Here's why you should never hand over your card when paying with contactless

Not so happy tapping

Paying on contactless has completely revolutionised the way we live (as has the fact you can pay for your stuff with a selfie, thanks Mastercard). Ok, mainly the way we buy lunch. But a cursory ask around the office has found that we use contactless at least twice a day (that was a very conservative estimate), despite this, we are still rendered useless when asked how we want to pay ‘oh, you know, the tappy thing, please (insert tapping motion)’.

However, as us Brits are spending more and more money tapping contactless cards - we’re now allowed to make payments of up to £30 without tapping in a PIN number - it is now becoming increasingly important to keep an eye on your bank card when making contactless payments, because a) it could be stopping us from becoming a millionaire and b) we could be getting fleeced.

The UK Cards Association’s best practice guidelines state the bank card ‘should always stay in the customer’s hand’, which sounds like a completely obvious statement to make, as prior to contactless, the idea of handing your card over to a complete stranger seems like a pretty stupid thing to do. However, we’re going to raise our hands up and say yes, we don’t think twice about handing our cards over to the barman on a night out to make a payment. Sorry, mum.

However, by letting some unknown take hold of your plastic and pay for your purchase, could put you at risk of fraud. A fact which is prompting fraud experts to call on the government to make it a compulsory rule to stop this practice from happening.

Andrew Goodwill of the Goodwill group told The Telegraph: ‘Customers are being made vulnerable to having their card skimmed (fraudulently copied) if they hand their card over, so they should refuse when asked to do this.’ With the amount being spent on contactless cards going from £2.32 billion in 2014 to a staggering £7.75 billion last year, it’s probably wise to adhere to this practice, whether it’s mandatory or not.