Try to guess if you swipe your card or insert it. Try one of those options. Probably discover you’re wrong, either because the machine scolds you or the store clerk does. Try the other option. If it’s the EMV chip, you then wait an interminably long time.
I think credit card companies have some fault here but at the same time, merchants on the whole are awful at taking your money. Loss Prevention at 2-5% of their potential sales, coupons & sales just to get you in the door, staff at every store has no knowledge on the products that they stock and you have to wait in line to check out and then hope you put your credit card in the right slot as the person who does hundreds of point of sale transactions a day has zero interest in giving you a heads up that the chip – reader doesn’t work.
If I worked retail, every transaction would start with, “Find everything today? Great! Before you swipe, please note our chip reader isn’t functional yet and if you just have a magnetic strip, you’re good to go with the traditional method of swiping.”
I’d say it 100 times a day but the customer’s last experience with our retailer is the point of sale and if they feel like an idiot buying a $4,000 computer, that’s not a great experience. Merchants are on the front-lines of this transition and they should act accordingly.