Today being the first day of February, our new Chip and PIN credit cards became valid, so I went out at lunchtime to fill up the car and try out the new card.

Thankfully I got through the process pretty quickly, the forecourt was quiet so there was no queue, and I even remembered the new PIN! As an aside, oddly enough I find I have great difficulty actually remembering what the PIN for my cashpoint card is in terms of numbers, however I don’t ever get it wrong at a cashpoint – I’m assuming this is because I’ve remembered the movements rather than the number. I think for the same reason I have to concentrate quite hard when I use the Smile phone banking as they ask for the account number, sort code and PIN in a different order than they come up on the web site! A question for a psychologist I guess.

Anyway, after paying, I had a chat with the manager of the petrol station, who was on the till today, who said that a lot of people have problems with the system. He said he had one lady come in who was really not happy about having to use a “Pitch and Putt” card as she called it, the implication being that there are people who are actively avoiding using the new system. He also said that he has found that the terminals are troublesome, in that the one they use periodically cancels payments mid-transaction for no apparent reason. When you’re dealing with people who are uncomfortable with the whole PIN system anyway, it doesn’t help.

We now have only four months to wait before the other main card we use switches over, although I may get that one done sooner, again due to troublesome terminals. For some reason various Barclays terminals don’t identify it as Chip and Signature, and insist that it is Chip and PIN, but then declare it invalid. One shop in particular haven’t trained their staff properly, so it causes a lot of hassle as they don’t know how to override the machine and force it to validate on a signature.