Watch CBS News

New Chip Credit Card Technology Behind Schedule In Getting Implemented In U.S.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Instead of swiping credit cards, Americans will soon dip or feed their card.

Oct. 1 was supposed to be the deadline for credit card customers to get these new chip EMV credit cards and for retailers to install new devices to take the cards.

"Merchants don't have the terminals to accept these cards," said Matt Schulz, senior analyst for Creditcards.com. "Banks haven't got enough of these cards into people's hands. And overall there's just a lot of confusion."

That's for sure.

"Have you received your credit cards with chips in it?" money editor Jon Delano asked Christa Glover of Youngstown.

"I have not. No, I have not," she replied.

"I don't really have one," added Alexa Saunders of Brighton Heights, "so I should probably get hip to that."

They're hardly alone.

Sixty-four percent of card-holders have not yet received the new chip cards, and only 27 percent of retailers have the new, more expensive card processors.

"I do work at Macy's," said Christian Chyssofos of the North Side, "and we do have the machines that take them. But I've seen just a few customers actually use them thus far."

If you haven't received one of these new EMV chip credit cards, don't panic.

Credit card companies say you will get yours by the end of the year.

In the meantime, that old credit card is still good at the retail stores. Just recognize that it doesn't offer the same degree of protection as the new cards.

Unlike the magnetic strips on standard cards that you swipe, a chip that's fed into a machine won't allow personal information to be transmitted, cutting down the data breaches that occurred at major stores last year.

And here's another big change.

Beginning Oct. 1, if retailers don't have a device to read the chip, they -- not the bank or credit card company -- become liable for future fraud with your credit card.

"I think I'd go back to my credit card company first and see if they had knowledge of what I should do in that situation," said Kay Doddato of Imperial.

That's exactly the right thing to do.

Jason Glassberg, co-founder of Casaba Security and also an "ethical hacker" joined "The KDKA Morning News" to discuss the new security for credit cards.

"You can even think of [the new chip] as a microcomputer. What that chip does is every time you [make] a transaction, it creates a unique code and that unique code is what's used to process your payment. So, whenever you do a processed payment with a credit card reader, you're no longer sending over your actual credit card number you're sending over this one-time use code," Glassberg said.

Glassberg adds that if anyone steals the code is it useless because it is a one-time use code.

Join The Conversation On The KDKA Facebook Page
Stay Up To Date, Follow KDKA On Twitter

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.