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Simple ATM cards being declined

status.simple.com

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Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#21

Post by hosay123 »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #17
hosay123 wrote: post #5

Ordinarily I might consider this worth a loss in reputation, but given the uniquely one-sided battle that is trying to cause any disruption in the banking industry, I'd be willing to cut these guys some slack. In this area the enemy has big guns

I wouldn't cut them any slack. I can't say my bank cards have ever gone down. Totally losing access to your customer's money doesn't help your reputation at all, "disruptor" or not. EDIT: "The Bancorp Bank", the bank Simple farms out the actual banking to, has been around since 2000[0]. Simple _might_ have an excuse for screwing up like this if this was all their own system, but an established bank doesn't. [0] http:…

The inverse of this is exactly why I'd cut them slack: there's no way for them to do business without partnering with the competition, in this case being solely dependent on them.

Edit: it's exactly like trying to reinvent Twitter by consuming their APIs, and we've all seen how that goes

Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#22

Post by zaidf »

bonzoesc wrote: post #10
hosay123 wrote: post #5

Ordinarily I might consider this worth a loss in reputation, but given the uniquely one-sided battle that is trying to cause any disruption in the banking industry, I'd be willing to cut these guys some slack. In this area the enemy has big guns

They're literally disrupting banking right now. Is accepting unreliability from financial institutions the disruption banking needs?

Is being unforgiving to new entrants in a typically scary industry the type of behavior that will encourage new competition?

Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#23

Post by jacquesm »

I don't have anything to do with 'simple' but I'm working with a group of people on another system somewhere in the payment chain. In banking failure is not an option, a little detail that I keep having to drill into my collegues, some of who would rather have an MVP with the occasional bit of downtime than something a lot more solid. So for now we're stuck in the 'hurd' loop.

Within any start-up there are always differing opinions on the level of reliability required. My first real job in IT was with the Dutch division of the Chase Mannhattan bank, they made it pretty clear upon hiring me that they did not mind hiring me into a responsible position as young as I was but that my first fuck-up would also be my last. I'm not sure if they would actually follow through on that promise but it certainly made me a bit more wary and more responsible. The fact that I ended up leaving of my own accord means that their threat probably had its intended effect.

When you're in the payment chain, whether as an IPSP, a bank or something else that directly affects peoples income and ability to function in society you have no excuse other than 'meteor fragments took out all three of our datacenters'.

Stuff is up, check-totals are at '0', transactions are never lost. 24 hours, 365 (of 366) days per year.

If you can't do that don't bother playing.

The bank I'm with (Rabobank in nl) lost a lot of respect from me (after building that up for 2 decades) when they blamed a bunch of down time on 'hackers'. What bugged me even more than the fact that they were down was the fact that they wanted to blame another party for being down.

The one thing I'll leave a little bit of room for is capacity issues during the holiday shopping spree, but even that is pretty bad form and indicative of very bad planning.

Judging by the post the error lies with Simple's partner, unfortunately for Simple customers will likely not care about that at all. To them their simple card doesn't work when they expect it to work.

I hope for simple they'll be able to fix this very quickly.

Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#26

Post by jacquesm »

zaidf wrote: post #22
bonzoesc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're literally disrupting banking right now. Is accepting unreliability from financial institutions the disruption banking needs?

Is being unforgiving to new entrants in a typically scary industry the type of behavior that will encourage new competition?

You should be unforgiving. I have no idea what the root cause behind this is but testing roll-over is obviously part & parcel of the level of reliability required in the financial world.

Allowed: scheduled downtime announced ahead of time for reporting, unscheduled downtime with localized effect due to 'acts of god'. Not allowed: customers can't access their funds when they should be able to.

When you disrupt the banking industry you especially should be doing at least as good as the established parties do in the reliability department.

Let's hope they have it fixed very quickly or it may well kill Simple.

Imagine being in a bar somewhere right now and having just bought a round finding out that you can't pay for it. You'll hear about that one for years.

Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#27

Post by notatoad »

hosay123 wrote: post #5

Ordinarily I might consider this worth a loss in reputation, but given the uniquely one-sided battle that is trying to cause any disruption in the banking industry, I'd be willing to cut these guys some slack. In this area the enemy has big guns

From our position on the sidelines, it's easy to say that banking is an industry that needs some disruption. But it's also an industry where service interruptions are absolutely inexcusable, and none of the established players have issues like this. Maybe the only reason that simple is able to 'disrupt' is because they don't fully appreciate the requirements of the industry, and if they put as much effort into failover and redundancy as the big players they wouldn't be able to disrupt anything.

Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#28

Post by ConstantineXVI »

hosay123 wrote: post #21
ConstantineXVI wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't cut them any slack. I can't say my bank cards have ever gone down. Totally losing access to your customer's money doesn't help your reputation at all, "disruptor" or not. EDIT: "The Bancorp Bank", the bank Simple farms out the actual banking to, has been around since 2000[0]. Simple _might_ have an excuse for screwing up like this if this was all their own system, but an established bank doesn't. [0] http:…

The inverse of this is exactly why I'd cut them slack: there's no way for them to do business without partnering with the competition, in this case being solely dependent on them. Edit: it's exactly like trying to reinvent Twitter by consuming their APIs, and we've all seen how that goes

The Twitter comparison doesn't work here; Bancorp is explicitly a middleman. As long as Bancorp is getting paid, it's in their best interest (excuse the pun) for Simple to stay afloat.

Bancorp is a closer analog to EC2; they let Simple get off the ground quickly without having to build and harden their own banking systems and transaction networks. Also like EC2, Simple gets to take the heat equally if Bancorp screws up.

That said, this is pretty bad, but if Simple had built their own network and left a glaring security hole open, they'd be utter toast.

Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#29

Post by hosay123 »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #28
hosay123 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inverse of this is exactly why I'd cut them slack: there's no way for them to do business without partnering with the competition, in this case being solely dependent on them. Edit: it's exactly like trying to reinvent Twitter by consuming their APIs, and we've all seen how that goes

The Twitter comparison doesn't work here; Bancorp is explicitly a middleman. As long as Bancorp is getting paid, it's in their best interest (excuse the pun) for Simple to stay afloat. Bancorp is a closer analog to EC2; they let Simple get off the ground quickly without having to build and harden their own banking systems and transaction networks. Also like EC2, Simple gets to take the heat equally if Bancorp screws…

In the context of Wikileaks, Visa and Amazon were explicitly middlemen. As long as Visa and Amazon were paid, it was in their best interest

No doubt you already see where I'm going with this.

Re: Simple ATM cards being declined

#30

Post by zaidf »

jacquesm wrote: post #26
zaidf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is being unforgiving to new entrants in a typically scary industry the type of behavior that will encourage new competition?

You should be unforgiving. I have no idea what the root cause behind this is but testing roll-over is obviously part & parcel of the level of reliability required in the financial world. Allowed: scheduled downtime announced ahead of time for reporting, unscheduled downtime with localized effect due to 'acts of god'. Not allowed: customers can't access their funds when they should be able to. When you disrupt the ban…

you especially should be doing at least as good as the established parties do in the reliability department.

Easy to say but I think it is unreasonable to expect a company that is couple years old to have as much reliability as ones who have had decades to figure it out.

I think the Simple customers have every right be absolutely pissed. For some, they may even realize that the downside of going with Simple isn't justified by the upside. Hopefully, for the majority of Simple users the upside will make the rare downtime bearable.

My view would change if this becomes a regular occurrence with Simple. But that does not seem to be the case.

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