Swiss1960

Who says it's a terrorist attack? Who says the bomb thrower is a suicide bomber? Why not just a "normal" dispute between Mafia clans over money, drugs, women, influence in the crime scene...??? Maybe one mobster ordering a hit on another one and the hitman was just too dumb to throw the second bomb and killed himself...

Speculations about ANY possible reason behind this killing is just MUCH too early IMHO! First the victims and the hitman should be identified and background checked.

It sounds like they will never catch up to demand, even with the self-serve gates for Thais. Maybe they could re-assess the need for the Inwards Fast Track immigration channels. The last time I went down Fast Track there were 2 Immigration Officers there with no customers. They were dozing off! Meanwhile an Air China flight had just also landed, and there were thousands of people at the normal immigration channels. Fast Track is nice when you can get it, but it is not a fair and balanced use of resources.

Exactly. Some sort of pre-screening, and maybe even a premium for fast track. Not the ridiculous 2 million baht scheme aimed at billionaires, but one for successful people willing to pay some sort of premium to avoid the immigration nightmare. Same for departure clearance, which is usually much worse than arrivals. Thailand needs to get its act together, if it is entertaining any prospect of competing on the world stage. Pretty soon, most of its neighbors will pass it by, as Thailand has no concept whatsoever of the definition of progress.

Have to say that I like the Fast Track very much, as my airline offers me the voucher since I pay a higher fair already flying business class... saves me one hour entering or leaving this beautiful Land of Smiles...

But I agree: Most Farang have machine readable passports, mine is even biometric now and pre-checks could easily be done for verifying identity, reading the data into the computer instead of typing it in, machine coule even issue all kinds of short term Visa (i.e. 30 / 90 day tourist)... however, I have to say that I have not seen such procedures at any airport I ever passed through...

This is the place with no bathroom for customers, right? The customers must walk into the mall or over to Soi 8 to relieve themselves. Never quite sure which is closer, but the mall is cleaner.

Not true, bathroom upstairs, when it first opened above statement was true, bathroom added later. They have one of the highest lease rents of any restaurant on beach road, I guess they don't want customers who nurse a cup of coffee or bottle of beer for an hour or so while looking out at the beach and passer by's.

Great Burgers though.

Yes, high prices for everything, but that's the location. They do however have good food, I like their chicken winges, garlic bred, fries etc. etc... and staff is very nice, English capable for some small talk when they have no customers... and sitting outside and watch people stoll by is relly interesting... I like the place despite their high prices. And Ken (manager) is a great guy who always has a recommendation when you need something.

There are many variables. 1) does the Euro survive? 1a) European political stability 2) Does the US Fed to more Quatitative Easing? 2a) US economic recovery 3) Middle East oil and political stability. 4) US economy 5) Thai economy. 6) World economy.

Many more things to consider, pick some of your own.

Roll the dice. My thoughts are QE3 will hurt, as will the Middle East. If the Euro goes down, it may cause a panic up or down, depending on how well the European banks have prepared to issue new currencies and deal with bond and financial instruments, and how well non-European countries and banks can tolerate the "event".

The US is in a very slow recovery, as is much of the world. The primary job loss is in housing, construction and financial. Unfortunately, high unemployment is found in young in-experienced (high school dropout) 18-25 year olds (25%) and 18-25 year old high school grads (15%). While the government claims 8.5 % unemployment, one has to look at how unemployment is calculated. If you're working, you're employed. If you're collecting unemployment, you're unemployed. If you're neither, you're not counted. The US Laborforce Participation rate is down to 64% from 67% in 2001, the lowest since 1980. that means there are millions of people not working, and not collecting unemployment. This will continue to be a drag on the economy. Deficit spending is at an all time high, with the National Debt exceeding GDP. In essence, the US (like many countries) is broke.

The flood hurt many aspects of electronics around the world. How badly this hurts Thailand's economy will remain to be seen. Its possible it could help with new equipment investments or upgrades.

My $.02, which continues to devaluate.

Good thoughts, would add two more factors:

6a) what will the Chinese do with their currency, open it up more and more as dealable curreny? This would drop US$ in a minute...

7) what will happen during the presidential elections in the US... depending on who is front runner, some people might withdraw from US stock exchange...

Thanks for the info.

As you have studied massage techniques, can I ask a couple of questions:

I'm doing quite a bit of running at the moment, 6-7 times per week on a treadmill. Quite often my leg muscles get a bit stiff (particularly the calf muscles) and generally tired. I'm 48 so this is probably to be expected.

Do you reckon a post-run massage would help reduce tiredness in my legs ? (I've read different reports on this).

If so, could you recommend a "type" of massage as there seem to be several options available.

Simon

I would assume that you do quite a bit of stretching after you are finished with the treadmill, yes? Why do you do that? BECAUSE your muscles are still strained and hot and need relaxing and of course, you know that your muscles will continue to burn energy for at least another 1-2 hours after you finish your training.

so this should answer your question about the kind of massage you could get after training: first, you need to wait 1-2 hours to allow your muscles to relax and then you need a massage for relaxation with slow and flowing movements but NOT a traditional Thai body or foot massage. The acupressure from such massages could cause considerable pain or even damage to your muscles while still hot from your training.

I am just back from 3 weeks in Pattaya and I had my daily massage, either foot or traditional Thai or oil massage. I could easily name you 5 different places, from Pattaya Klang to near Walking street to Jomtien, where all girls will provide you on request with their official certificate of education, whether Wat Pho or other... and all shops will NOT provide ANY additional services but ONLY massage.

I am also not sure, how much you know about "real" Thai massage? It is a healing therapy and acupressure with palms and fingers is an integral part of that kind of massage. And also, you should not think that small girls can not provide enough pressure for that. With their body weigth, they can apply enough pressure also for very muscular men.

If however, you are looking more for flowing pressure over your body, then you need to tell them / show them if you don't speak Thai and that can mostly be found when you ask for an oil massage. But again, this is not any more the traditional Thai massage with healing elements of acupressure.

I personally find the traditional Thai massage very helpful for my back and my shoulders (eliminating the calcification of my shoulder blades from my office work), but also can't do it every day, so I switch between Thai and Oil massage to get both the healing and the relaxation effects of the massages.

Should you need any adresses, PM me and I will provide you with locations where I think you can find what you want.

A lawyer will cost money, but if there are a few easy questions she might send them an email. Somtimes they do give simple advise that doesn't require any research.

In Switserland there might be free legal aid availelble. The child will probably have Swiss ationality also and must be registered ith the Swiss embassy. It is important to realize that the child has its own rights and can make a claim on child support (or somebody else will do that on its behalf). If the mother can not get free legal aid, the child itself might be able to get free legal aid.

For the child to have Swiss nationality, paternity will need to be established, he obviously doesnt want to know....doubt he will submit to a DNA test

She is in Thailand....Swiss legal Aid wont apply to her

For the mother to receive child support.....Paternity will need to be established.

Her options are extremely limited......None

They are married, the child will automatically be considered to be fahtered by the husband. It is up to the father in this case to proof he is not the father.

The child is a Swiss citizen and can lay a claim on the father.

Even if she or the child cannot get legal aid in Switserland, a Thai court can establish child maintenance. By international treaty such court order can be effected in almost any country in the world.

Your comment on enforcement in Thailand is misplaced. If a fahter has a job a Thai court can and will have the child maintenance deducted from the fathers salary. Problem is that many people have no official job and pay taxes etc and thus it is difficult to enforce.

The main issue - also mentioned in other posts - whether the marriage has been officially registered and acknowledged by the Swiss authorities. Then the child will automatically have Swiss citizenship. The Swiss law says this in BüG Art. 1 Par. 2: The underage foreign child of a Swiss father, who is not married with the mother, does receive Swiss citizen as if it would have been received through birth, through the declaration of the relationship of the child to the father.

What this means is the following: if either the marriage or the paternity were registered with the Swiss authorities, then the Swiss authorities will provide help to find and identify the father and will make him pay. They will do this based on the UNO treaty from June 1956 about Recovery of maintenance abroad which was signed by Switzerland.

If neither is registered, then it will be more difficult but not impossible and the Embassy will provide help with that regards. Thus, the best advice for the Thai woman is to have all her documents translated (and from the marriage, she would have a copy of the passport of the Swiss citizen) and approach the Swiss Embassy for advice and help.

thanks for the exception and your translation, 7by7. Think I should also switch to Microsoft translator... having used google, half of the text still was German and the whole text made no more sense at all...

And, 7by7, sorry if I missed some of the posts, but please look back and take note that I replied to ths posts of swisstouristpattaya and beano2274 who wrote "Get married and try taking your THAI wife to Switzerland, then you will see how difficult it is."

So - without knowing the details - I assume the OP has the main problem to have his marriage recognized under UK law, after that, he could sue any VISA refusal for his wife as violation of EHRC which the UK also recognizes.

His marriage is recognised under UK law. The Foreign Marriages Act of 1892 (yes 1892) says that any marriage which is recognised as legal in the country where it took place is also recognised as legal in the UK.

You say "without knowing the details." I suggest that you read through the topic, especially Kobrien's posts, properly. Doing so will show you that the problem is a financial one; nothing to do with the validity of his marriage in the UK.

Well, dear 7by7, I was writing this, because the Swiss law about legal foreign marriages says the same... but with a nice amendment that the paperwork must be entered through the Embassy (with proper translations and certifications) and any paperwork missing under Swiss law must first be added to the stack of paper... and finanlly it states that the Swiss Civil Registry department CAN decide not to recognize the marriage if the financial situation does not look proper of if the Civil Registry department thinks that the marriage is only to circumvent the Immigration VISA regulations... but once the marriage is recognized, the VISA for the spouse MUST be given independent of the then financial situation, their are sufficent such judgments from the Swiss Federal Court.

Have done some more googling but also can't find the form anymore. What I found however on the homepage of the EDA is this text:

Die Verpflichtungserklärung (ehemals Garantieerklärung) ist ein offizielles Dokument, welches ausschliesslich durch die Schweizer Vertretungen nach Einreichen eines Visumantrags (sofern eine Garantie als notwendig erachtet wird) ausgehändigt wird.Somit verfügen wir über kein Muster. Eventuell kann Ihnen die zuständige Schweizer Vertretung weiterhelfen.Das Einladungsschreiben, welches auch verlangt werden kann, wird vom Gastgeber in der Schweiz verfasst und ist formlos, sollte aber Aufenthaltszweck, Dauer des Aufenthalts und Angaben dazu enthalten, wer für den Aufenthalt in der Schweiz aufkommt.

This explains why you don't find the form any more. Hope this hels you and - to the Admins - sorry for not translating this to English

The guarantoor's letter is a free-form letter that must be signed by the guarantoor and sent to the embassy. What I did on previous occasions was saying:

I, xxx xxx, citicen of Switzerland, birthday nn.nn.yyyy, from "Heimatort" herewith guarantee

- the visitor is living in my house (or I pay for the hotel)

- I guarantee for all cost of living

- I guarantee for all medical cost that might not be covered by the required insurance

- I guarantee that no overstay and VISA violations will happen

then I add where from I know the visitor, for how long, how many times I was visitied without any violations etc.

Embassy will then decide whether to trust my letter (they can see it as an affidavit) or whether they will require the official guarantee form to be processed:

- the guarantee form will be given to the Visa applicant to send to the guarantor.

- the guarantor must fill it out, give it to the local authority (normally Einwohnerkontrolle => residency department of the city the guarantor lives in)

- the city will check the last income tax forms, whether taxes are paid, whether there are any unusual debts on the income tax filing)

- the form will be sent to the district Visa department (depending on the Kanton can be differen authorities, i.e. in Aargau it is the Migrationsamt)

- the district Visa department will send it back to the Swiss embassy with a recommendation about the Visa approval / denial

I don't know whether it is a rule, but I realized in the past that the official guarantee check had to be renewed every 3 years. Be aware that this process described above can take 4-6 weeks (normally stated on the Embassy web site), but by entering the guarantee form personally with your local Einwohnerkontrolle and few very nice telephones with the discrict migration department, I normally shortend the process to two weeks.

I'm going to Din Daeng next week, however my entry expires before x'mas, I just need 10days more... If i over stay and pay penalty, is this sound an good idea?

Very good idea indeed... if you can live with the risk that your future Visa applications (for whatever reason you will enter it) will be refused for the previous violations of the Visa regulations...

I though wife has visa automatically?i mean wife must follow husband. When you get married you say for the best and worse, if you divorce I would ask government to pay me back.

sent from tapatalk :-)

Sorry but where do you get your ideas from?

Wife does not automatically get a visa, that is why they applied for one.

Get married and try taking your THAI wife to Switzerland, then you will see how difficult it is.

This is not true about Switzerland. The problems you have are only within the area of getting your marriage recognized by the Swiss authorities. Swiss authorities can hassle you for months about paperwork, proving the financial ability to support your family or just claim that the marriage is only about circumventing immigration laws...

Once the marriage is legally recognized by the Swiss Civil Registy Office (paperwork can be filed through the Swiss Embassies), then your partner automatically - in line with par. 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights - gets a resicence permit for Switzerland. This is even true for a foreigner living in Switzerland on a valid resicency permit who wants his foreign wife to join him in Switzerland. This is all about the right for Family Reunification in par. 8 of the EHRC (EMRK in German abbreviation).

So - without knowing the details - I assume the OP has the main problem to have his marriage recognized under UK law, after that, he could sue any VISA refusal for his wife as violation of EHRC which the UK also recognizes.

Condolences to the husband and the whole family of the poor woman. RIP.

As with every such post, I can only note with disgust the various comments... Thai bashing in 90% of all posts... "Thai to be blamed for accident".... "would be treated differently if it would be a Thai"... "would be treated differently in Europe"... "no money to be made, case closed"....

I'd like to ask a question to the Admins: Why do you allow comments on such "news" items? You know what will be coming... you could as well add the standard blaming comments yourself and close the item for comments.... did not see a single comment that add value to the post... probably mine included...

My tip: http://www.jomtienbeachpenthouses.com/

price a little higher than you currently pay (30K on long term for 2 bedroom), but I can recommend the place as quiet, clean, well managed, ok security (including car park). On Jomtien Soi 9, 1 minue walking to the beach. I spend all my holidays there and never had any issues.

You're really stretching now, Fletch... All kinds of corporate sites carry standard disclaimers, as I suspect you know.

But regardless of what VISA says or does, the U.S. federal law on consumer liability for fraudulent charges still applies nationwide, one version for credit cards, and slightly lesser protections for debit cards.

And none of that is anything like the policies employed by the Thai banks.

I think you are still missing the point, which is that VISA zero liability policy does NOT mean zero liability for the cardholder. Of course VISA writes "Your peace of mind and protection are paramount to Visa. Visa's Zero Liability policy is our guarantee that you won’t be held responsible for fraudulent charges made with your card or account information.¹ "

BUT THEN please read this disclaimer:

¹Does not apply to ATM transactions, PIN transactions not processed by Visa, or certain commercial card transactions. Individual provisional credit amounts are provided on a provisional basis and may be withheld, delayed, limited, or rescinded by your issuer based on factors such as gross negligence or fraud, delay in reporting unauthorized use, investigation and verification of claim and account standing and history. You must notify your financial institution immediately of any unauthorized use. Transaction at issue must be posted to your account before provisional credit may be issued. For specific restrictions, limitations and other details, please consult your issuer.

With all these restrictions and limitations, the whole zero liability policy is worth as much as saying "if you don't report your card stolen on time, you don't get any money back. And by the way: If we don't like the history of your account (i.e. too many claims, not enough turn-over, not enough profit to your bank), we might limit or refuse any such claims in line with the Issuers internal policies"". Thai banks might just say it directly and not cover it in such nice disclaimers as the US do...

And not surprisingly, it's the same as most of the other Thai banks thus far and has nothing to do with "zero liability":

Sorry, John in BKK, but now i HAVE to ask you to really read what the US zero liability policy says, see http://usa.visa.com/personal/security/visa_security_program/zero_liability.html and read the footnotes:

Individual provisional credit amounts are provided on a provisional basis and may be withheld, delayed, limited, or rescinded by your issuer based on factors such as gross negligence or fraud, delay in reporting unauthorized use, investigation and verification of claim and account standing and history. You must notify your financial institution immediately of any unauthorized use. Transaction at issue must be posted to your account before provisional credit may be issued. For specific restrictions, limitations and other details, please consult your issuer.

Do you realize how many if's wnd when's and reservations these footnotes contain? May be withheld for delay in reporting, i.e. delay reporting loss...Policy maybe not valid based on specific restrictions defined by your issuer... By no way this is a zero liability policy, those footnotes put you in almost exactly the same situation as a Thai cardholder.

And it is in line with i.e. Swiss credit card general conditions, as one example I quote this one:

Until the Card is blocked, the Cardholder is responsible for all transactions authorized in accordance with usage policy. The risks arising out of misuse of the Card are thus borne by the Cardholder unless a complaint is filed within the stipulated period. Where a complaint is filed within the stipulated period, Bank shall assume responsibility for loss or damage resulting from misuse of the Card by third parties, provided the Cardholder has in all respects complied with the General Terms and Conditions (in particular the duties of care) and to the extent that he/she is not in any way to blame.

Interesting, is it? In no way are Thai policies different from policies in other countries. It might be that Thai banks have less interest in resoving fraud (customer focus might be lower), but the rules are not that different from the rest of the world.

What Ian calls ranting and negativity is simply asking legitimate questions that any responsible bank cardholder ought to know the answers to...yet BKKB refuses (at least in this forum) to answer...and instead engages in personal attacks...

Yes, your questions are legitimate and yes, BKKB should answer them... but...

Have you ever thought about the fact that these two members here (Ian and Dave) are answering the questions with regards to their bank's policies in their free time? Have you ever thought about that they might not be working in the relevant departments and thus need to collect information from other departments but might themselves have troubles receiving the information? Have you ever thought about that all their answers here must stay as un-personal as possible, as they might want to help but have no legitimation from their bank to answer questions as bank employees but only as private persons? Did you ever see people from other banks trying to answer questions re their policies here on TV?

As I am working in the credit card area of a Swiss bank, I do fully understand the balancing act those two TV members must do in order to answer questions but not put any liability on their bank for the answers they give. They might be risking their jobs by giving out any specifics that their employer might see as internal use only information...

From some of your postings, I must say that for me, they come across very negative and personal. Please think about what might be the result, if both of them would say "F*** this forum" and would stop giving answers at all??

Will try to give you few ideas of how the system works, of course from a European point of view:

Well, it looks like they are not having a written policy on the specific subject of VISA credit/debit card-related fraud is in place for a reason. I agree on one hand it would make it more clear where the line is drawn on what the bank can and cannot do. But since even VISA company themselves have made clear that non-US bank issued cards do not have the zero-liability policy, then the banks are free to draw their own boundaries.

There are written policies (International => Regional => Local) about how to treat fraudulent transactions. The main question is whether or not the cardholders bank will go beyond and do their best to help it's customer. From what I read, it looks like Thai banks do not go beyond... but remember, even in Europe / USA, issuer banks will first of all look into the complaint and find out, whether it is a genuine complaint or just a case of "I do not want to pay what I got". Swiss banks as an example tend to ask their cardholders to sign an affidavit about the reported "fraudulent" transactions... and we only get about 60% of the affidavits sent back...

I've assumed up until now (and based on reading a couple of forum posts) that it's extremely difficult to get the bank to process chargeback and credit you funds in case the merchant did not deliver the goods.

If you read the general conditions for your credit card, it will most certainly say that disputes between the cardholder and the merchant (i.e. wrong goods, damaged goods, non-delivery) are not covered as fraud transactions and not covered by the zero-liability policy. Generally, your purchase and your transaction was genuine when you made it and Issuing banks can not be held responsible for failures of the merchant (of course, local consumer protection laws like in the UK can override this...). Just imagine, the merchant going bankrupt between your order and the delivery. How can either the Issuer or the Acquirer be held responsible for such a case? If you would receive your money back for such a transaction, then normally it is purely the goodwill of your bank.

It has to do with managing risk.

It has to do with managing risk... and managing the cost associated with it... People working in chargeback departments need 3-5 years of experience until they are fully up to speed for all those special cases. They have the highest salary of all people in the backoffice of a credit card processor. Sometimes, it is just cheaper to either have an unhappy customer whom we tell that his transaction can not be charged back or - for very good customers - write off the transaction ourselves and not even try to do a chargeback.

The only way the card transaction cannot be legitimate is skimmed card or unauthorized use of original card.

Please add phising to your list... too many stupid cardholders giving away their credit card details including passwords over internet or having trojans on their computer with all card security details stored unprotected...

Skimming at ATM's is currently one of the bigger threads in Switzerland. For the normal cardholder, it is almost impossible to see a fake skimming device attached to the original card entry port, it is almost impossible to see mini-cams attached in order to spy your PIN code, it is almost impossible to detect whether a fake keyboard is glued over the original keyboard... few weeks ago, Swiss policy catched an Eastern European gang who had fake keyboards for the three major ATM brands in use in Switzerland...

I said it before: We have invested lot of money into fraud prevention / detection systems. We compare transactions to the normal behaviour of our cardholders and block suspicious transactions. We have 7x24 staff on duty to deal with fraud. When cardholders report fraudulent transactions, we generally first refund the money and then investigate. But the cases are very different, actually almost every case is different:

- Fraudulent cash advance transactions are normally found after genuine transactions at ATM's. There we investigate whether the ATM has been tampered with and if yes, cardholders get the money back without any questions.

- Fraudulent e-commerce transactions are normally found after the cardholder has been phished and that is REALLY his own problem, we send out warnings about phising almost every month. As we can NOT charge back such transactions to the merchant, we generally try to find a 50-50 deal with the cardholder.

- "Fraudulent" transactions are reported from customers, because their wife did see the invoice and asks questions about why he did sleep in such and such hotel or why he did go to such and such red-light district bar... Most of these transactions are not fraudulent, but as we want to help the customer, we allow him to send us the money for these transactions and we will make the invoice look like the transaction was accepted as fraud... good customer service in deed... ;-)

- "Fraudulent" transactions are reported from customers, because they do not recognize the name of the merchant on the invoice. Lot of small merchants process transactions through a central point and there, we have to explain to the customer, which shops he might have been in.

You see, there are so many different cases of potential or real fraud, that it is almost impossible to give examples. But the general issue is, whether their are local comsumer protection laws in favor of the cardholder or not and whether the bank is willing to invest time and money to keep their cardholders happy.

While I can not directly comment about Thailand, let me give you some general (European) thoughts:

Do they have the ability to deduct the funds from your account somehow, assuming it was an immediate payment with a debit card? ... Or would they come asking you to somehow return the proceeds gained from the fraud transaction? The bank seems to take the position the merchant should be financially responsible, if the card and transaction signatures don't match.

Normally, the disputes & chargeback transaction processing does not allow Card Issuing banks to deduct funds from the merchant accounts. The Issuing bank enters a chargeback towards the Acquiring bank (merchant bank) and once accepted (along a manual of several hundred pages that also describes arbitration situations between Issuer and Acquirer), the acquirer will return the fund to the Issuer through VSIA / MC accounts (intermediary accounts). Acquirers will then deduct from the merchant and Issuers will refund the cardholder.

Thus, even if an Issuer would loose a chargeback request, it is up to him and his own customer care policy (and of course local consumer protection acts) whether he might still refund the cardholder and write off the fraud transaction on his own. Refundind fraudulent transactions made before the card was reported stolen therefore depends also on the internal valuation of the customer within his bank.

And even fewer bother to ask for any kind of photo ID in connection with a card-based purchase, which I'd happily provide if asked. Likewise, I'd assume everything would operate much more securely if banking here transitioned to using PIN based card purchases instead of swipe and sign ones.... Hmmm....

As long as banks do not have the obligation to refund money to their customers, their interest in more secure systems is low. You could clearly see this within Europe. The UK was the first country to issue chip based (EMV) cards, because their fraud level with skimmed cards (skimming = copying mag stripe to other cards) was going through the roof. Of course, the pressure from the consumer protection act was very high, as banks had to start to write off these transactions themselves. Thus, there was a joint excercise between banks and acquirers to introduce chip cards and - few years later - switch to PIN based transactions at POS. The rest of Europe followed years later as fraud switched to their countries. In Switzerland as an example, the first chip cards were issued around 10 years ago, the last Issuer started only 4 years ago... Chip and PIN transactions only now start to be rolled out and it will take another 2 years until we have country wide coverage.

But remember, the merchant POS still needs to accomodate all the foreign cards that do not have EMV chips (i.e. US cards) or have EMV chips but do not support PIN transactions (each card / POS has a so-called CVM - card verification method - list on it's mag stripe that says which authorisation method is supported in which priority and POS and card will negotiate the preferred authorisation method against each others CVM list). The merchant wants to do business and will accept any card transaction in order to make his profit.

Finally, you say that you would be happy to show your ID when you make the purchase. Fine, thank you... but look at it from a merchant point of view: First, even checking the signature will not help too much. Look at the signature on the back of the card... small strip of paper, unreadable signatures, forged with 2 minutes of testing by every thief... second, if you only show the ID, it might help, but what with all the cards that do not carry your name on it? Then the merchant would need to make a copy of the ID and keep it for up to 6 months (according to the manuals) and somehow link that copy to the transaction made (how do you want to do that for tens of thousands of electronic transactions versus ID copies?)...

And most important: The cashier behind his terminal must sell... sell fast, as there are customers waiting to pay for their goods... cashiers must make their transactions FAST and are not given the time to check ID's or even make copies and write down transaction ID's on the copies of your passport... You know the reason why Chip and PIN transactions are introduced? Only to make transaction processing faster in order to have higher sales and smaller queues in front of the POS...

I give you two examples of speed of transaction vs. fraud write-off risk: UK is proud of their chip and PIN system... when I arrived at LHR (having a chip and PIN card), I needed two tickets for Heathrow Express to Paddington... sales persons are waiting inside the terminal already... I bought two tickets for £100... transaction was magstripe swipe, no signature... now such a transaction can be disputed by my Issuing bank within seconds with 100% success rate... and Heathrow Express Acquiring bank nows this... but obviously, such transactions tend not to be disputed, that is why they take the risk to make such transactions, as 200 potential customers for Heathrow express arrive with the same plane at the same time... just speed of transaction...

The other example was the hotel (international chain)... on arrival, they read the card (chip based) and make a pre-authorisation checking validity of the card and the availability of funds for two nights... when I left, the invoice was much higher (food, drinks etc.), BUT they did not want to see my card again, they did not want any signature (not even on the invoice) and again, such transactions would be highly likely to be successfully disputed... when I asked the cashier, she told me that they do not want to bother their international travellers with such inconvenient things like showing the card again and signing slips... obviously, they don't have any relevant fraud and thus, customer experience is valuated higher than possible fraud...

How to change? The government must put the burden on their banks with better consumer protection laws. Only if banks feel the pressure to write off fraudulent transactions on their own, they will raise the pressure on the acquiring banks to press their merchants with more secure terminals for more secure cards giving more secure transactions... that is the reality.

I'm quite happy to be served a drink or a meal in a restaurant but when it comes to a serious purchase, such as an air ticket for example, I really don't want to deal with a ladyboy. if the owners of a business such as this can't take things seriously then neither can I.

If I would say what I think about you and your post, then not only my post would be deleted, but I think I would be banned from TV for weeks....

What is the issue with different sexes sharing the bathroom in the first place?

hmmm... how about protecting girls and women from prowlers and more dangerous perverts??? Probably best and strongest reason I can think of...

My policy with new technology, be it operating systems, vehicle ABS, or banking, is to let several million people field test it first and find and post problems and/or fixes on Internet boards. I haven't the time to play guinea pig and there are lots of early adopters out there to do the job for me. I'm in no hurry.

Well, I won't dispute your policy... but please remember that you will find dozends or hundreds of reports from unhappy customers (as in this example), but the "real" issues will stay unknown and the tens of thousands of happy customers will never post their experience...

contactless cards are not new technologies, they exist for years in various flavours, see for example the contactless Oyster smartcard (London transport) which even exists as part of Barclay card credit cards since 2007... (first Oyster card was issued in 2003...)