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Square Cash

square.com

101–110 of 295 posts

Re: Square Cash

#101

This is one area where the US seems to be behind compared to the UK. I am from the UK and that service would look quite poor if it launched over here. We have a system called faster payments service that offers instant (although in some cases up to 2 hours) bank transfers for payments up to £100,000 (can differ between banks). You can use this directly if you share bank account numbers and sort codes but there are al…

Having recently moved from the UK to the US, I was quite shocked at the state of US banking. In the UK we can transfer money for free, use many ATMs free (not just the bank's own), we get free chequebooks, and there are plenty of accounts with no monthly fees. My US bank has a whole list of charges, and it's not made up by higher interest rates.

Re: Square Cash

#102
post #99
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

You mean email account, and not address, right? Prevention is less important than detection and reversal before withdrawal, which Square and other payment methods companies are pros at.

[deleted]

Re: Square Cash

#103
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like this is probably more of a security feature. Prepaid cards are harder to track, and would be more suspect to fraud.

You know what's at least as hard to track and prone to fraud? Actual cash. I really dislike the idea that e.g. children shouldn't be able to pay for things over the internet because their identity can't be verified. Let's see some more support for prepaid cards.

Actual cash is nearly impossible to fraud/counterfeit.

Are you a parent? I do not have want to my kid buying products unfettered.

Re: Square Cash

#104
post #83
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As lbarrow said, I use a credit card. It used to be that debit cards offered almost no protection. I think they're competitive with credit cards now, but that may only be when you're using it like a credit card. I don't know if this would count towards my fraud protection (which, honestly, I know nothing about). Really, it's because I use my credit card as a firewall account. If my credit card gets compromised (which…

As a non-USAsian, I'm always puzzled by the American's paranoia about their bank account details. In most countries, bank account numbers are effectively public knowledge, and appear at the bottom of invoices and such. The trick is that with this knowledge you can pay money in to an account, but you can't get it out - for that you need authorisation. This makes paying via echeck or direct credit very easy. Am I right…

Yes, in the US you can take money out of an account if you know the number. No, it's not a good system.

Re: Square Cash

#105

Do Interac email transfers not work in the US? They're pretty much the same thing: send money to an email recipient who then clicks a link to deposit it in their account. I'm surprised that this is big news, and that it seemingly doesn't exist down south.

Interac is an exclusively Canadian payment-processor. The American equivalents are PLUS and Cirrus--who could have implemented this long ago, but for some reason haven't.

Re: Square Cash

#107
post #91

I just scoured the site and saw no limits for receiving through square cash. I can't imagine that this is actually the case; does anyone have any idea what the actual policies are?

$2500 a week, or $250 a week before ID verification, according to WSJ. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230337690...

That's described as a limit on spending, not on receiving. It may be symmetric, but it's not clear to me from that.

Re: Square Cash

#108
post #15

And composing an email to send someone money is secure how? What stops someone from spoofing my email address, CC'ing it to cash@square.com, and clearing me out? And if someone does get in to my email account I'm toast?

Apparently, for suspicious activity, they'll send you an email back confirming the transaction. I would hope that most large-scale modern email services somehow sign emails to vouch for their authenticity to avoid email spoofing. I'd be curious how they handle dumb senders (I'd assume with a verification every time).

> I would hope that most large-scale modern email services somehow sign emails to vouch for their authenticity to avoid email spoofing.

Wait, what? I don't think that is a thing.

Re: Square Cash

#109
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's at least as hard to track and prone to fraud? Actual cash. I really dislike the idea that e.g. children shouldn't be able to pay for things over the internet because their identity can't be verified. Let's see some more support for prepaid cards.

Actual cash is nearly impossible to fraud/counterfeit. Are you a parent? I do not have want to my kid buying products unfettered.

I hate to break this to you, but they can already buy things in physical stores.

And if you legitimately have a $20 bill, I can walk into a store, represent that it's mine, and buy things with it, never encountering an obstacle along the way. That's the same fraud you're worried about in prepaid cards.

Re: Square Cash

#110
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like an excellent target for phishing attacks!

That was my first impression. I could rip the site, post it to my own domain, and start sending out emails saying "you've got cash, give me your credit card number so we can credit it" in about 10 minutes. Great concept, and I plan to use the service, but as it gains momentum and acceptance, it's going to be a great attack vector for the Nigerians.

All online business ever is a great attack vector for "Nigerians."
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