EMV Fraud Liability Shift

The fraud liability shift is already in affect.  You may have noticed over the last few months most of your credit cards have been upgraded to the new chip technology.  This upgrade helps protects consumers and businesses by making it virtually impossible to replicate and create counterfeit credit cards.  However, for business owners that have not changed out their terminals they may now be held liable for counterfeit transactions.

      What is EMV you ask? It stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa.  They are the three companies that originally created the standard for the new smart cards.  There are now over 200 companies that make up the Smart Card Alliance.

      Here are three things you need about the new chip technology.

1. The fraud liability shift to merchants took place last October. 

Merchants who have not upgraded to chip enabled terminals can be held liable in the event of a counterfeit transaction.  For full details check here.

2. Online card transactions still follow old rules.

Card not present transactions, atm transactions, and lost/stolen cards still follow existing liability and chargeback rules.

3. The fraud liability shift for gasoline retailers not till 2017

Gasoline retailers still have 2 years to implement and upgrade credit card terminals.  Since a gas station can easliy have 20 or more terminals for the various pumping stations the liability shift was won’t take place till 10/15/2017.