To the Editor: Michelle Higgins’s Practical Traveler column “For Americans, Plastic Buys Less” (Oct. 4), about the refusal by European merchants and automated kiosks to accept American credit cards, which use magnetic strips to store data and not the newer, safer “chip-and-PIN” technology, lets the U.S. card industry off the hook very lightly.
Perhaps the spokesperson for Visa who said “by and large the majority of Visa cards are seamlessly accepted internationally” has never stood in the Lyon train station trying to buy a ticket from an automated kiosk and found that none of the four cards in her wallet will work. Or maybe she hasn’t experienced the thrill of being locked in an underground parking garage in Aix-en-Provence for the same, inexplicable, reason.
Ben Bilus
New Canaan, Conn.
