Chip and pin and magstripe and signature and confused.....

I was a bit taken aback the other day by my experience in the self-checkout area of Sainsbury's. No - not the "unexpected item in the bagging area" issue - no this was the card reader saying USE MAGSTRIPE.

Use what I thought? The ever-helpful staff explained I had to swipe the card through the reader and then write my signature on a small LCD tablet I hadn't noticed before. Presumably the chip had malfunctioned?

More recently I've had the same thing at a till. USE MAGSTRIPE. The operator had to do something odd with the card out of my view while I entered my PIN. No signature this time.

Were it anywhere else other than Sainsbury's in Tooting I'd have been suspicious. If the public gradually get used to all manner of strange equipment and procedures like this from reliable traders - such as handing your card over, seeing it swiped in some form and then entering your PIN in a separate unit, well - surely it makes it easier for random n'er do wells to scam us all with fake equipment.