Does anyone have any information whether they'd refund people who have pre-ordered?
Sounds like if they had the money for a refund they wouldn't be shutting down.
Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
61–70 of 168 posts
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the London transport network you've been able to pay at the barriers with a contactless credit card in the same way as you would use an Oyster card for a couple of years now. It's weird that other transport networks haven't adopted it yet
Such a system has been in use in Singapore for more than 15 years. Vienna does away with all of this fuss by simply doing random checks, issuing on the spot fines for fare evaders, and not having to manage the expense of turnstiles etc.
How do you pay for tickets in Vienna then?
I kind of like the barriers, if you are on the station platform, then you have definitely paid. For me, the stations that don't have barriers are more stressful, as you run the risk of forgetting to tap your card (or the tap not registering) and incurring a maximum fare.
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't going to be so much that, as a card that you could put multiple credit cards on, but that still functioned entirely like a credit card - meaning it could be swiped in vending machines, by waitresses, and everywhere that accepts cards, without the need for an apple pay or google pay or whatever NFC payment hardware. It's for people that keep multiple cards in their wallet.
> everywhere that accepts cards Given the shift to chip-and-PIN, which can't be emulated like this -- Plastc claimed they could but never demonstrated it (because it's impossible) -- they were way too late to market with this idea even 3 years ago. And if merchants are going to roll out new POS hardware they might as well jump to NFC as it leapfrogs cards on convenience. And security, if your device implements tokeni…
I don't know what was promised by Plastc exactly but I assume you need to register your card numbers somewhere (like with Apple Pay) and then when you use your Plastc card to pay (with chip and PIN or not), their back-end issues a payment transaction using the selected card. Am I wrong?
Over here in Europe we have Curve that does exactly that, without the fancy hardware: https://www.imaginecurve.com
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#64"In 2011 after buying a pair of sneakers, then a fruit smoothie and noticing a Google Wallet icon on the cash register, Marquis asked the cashier how many people actually paid with their phones. The cashier responded that so far 2-3 people per month were using it... Immediately the lightbulb went on in Ryan’s mind that there was a significant shift happening in the market from a physical credit card to digital paymen…
Fruit smoothies and sneakers? Here you go:
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#65I was really excited about this product! Sorry it didn't work out for you guys. As someone who went through a similar experience recently, I assure you that there is life after Plastc (but it won't happen over night, so give yourself some breathing room).
Thanks for working on this product for the past few years, and best of luck in whatever you do next!
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
In their defense, until today they thought they were going to get funded and actually be able to deliver.
In their non-defense, they also promised accountability and transparency. If you are one signature away from bankruptcy, you may want to be transparent about that, before taking un-refundable preorders. Or you could do the responsible thing and keep preorder money in escrow. Madoff was also only a few signatures from having his Ponzi scheme staying afloat.
Don't judge them until you walk a mile in their shoes. When you worked on something for years, you still maintain hope, and you're wrestling with doubt every day being "transparent" isn't so easy. You literally can't say "hey, we might go out of business" and then walk into a VC office and make a pitch. Having to wrestle with this was the hardest part of my job at RethinkDB, and any time I hear of someone who had to deal with it I want to wrap them in a blanket and buy them hot cocoa (laced with bourbon).
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't going to be so much that, as a card that you could put multiple credit cards on, but that still functioned entirely like a credit card - meaning it could be swiped in vending machines, by waitresses, and everywhere that accepts cards, without the need for an apple pay or google pay or whatever NFC payment hardware. It's for people that keep multiple cards in their wallet.
> everywhere that accepts cards Given the shift to chip-and-PIN, which can't be emulated like this -- Plastc claimed they could but never demonstrated it (because it's impossible) -- they were way too late to market with this idea even 3 years ago. And if merchants are going to roll out new POS hardware they might as well jump to NFC as it leapfrogs cards on convenience. And security, if your device implements tokeni…
> Given the shift to chip-and-PIN, which can't be emulated like this -- Plastc claimed they could but never demonstrated it (because it's impossible)
If they'd had a whole lot of market share already, maybe they could have persuaded issuers to provide private keys in some way that could be imported into the Plastc device (which might itself then have a tamper-resistant smartcard processor like the one in the individual chip cards).
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#68My newsfeed on Facebook is full of ads of hardware startups with amazing concepts of products. When I get into the "know more" is always a "pre-order". From IOT-retrofit-motorized-shades to triple-your-macbook-screen-via-usb. I've been burned so many times that when I see "startup", "hardware", "pre-order" and "as a service" in the same pitch, I make a mental note of "call me back once you have a real product and it does not depend on your infrastructure".
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was always bemused about this idea that putting multiple credit cards on a single physical card is some great feature that a lot of people want and would pay money for. In my experience, having many credit cards is a complete pain to manage, because for each card you need to monitor the statement, set up the automatic payment (or do it manually), change the address when you move, etc, etc, and no sane person is goi…
My dream for something like this is having everything on one card would let you manage the complexity a lot better. Having one single interface to pay all bills and see spending breakdowns aggregated across all your cards, recommending the optimal order to pay down cards (if you are going to carry a balance). Then on top of this, automatic fallback in case one card is declined, new numbers for every online transactio…
Moneytree does this in Japan. You register all your accounts with it and you can see them all and manage them all in one interface.
Re: Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like that the first comment points out that they would be useless once the chip and pin switch takes place "in a year or so".
Chip & Pin is an interesting beast. Canada went straight to Chip & Pin, skipping over Chip & Sign. Since credit cards generally didn't have PINs at the time, there was a little work on the part of the issuing banks to assign PINs. One of my cards came with a letter that said "Use the same PIN as you use with your regular bank card", another came with one that said "Here's your new PIN, you can change it at any of our…
Personally, I cannot remember PINs. At all. That means I can never use debit cards. If chip and pin were a thing, I guess I would have to get a tattoo or something.