Curious to hear what the team at Wallaby thinks about this, and whether they're planning on competing directly or focusing squarely on rewards cards.
Coin
161–170 of 720 posts
Re: Coin
#162Swipe, click-to-switch, swipe, click-to-switch, swipe... Why steal one card's data when you can copy the whole wallet? :-) Or, run one card but take down the information for another. It also appears that the Coin is programmed over Bluetooth. Why bother swiping to steal when you can run a smartphone app and take all of the cards on all of the coins in range? If this takes off and fraud goes up, credit card companies…
> Why bother swiping to steal when you can run a smartphone app and take all of the cards on all of the coins in range? Because it doesn't broadcast credit card data over Bluetooth.
Hah, maybe not on purpose.
Re: Coin
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that names aren't required to match on credit cards. For instance, my wife is an authorized user on my card. Her signature is on the back, my name is on the front. Similar situations abound for business use cards.
That's strange. My girlfriend is an authorized user on my card in Canada and it has her name on the front and she has her own PIN that I don't know.
We seem to have stronger laws about this sort of thing in place at the moment. In the US, it seems, just swiping the magnetic stripe is still the way it's done. How quaint!
Re: Coin
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your fears sound irrational to me. It's just a button, on something already in your hand. I doubt you're going to "fumble" it, or that it's going to be a "ghastly hassle" to press a button one or more times. Once you've shopped at that store at least once, you know exactly how many times to press it to advance to the card you use there. All of this should take less time than putting a rewards card back into your wall…
When I think about standing in line pressing a button, iterating through a list of all my credit, debit, and rewards cards to find the right one, it seems like a hassle. Imagine I go past the correct card in my haste and I've got to keep pressing the button until I've looped back around to the correct one. Did I screw it up a third time? Now people in line behind me and the cashier are getting pissed off with how muc…
Stories are fun, let me try one :)
"I go to pay at the checkout counter. Oh wait! I suddenly remember I have a rewards card here. Good thing I carry it in my wallet along with the other 10 rewards cards I have...shoot, which pocket did I put it in? Maybe it's here? no wait...oh shoot, now I have to take all the cards out. I know it's a red card, but so is my Target and Walgreens card. Now all my cards are out all over the place. People behind me in line are getting pissed off with how much time I'm taking. Now all I have to do is collect all my cards from the counter, reorder them, and put them back in my wallet. I wish I just had one card in my pocket that could work for everything."
Re: Coin
#165I worked on a product like this at Amex about 20 years ago and while it was a totally neat concept it was completely stupid in practice. All those plastic cards are marketing vehicles that can also transmit a number. And, really, are they that difficult to manage?
Hey, the cool hipster dude with a beard says it's cool, so it has to be.
Seriously though, they did a fantastic job with the overall experience of the landing page/video. The product, however, is not that great.
Re: Coin
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the looks of it, it will handle rewards cards and whatnot just fine. If I could just store my Qdoba, Panera, Gameworks, Dave and Busters, REI, Best Buy, Safeway, Kroger, etc. cards on one single card. Now I can keep as many rewards cards as I want, without having to stuff my wallet full of junk I don't need 99% of the time. The money I save from rewards cards I wouldn't normally carry would probably pay for the…
Every rewards card I have is a scanned barcode, not a mag swipe.
Same here. Speaking of which, surely someone has written a phone app that will scan and display all your barcoded cards on demand?
Re: Coin
#167SUPER clever idea -- kudos for that. In theory, this is awesome. As a consumer, I love it.
As a merchant, however (which I am), there is no chance I would accept this. None. Unless the issuers (that is, Visa, MC, Amex) drastically change their policies, which I don't see happening anytime soon.
Why? Because the issuers are very clear about a few things: When push comes to shove and it REALLY gets down to it, unless the merchant takes a physical swipe of the actual card AND has backup to prove it (i.e. an imprint of the physical plastic), the issuers will side with a consumer in the event of a fraud dispute.
So why, do you ask, do most merchants not bother taking imprints of the actual cards? Because a visual verification and physical swipe is usually enough (for 99% of cases). Instances of fraud via card duplication are rare, so it's usually not worth the hassle. But in some cases, it is.
My business runs large-ticket purchases though CCs (average is $2000), and we take super extra precautions when our customers buy from us. We take magnetic swipes, visually verify, AND take physical imprints.
We've lost several chargebacks because of lack of doing this. You'd be surprised how these little-known rules crop up when you least expect them. "Sorry, customer claims charge not authorized. Merchant doesn't have physical imprint. Chargeback approved." It's happened and we've been defrauded out of $thousands because of it.
The ONLY way we've been able to successful combat chargeback fraud is through the multi-layered approach.
Anyway, I know this is a fairly esoteric perspective and my business may be different from lots of others where this isn't an issue, but I have a feeling V/MC/Amex aren't going to get behind this.
Re: Coin
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I think about standing in line pressing a button, iterating through a list of all my credit, debit, and rewards cards to find the right one, it seems like a hassle. Imagine I go past the correct card in my haste and I've got to keep pressing the button until I've looped back around to the correct one. Did I screw it up a third time? Now people in line behind me and the cashier are getting pissed off with how muc…
Stories are fun, let me try one :) "I go to pay at the checkout counter. Oh wait! I suddenly remember I have a rewards card here. Good thing I carry it in my wallet along with the other 10 rewards cards I have...shoot, which pocket did I put it in? Maybe it's here? no wait...oh shoot, now I have to take all the cards out. I know it's a red card, but so is my Target and Walgreens card. Now all my cards are out all ove…
That's not ever been my experience at least, even when I carried every rewards card I'd ever applied for! In fact I can tell you where everything is in my wallet right now without even looking!
Re: Coin
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I think about standing in line pressing a button, iterating through a list of all my credit, debit, and rewards cards to find the right one, it seems like a hassle. Imagine I go past the correct card in my haste and I've got to keep pressing the button until I've looped back around to the correct one. Did I screw it up a third time? Now people in line behind me and the cashier are getting pissed off with how muc…
Stories are fun, let me try one :) "I go to pay at the checkout counter. Oh wait! I suddenly remember I have a rewards card here. Good thing I carry it in my wallet along with the other 10 rewards cards I have...shoot, which pocket did I put it in? Maybe it's here? no wait...oh shoot, now I have to take all the cards out. I know it's a red card, but so is my Target and Walgreens card. Now all my cards are out all ove…
I use my phone number for that purpose. Haven't had to produce a physical membership card in years.
Re: Coin
#170So I have to turn this over to a bartender to keep behind the bar when I go out and drink? If I forget to grab it before I take a cab, now I'm out $100 and ALL of my credit cards. No thanks.
Is that system still popular? I've started lots of tabs in the last few years, and it's always been purely an oral conversation - they only get my card at the end when I'm settling up.
I find the lower quality the bar, the more stuff they want to keep you from skipping out on a tab.