On 26-Feb-12 18:10, John Levine wrote:
Exactly. I don't know how a restaurant could do an earlier estimated
reservation of funds, when the only time you give the server your card
is either at the till on the way out, or at the table when he brings the
wireless terminal to you.

That would require a significant change to the way US restaurants work.

In Canada, where the restaurant culture is pretty much the same as in
the U.S., now that they have chip+pin, when you pay, they bring the
terminal to you and let you enter the tip before you enter the PIN.
It doesn't seem to have been a big deal.

I don't see why US restaurants would object,

US industry objects to pretty much anything that costs them money (eg.
new terminals) in the short run, even if it will quite obviously benefit
them in the long run.

particularly since they'll likely get fewer chargebacks with customer
entered PINs

They don't seem interested in accepting PINs today for debit cards,
which would instantly lower their merchant fees and probably reduce
chargebacks.

and less opportunity for staff to accidentally or deliberately mis-
enter the tip.

I've never heard of that being a significant problem from restaurant
managers, and deliberate offenders would be easily caught (and handed
over to the police) when a pattern of disputes arose.

More problematic is when waiters clone customers' cards when they have
them out of the customers' sight, but that doesn't implicate _that
merchant_, so why would they care?

S

--
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CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
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