Laser/Credit cards at the Tesco 'Self Service' checkouts

JohnCleary

Not sure if this is the right place...

Just used my laser at one of those Tesco Self Service checkouts. Swiped my chip&pin card, and waited for it to ask me to Enter the pin when I get a "Thank you, please take your items"

I look down, and theres my receipt! I didnt have to enter any pin, or sign anything...

How damn unsecure it that? I know where im going shopping if I ever find a credit/laser card! :eek:

Pythia

Yep, they never ask for your pin or signature. Very handy! (as long as you're the real owner of the card)

fletch

I'm sure, just the way at the moment while Chip & pin is being phased in, and normal check out staff can by pass the chip and pin, once it becomes obligatory for chip and pins to be used, the tills will be updated....

Creamy Goodness

i notice this myself while waiting behind someone who wanted to scan a whole trolley through the self service 10-items or less queue.

it's stupid because there's a facility for you to punch in a barcode number so a pin number should be just using the same system.

fletch

Although one does have to wonder how secure your pin would be after punching it into those big touchscreen displays

ateam

JohnCleary wrote:

Not sure if this is the right place...

Just used my laser at one of those Tesco Self Service checkouts. Swiped my chip&pin card, and waited for it to ask me to Enter the pin when I get a "Thank you, please take your items"

I look down, and theres my receipt! I didnt have to enter any pin, or sign anything...

How damn unsecure it that? I know where im going shopping if I ever find a credit/laser card! :eek:

If you have spent more than €60, you will be required to sign for it.

I don't think they seriously add to credit card fraud.

JohnCleary

ateam wrote:

If you have spent more than €60, you will be required to sign for it.

I don't think they seriously add to credit card fraud.

Does the assistant come up or what? Or do ya get a prompt onscreen?

MorningStar

Wow talk about people not having a clue about software and how a system works.

Very easy to upgrade the system and a prompt screen is called when a pin is required or set to be required. The €60 is probably just a system setting which they lower to zero meaning a pin willl be required all the time. Very simple stuff and banks tend to set the limit not requiring a pin.

eth0_

Well you are on cctv when you use the self service til, so if your card was used fraudulently it would be easy to track down the person who used it

parsi

MorningStar wrote:

Wow talk about people not having a clue about software and how a system works.

Very easy to upgrade the system and a prompt screen is called when a pin is required or set to be required. The €60 is probably just a system setting which they lower to zero meaning a pin willl be required all the time. Very simple stuff and banks tend to set the limit not requiring a pin.

Gee , well said Mr. Smarty Pants - in your rush to denigrate other posters you have more or less said what has already been said before...ie "the tills will probably be upgraded".

jimmycrackcorm

MorningStar wrote:

Wow talk about people not having a clue about software and how a system works.

Very easy to upgrade the system and a prompt screen is called when a pin is required or set to be required. The €60 is probably just a system setting which they lower to zero meaning a pin willl be required all the time. Very simple stuff and banks tend to set the limit not requiring a pin.

Having developed integrated credit card processing for EPOS systems all I can say is you actually haven't a clue.

Tell me this - have you ever inputted your credit card pin in any shop on anything other than an actual pin-pad device? Because of the strict security issues involved only accredited pin devices are allowed. It is not really a software issue - the self service machines have to be physically altered to accept those pin pad devices. They are self-contained approved units.

And that's all before the supplier can actually get a limited testing slot with the banks - followed by retest slots and then with each bank group. It's an incredibly long-winded process to ensure that we all pay high credit card charges but the banks make more profits through reduced fraud.

Retailers can still accept non-pin based cards but must accept liability for fraud. In the case of Tescos the self-service machines have two methods of providing consistent transaction quality and they are primarily by integrated video links and also each item scanned is compared to the preset weight. That is why you generally have to place your items on the other side of the scanner.

MorningStar

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

Having developed integrated credit card processing for EPOS systems all I can say is you actually haven't a clue.
.

As sombody who works on retail systems I can say I wouldn't hire you or suggest your software. Maybe we know how to do things better than you. So the person without a clue would be the one that can't do it or fibnnd it difficult not those who can. We aren't talking a small shop here we are talking major chain that have good software.

iguana

I think it is pretty disgraceful that Tesco hasn't upgraded their self-service checkouts. I do a lot of shopping in Sainsburys and their self-service check-outs have key-pads identical to those at most check-outs. You insert your card at the top, key in your pin wait for it to verify.

If Sainsburys managed toget this in place several months ago there is no reason for Tesco not to have done the same. (I'm aware Sainsburys are UK but the Tescohasn't updated here yet either.)

jimmycrackcorm

MorningStar wrote:

As sombody who works on retail systems I can say I wouldn't hire you or suggest your software. Maybe we know how to do things better than you. So the person without a clue would be the one that can't do it or fibnnd it difficult not those who can. We aren't talking a small shop here we are talking major chain that have good software.

And you would be right not to hire me or suggest my software for the following reasons:

A. you would ignore totally any merits or cost benefits to my system for example based on a crtical post. I don't think you are in any management position to make a decision on hiring and suggesting in any case. Can you imagine what your boss might say if you went to him/her and said - don't get this guy involved because he posted that I didn't have a clue.


B. you possibly might know how to do things better than me from your work on retail systems but then I've dealt with cumulative issues from many retailers and I'd confidently say that I've dealt with other retailers out there who have had situations that you might not have come across yet in your retail area.

C. You don't believe that small shops deserve as good a system as a large chain. I think the old proverb holds true here that the bigger you are the harder you fall. In this case you just have to think about the cost and difficulty of getting the physical parts replaced on the Tescos machines to build in the pin pad. It may be a simple business case that the possibility of card fraud on the machines is commercially much less than the cost of buying the upgrades to those machines. but the risk element belongs to the retailer.


As for this...

So the person without a clue would be the one that can't do it or fibnnd it difficult not those who can

The person without the clue is the one who says ...

Wow talk about people not having a clue about software and how a system works

followed by

Very easy to upgrade the system and a prompt screen is called when a pin is required or set to be required

When you obviously don't know what is involved. Pin pad devices are required to have tamper proof cases on top of the cryptology involved which is why the banks frown upon any willy nilly software developer doing their own "prompt screen". Software can easily be copied and hacked but not the pads.

So you might not want to hire me nor suggest my software, but you know what - that is fine with me because there are plenty of smart business people out there who do recognize that I know what I am talking about and do so.

Tom Dunne

JohnCleary wrote:

I look down, and theres my receipt! I didnt have to enter any pin, or sign anything...

How damn unsecure it that? I know where im going shopping if I ever find a credit/laser card! :eek:

This is actually quite common in the US.

Most petrol pumps have a slot for your card - you just swipe it and fill 'er up. Same in most of the larger supermarkets - self service checkouts with no kind of authorisation.

tk123

JohnCleary wrote:

Does the assistant come up or what? Or do ya get a prompt onscreen?

It asks you to wait for assistance, then the come up an print a receipt for you to sign and they put in their code into the sys. I've only had to wait and sign when I use my credit card, when I use the laser I don't have to sign..

Red Alert

The guy who said the PIN devices are needed is correct. What actually happens is that the PIN and card details get encrypted inside the device into a blob of data which the attached Register just sends to the bank and awaits the response. I don't know what operating system Tescos run, their non self service registers don't look like Windows but I'm not sure. I still wouldn't trust anything that's not the real device, and I really prefer setups like Virgin Megastore where they don't have the PINpad attached to the EPOS system at all.

Even worse are people like Superquinn who persist in using Windows 95 on the tills - with non-lockable floppy drives on them :rolleyes: i certainly never use my magstripe card there.

NUTLEY BOY

eth0_ wrote:

Well you are on cctv when you use the self service til, so if your card was used fraudulently it would be easy to track down the person who used it

No. Those guys are cunning. They wear hoodies and shades.

stormkeeper

Red Alert wrote:

Even worse are people like Superquinn who persist in using Windows 95 on the tills - with non-lockable floppy drives on them :rolleyes: i certainly never use my magstripe card there.

Actually, as someone who used to work for Superquinn I can tell you that the tills ran Windows NT 4.0.

Red Alert

I saw Win 95 booting in Ballinteer on a few occasions. Unless the upgraded in the meantime. Their servers aren't incredibly reliable - you often can't pay with Supercent due to a 'server' error.

stormkeeper

Over in Naas, we used NT 4.0. I guess it must be different for each branch. In all fairness though, the tills weren't much more powerful than my first (and to date, only) laptop. They couldn't really run all that much...