You may hate your chip card. Constant confusion over chip or swipe. Card read errors. Longer authorization times. But trust me, it’s worth it. Chip cards are not as easily skimmed or cloned as magstripe cards. You can buy a magstripe reader and blanks for less than $50 on ebay. Chips can’t be cloned as easily, since the data on the card is better encrypted, and some of it changes with each transaction, rendering any potential clone useless. In addition, the liability changes with the use of the magstripe when the card is also equipped with a chip, but the chip is not used.
After Oct. 1, 2015, in-store counterfeit fraud liability shifted to the party who had not adopted chip technology. So it you use one of those phone card reader dongles, you need to have both magtripe and chip versions, and use the magstripe version only as a last resort.