Today I tried buying something in Tesco and was unable to use contactless. Upon trying to use chip and PIN the machine said there was a problem with my chip. There is a blemish on the chip which has been there since my card arrived, it is printed onto the chip.
A kind shopper paid for my shopping and I went to try the card in the ATM outside which also said it was unable to read my card. Surely contactless should still have worked without the chip? Is there anything I can do, I really grudge paying £5 for a new card when I have not been responsible for it no longer working.
Contactless uses the chip, too. You can’t really fix the broken chip - as it’s broken since arrival, if you say that to them I’d think you’d get a free replacement.
Whilst this is true, what people generally refer to as the ‘chip’ are actually the contact pads on the outside of the card, which connect to the actual chip inside. Sounds like the blemish is on the contact pads, so is either unrelated to the chip problem, or the chip isn’t the problem but the contacts are no longer working (in which case contactless should theoretically be possible).
Thanks I will try contacting Monzo. I don’t think it’s a problem with me needing to put a PIN in instead of contactless. That was my first attempted purchase for a couple of days and it wouldn’t allow me to then use chip and PIN anyway which is what usually happens when they want to do a PIN check.
