has to perform the scam in person and will most likely be on CCTV.

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