In 2009 my card had a 6-digit PIN and I went on holiday to Argentina. The card readers there only accepted 4 digits and they validated my card with the first 4 digits of my PIN.
On that subject, I (a European) went to the US last week. It was time to pay at a restaurant in their needlessly complicated way where they hand you the bill, you return them the bill with your card and then they return once more for you to fill out the tip. Shortly after the second step the waiter returned apologizing, saying they could not bypass the PIN on the card like they normally could (which was slightly startling to me) and asked if I could come with them to enter it on the payment terminal myself.
Must have been a debit card that flat out refused anything but Chip & PIN.
Most cards aren't like this.
With my UK issued AmEx & Visa cards (both Charge/Credit), at certain places terminal didn't even ask me for a PIN, and the transaction just went through as "Chip & Signature"
Same experience (card came with default 6-digit pin that I didn't change), never have longer-than-4 pin when traveling outside of western democracies. The fact that it worked made me doubt that it was actually verified, but didn't have balls to play with this too far away from easily obtainable money
Don't be so sure of that.
If your PIN just happens to start with 00, it is fairly trivial to jury-rig a common 4-digit hacking device to crack your 6-digit PIN.
