EMV makes it very difficult for criminals to commit card fraud. For example, it is much easier to skim credit card data when the customer pays by swiping their card's magnetic stripe, than if the customer pays by dipping an EMV card into an EMV-enabled terminal. However, there are still ways in which criminals can commit fraud with EMV cards:
- Criminals can steal card numbers and create magnetic stripe cards that they use to pay for goods or services by swiping the cards.
- Cards can be lost or stolen, and criminals can use them at locations that do not use EMV card terminals, and where the clerk does not check for cardholder identification.
Note: You can read the rules about asking for cardholder identification on the card brands’ websites.
- Criminals can fool an EMV terminal into triggering a fallback transaction. An example of how criminals can take advantage of this process is as follows:
a. The criminal inserts the EMV card upside-down into the EMV terminal.
b. The terminal can’t read the chip and prompts the person using the card to swipe the magnetic stripe instead of dipping the card in the EMV reader. This is a variation of method number 1 in this article.
Important: EMV does NOT stop criminals from stealing a card’s Primary Account Number (PAN). This is why the encryption and additional security measures that we provide through solutions like Genius are crucial as the world migrates to EMV.
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