I recently went to Kerrisdale Shota for dinner and the owner’s daughter was telling my family and I about their recent conflict. Some customers pay for their meals with credit card, debit card, or cash; the main focus to this blog post is on smart cards.

Restaurants, at their own risk, can choose to make the customer sign as opposed to entering the customer’s PIN number. Technically, restaurants are supposed to get the customer to enter a PIN number if the credit card has a chip but Shota, half of the time, skips the PIN and gets the customer to sign instead. They believe that chip cards slow down their efficiency because one waiter has to be standing and waiting for the customer to enter his/her pin before doing something else (no multi-tasking).

The manager understands that they were wrong but what made Shota angry was that the banks argued that the signatures on the receipts (only for the smart card transactions) were not the credit card-holder’s signature; thus, banks refused to give Shota money for all those transactions. If it was $200 or even just $3.00, Shota weren’t allowed to get a single penny from those transactions that required PIN numbers but had signatures instead.

Isn’t PIN numbers just as dangerous? Someone could know someone’s PIN number on someone’s credit card and excessively use the credit card, no? Should Shota be fined? Because the banks argument was because it is not safe, but smart cards are just as unsafe.

Sources:

Shota Manager, Maggie.