<i>some special way the customer can swipe the card (pulling it out too quickly or something).</i><p>When chip cards were introduced here, the cards and the readers weren&#x27;t very reliable, so the rule was &quot;if the reader can&#x27;t talk to the chip, you swipe the card instead&quot;.  This would happen if the card wasn&#x27;t fully inserted, if the contacts were dirty or corroded, etc.<p>That lasted maybe two years before the fraud increased and the reliability improved to the point that the fallback wasn&#x27;t worthwhile.  Now if a chip doesn&#x27;t read the answer is &quot;try it again&quot; followed by &quot;do you have a different card?&quot;