Carding I dip, you dip, we dip - the difference between swiping a stripe and dipping a chip, explained

[crisiswhatcrisis]

If you don't live in the US, then chip and pin cards have probably been around most of your life by this point, and are second nature - nobody lets you just sign for your purchases anymore, that's absurd!
Anyway, all you non-Americans, take a juice box and a cookie and sit this one out, 'cause it doesn't apply to y'all.


WHY DOES IT MATTER IF YOU SWIPE A CARD, OR INSERT IT, IF IT HAS A CHIP?
IT'S GONNA MAKE YOU INSERT IT ANYWAY, RIGHT?

The answer is, "Not always," and it has to do with a pretty stupid reason that is the whole reason in-person, physical carding is even possible now.​

OK, everyone. Grab your juice boxes and zwieback cookies and gather 'round up here at the front of the classroom. I SAID MARCH, THAT MEANS IN A SINGLE FUCKING FILE FUCKING LINE, LADIES! ALRIGHT?

Remember the days when you and ol' Mary MSR could just bump uglies in the dark real quick, shove "her" back in the drawer, tuck your uglies away and go shopping? Ahh, the good ol' days, when just about every merchant wanted you to slug 'em across the pearlies with onna your hot lil' squares of plastic, sowin yur young criminal oats around town to your heart's content? Yeah, man, that was sweet.

THOSE HALCYON DAYS OF FINGER-BANGING TRACKS INTO OL' MARY MSR ARE OVER! I've already covered in other posts why cloning chip cards is not feasible (for you mush-heads, that means IT CAN'T BE DONE) so let's assume you retreads read at least one of my other posts - if not, throw your juicebox and zwieback cookie in the trash, and go fucking read.

Back before EMV became a globally-implemented standard in its current form, the biggest fear merchants had was getting a chargeback from a legitimate customer for a purchase they made but suddenly did not want or like, or did not recognize, or did not WANT to recognize on their bill. This was considered "friendly fraud" since the customer actually purchased the item and then decided to avail themselves of the protection afforded by their credit card issuer to be refunded for the item they disagreed with or otherwise did not want. Card present fraud was fairly commonplace, both attempted and successful, as it has been since the early days of the credit card. In the days before on-line transaction processing, cards were physically carbon-imaged onto the sales reciept/slip with the signature of the bearer on the slip checked by the merchant for visual agreement. Under this system, the obligation to verify the cardholder's identity was on the merchant or merchant's authorized employee completing the sale. It was commonplace for employees to ask to see a driver license, and examine the signatures on the credit card, sales slip, and the driver license, to verify the customer's identity matches the one on the card. This was simple, but remarkably effective for most needs, and those who could manipulate their identification were one step ahead, but those who could duplicate and alter the card.... Now, those were the kings of kings, boy!

Up until the mid 90's or later, in some states, many US state driver licenses and ID cards were a laminated affair. A physical photograph was taken on either instant film, as some states had integrated custom Polaroid-like systems that took your photo and exposed your name, address, license number, et cetera, onto the same piece of Polaroid-like film material, and laminated it before issuing it to you in person - but some, more rural states, would take a physical picture, cut it to size, adhere it to another piece of paper or material, type all your info out onto it, and laminate it. It was an easily altered affair, especially if you were GOOD at it, and could defeat some of the simple securirty mechanisms like tamper-proof laminate, embossing through the photo, holographic seals, et cetera.

All of that changed in the 90's, when direct-printed, four-color process PVC card printers became available to the masses for a reasonable cost - and about the same time, the development and introduction of instant-issue bank card systems evolved, and eventually these early systems to print and emboss/foil/tip a PVC card started appearing in the underground circles of REAL FUCKING CARDER MAFIA BOYS. I mean, FUCK, BRO. Imagine if all of the sudden, with a computer, an Eltron P500 card printer, and a Datacard 150i embossing printer (both stolen from a bank, of course) in 20 minutes you could have a complete replica of a Visa card that you had snatched up that morning at the bus stop... AND with it, a fucking TOTALLY REAL LOOKING ID THAT MATCHED THE CARD! FUCK! And nobody had seen that shit before, not even the fuckin cops.

God, it was like fucking heaven. No problems flashing an ID at someone who's used to glancing down in one spot to see a name, then looking at the card real quick, OK name matches, ROCK THE FUCKING BOX! Cloud nine, wasn't it?

Till fuckers like me ruined it for you little turds, because now, they wanna touch the ID, they wanna looooook at it, flip it around, fondle it, and fuckin rape your shit with their eyes, why? CAUSE WE FUCKING RIPPED THAT SHIT TILL THE WHEELS FELL THE FUCK OFF, BRO. So it's kinda all my generation's fault, I guess. ANYWAY, MOVING ON! NO, YOU CANNOT HAVE ANOTHER FUCKING JUICEBOX IF YOU SPILLED IT, LICK IT UP OR SHUT UP.

MOVING ON.

So, where was I? OH YAH. LIABILITY. If the merchant fucked up and didn't compare the signature on the slip, when the chargeback was issued by the bank to the merchant, the merchant had to go dig through all those slips and find the one that showed the signature, then they had to send that slip to their merchant processor, to forward it to the bank responsible for the chargeback request, who would look at it, compare it with their customer's signature card, and determine if they needed more info, like surveillance video, or other shit - but rarely it went that far. Usually, it took FOREVER for the merchant to find the slip and send it in, and meanwhile, everybody was getting real serious sandy vag and as a result, could only flick their fucking beans and whine about how shitty it was that they had to do all of this - even though there were some pretty stiff penalties for not complying, that almost always ended up in the cardholder's favor and the merchant... Well, the merchant took the fuck, and the fees, and the fine, and the increased transaction fees because they did a nono and forgot to massage the cardholder's balls while they blew them for the sale.

So, the act of swiping the card, even today, forces the liability for any chargebacks onto the merchant, instead of the customer, because anyone could doll themselves up and say they're Jackie Onassis as they swipe that custom-printed Amex that has JACKIE ONASSIS on it, that matched their custom-printed PVC ID card that says JACKIE ONASSIS, but has a picture of Aristotle Onassis' ugly fuckin ass on it - and Jackie would get the bill and nothing they could fucking do about it, until EMV came along.

Remember, IT'S SOMETHING YOU KNOW, AND SOMETHING YOU HAVE, and I don't mean the capital of France and a wicked case of jock itch, n00b. The chip in the card, like I have told y'all before, is a tiny little Auschwitz, with bits slaving away, and what happens inside nobody wants to know - but somebody knows, and that's gonna fuck with the world some day. You, Adolf, the cardholder (legit or otherwise) are the second piece of this tiny little swastika-shaped puzzle! You know the PIN... Or, well, you're supposed to - and NOBODY ELSE (wink wink) knows it! At least that's the way it is SUPPOSED TO BE, in Great Jolly Happy Fuck-Land. You know a secret, that nobody else knows, and BY YOUR POWERS COMBINED, YOU ARE CAPTAIN CARDHOLDER!

In reality, me and you and all of you little faggots sucking your thumbs in awe and wonder wishing it was a real-life pee-pee, all know this part, don't you? You're CAPTAIN CARDHOLDER, secretly Adolf Fucking Shitler, with a badly-forged temporary state driver license paper printout and a gift card you've cleaned off and half ass printed another name on it, the place where the chip was is all fucked up and scratched or burned and shorted out, and you're SURE you pasted the right shit in the middle box, clicked WRITE, and swiped that fucker 20 times back to back in your MSR, so you're ready to rock. Total? Yeah, that's fine. Yes ma'am, credit. -stick- -BEEP-

Oh, it does this all the time... Let me try again. -swish--stick-BEEP- Again? Lord... I swear, these chips right? One more time. -slish-stick-BEEP. Chip failure? Man, I am gonna have to replace this thing... Ah, I can swipe? -SLLLLLLISH- -kshhhhksssshhhhh-zip-RIP Thank you, okay - no, no it's fine, thank you again!

MEANWHILE, ACROSS THE POND....

-stick- -BEEP- Oh, damn... I keep forgetting my PIN... I -beep- just -beep- -beep- reset the bloody thing -beep- today, for God's -BEEP- sake.

"Oh, declined? Blast.... That damn teller woman must have misheard the digits or something. Ok, well, my apologies, cheerio! "

There is no failed chip bypass outside of the US - and as you can see, that knobheaded prick who snatched that card didn't get shit, did he? Nahhh... Nope, nothin but a bruised bit of kit and a nasty wallop on the ass where the door hit him on the way out. Without the PIN, the card is essentially useless for in-person carding, leaving you no other recourse as the criminal but to attempt it CNP, but that's a whole other ball of boogers for another day.

LIGHTS ON, STORY OVER, YOU LITTLE SHITS. THROW AWAY THE JUICE BOXES ON THE WAY OUT AND I WILL SEE YOU FUCKERS ON MONDAY, CLASS DISMISSED!