Retailers Slow To Adopt Credit Card Chip System

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- After security breaches at Target, K-Mart, Staples, Home Depot, and others, banks quickly issued new credit cards with a chip that were harder to defraud.

But six months after this system was supposed to be in place, many retail stores are still using the old method of swiping cards.

"About 42 percent of retailers have not updated the terminals in any of their stores," says Jill Gonzalez of CardHub that conducted a recent survey on the topic.

Gonzalez says many retail stores have been slow to implement the chip system, and customers have noticed.

"They'll have tape over the chip area. They just want you to swipe it, put your pin in, and boom you go," says Gina Thomas who grew up in Dormont and now lives in Phoenix.

"Everyone that I see says, 'We don't want it yet. We may have to switch over, but we don't want it yet, but we're trying to stay away from it," adds Thomas.

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"I'm actually completely shocked at how slow this process has gone," Paula Rosenblum, a retail technology expert told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Monday.

"I'm really shocked, particularly when you see that retailers have spent the money for the hardware and yet they're still not using it."

One reason why so many retailers may not be using the chip credit card is that it takes so much longer to process customers, forcing customers to wait until they can be in and out.

At Mike Feinberg's in the Strip District, shop clerk Sherman Shiflet uses the new system but admits, "Each transaction takes longer.  You have to run the card through the machine, insert it into a reader, wait til the transaction completes, return the card to the customer after it's completed."

Rosenblum, who blogs for Forbes Magazine, says consumers shouldn't worry.

"Honestly, as consumers, no, you don't need to care at all. One way or another, you still have no liability. For credit cards, it's fifty dollars, same as it ever was."

That's for credit cards.  As for debit cards, until the better system is in place, Rosenblum says don't use them for purchases.