The stress of holiday shopping starts earlier every year and this season, with the added confusion of chip-and-pin credit card payment terminals, things are bound to become Grinch-like for some shoppers.

Walmart payments executive John Drechny said during a panel discussion at Money20/20, a recent conference which is focused on payments and financial services innovation, that he was unhappy with the timing of the credit card industry's transition to chip-enabled credit cards because this year shoppers have the option to pay with older credit cards and newer “chip-and-pin” credit cards.

“We're forcing anarchy on the payments world,” he said. “Walmart has cut down the time a customer needs to check out with a chip card to one second, compared to 12 seconds a year ago, but I doubt smaller chains that just made the Oct. 1 switch-over will be as fast, and that could lead to longer checkout wait times during the holiday shopping season at other stores.”

Cara Washington of Eureka, Calif., said she recently went to Target with her MasterCard from Coast Central Credit Union with $852 million in assets that did not have a chip, and the machine denied her card.

“I had plenty of money, and it freaked me out,” she said. “The card works everywhere else but not Target. The manager had no idea why and said it had happened a few times. Now I have to make sure I bring cash to Target.”

Most credit unions are slowly sending out the new cards to their members, but some such as Virginia's Newport News-based Langley Federal Credit Union, members received EMV cards in 2014, and the $2 billion credit union plans to update all of its debit cards by the end of the year, said Curtis Baker, senior vice president of lending.

Navy Federal Credit Union located in Vienna, Va., with $72 billion in assets, and the 10th-largest Visa and MasterCard issuer in the U.S., began issuing chip-enabled cards to its 2.3 million credit card account holders in May, said Randy Hopper, vice president of credit cards. He said everyone will have a chip card by the end of 2016.

Some credit unions that have not changed over to the new card are experiencing last-minute fraud from anxious thieves.

Mainstreet Credit Union, with $378.5 million is assets and based in Lenexa, Kan., took a hit in early October.

CEO John Beverlin said hackers did not breach the security systems in place at the credit union. The fraud probably originated from a data breach at a merchant, he said, but it's unclear whether it stems from an ongoing and undiscovered data breach or one of the big breaches that already occurred and has been in the news.

“We're still trying to work with our card processor to determine what the commonality is between the accounts they hit,” Beverlin said. “It happened during about a 20-hour period, and then stopped. Our card processor noticed a pattern and then started rejecting transactions. So the fraud backed off at that point.”

Mainstreet hasn't transferred its customers to the new EMV debit and credit cards, but hopes to have that done before the end of the year.

Card services first notified Mainstreet of the fraud on Oct. 12. Overall, the fraud caused more than $200,000 in losses for Mainstreet, through compromised information belonging to about 300 of its members. Mainstreet is crediting the accounts of any members who were defrauded and personally calling those members to inform them of the situation and to issue them new cards.

Earlier this month, the FBI published a press release stating, “Although EMV cards provide greater security than traditional magnetic strip cards, an EMV chip does not stop lost and stolen cards from being used in stores, or for online or telephone purchases when the chip is not physically provided to the merchant, referred to as a card-not-present transaction. Additionally, the data on the magnetic strip of an EMV card can still be stolen if the merchant has not upgraded to an EMV terminal and it becomes infected with data-capturing malware. Consumers are urged to use the EMV feature of their new card wherever merchants accept it to limit the exposure of their sensitive payment data.”

Scammers are also going old school with their efforts and trying to confuse people over the new cards.

Although the chip in the new cards makes shopping more secure, it transmits a one-time passcode unique to that one transaction. Card readers are gradually being uninstalled by merchants, but scammers are already calling people and sending emails trying to get personal information.

Kerri Bennet, a spokesperson for the $530 million Fresno County Federal Credit Union in Fresno, Calif., said the scammers calls are “letting them know the reason they haven't receive their card with the chip technology in it is because they need their information updated and they're requesting personal information over the phone or via email,” she said. “Don't give out any personal information over the phone.”

Instant Insights /

Chip-Enabled Credit Cards Still a Pain for Shoppers and Credit Unions

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