‘Which?’ consumer group criticized Tesco this Thursday for letting scammers get away with it at self-service checkouts in some 200 stores belonging to the supermarket chain in Britain. The problem is down to the fact that Tesco has not yet made these tills compatible with chip-and-pin technology. This makes it possible for thieves to use stolen cards when paying for goods without entering a PIN or even signing the receipt.
The use of self-service checkouts has been growing in Britain over the past year but Tesco was the first supermarket chain in the country to install this type of checkout several years ago. Warnings about the potential for fraud were sounded as early as last year, when Tesco was warned about the need to install chip-and-pin. Another warning came at the beginning of this summer, when the lack of chip-and-pin technology at its self-service desks was once again questioned. The supermarket promised in June to rollout the new system by the end of the summer, but has still not done so.
‘Which?’ has now claimed it has evidence that fraudsters are cashing in on the security loophole by using stolen or cloned cards to pay for purchases under the existing security conditions. Tesco’s defence has always been that generally there has been no more fraud at self-service checkouts and petrol pumps than at normal tills, which all have chip-and-pin in place. The supermarket has always said that their automatic tills are equipped with other security protection mechanisms, including checks for the cards’ authenticity, as well as a limit on how much a customer was able to pay without ID verification.
According to Tesco representatives, chip-and-pin technology was not proved at the time existing self-service lines were installed in its stores. However, chip-and-pin has since demonstrated its value, even though problems with fraud at chip-and-pin tills at Shell petrol stations over the summer threatened its reputation somewhat. Tesco has now tried to allay concerns by saying that chip-and-pin technology is already being implemented at some automated tills, and that full rollout should be expected by the end of this year.
