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Coin

onlycoin.com

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Re: Coin

#571

Post by purephase »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #558
dgallagher wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. You hit on something though; in the U.S. there are tens of thousands of ATM machines all over. They all accept PIN numbers, and I "believe" magnetic-strip as well (not sure if they're doing fancy stuff too with built-in chips or not). It's the standard that everyone uses; debit card and credit cards alike. To change that to support different tech, you'd have to upgrade all of the…

Canada already went through this. It started with the POS terminals, then gradually the cards were replaced with chip cards, then gradually the text on the terminal changed from "Swipe card" to "Swipe or Insert card". From a consumer perspective, it was virtually painless. The biggest change is that credit card transactions now require a PIN (assuming a chip card and chip-enabled POS).

Much easier to do in Canada with the number of banks involved. The US would be an entirely different story.

The lack of chip card support in Coin effectively makes it a US only product at this point as most of the card-heavy countries have moved past mag swipe (or, are in the process).

Re: Coin

#572

Post by gnvkay »

sixQuarks wrote: post #165
pbreit wrote: post #160

I 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.

That's Adam Lisagor from Sandwich Video! We used his awesome company for our video/TV commercial for Fracture. (http://fracture.me)

Re: Coin

#573

Post by lambda »

dakrisht wrote: post #272

It's a neat concept, but I just don't think this gets anywhere. Dead in the water - as much as I would personally like to see them succeed. The biggest problems here are security. () Merchants will hate it since there is no physical imprint / swipe of the bank-issued card. This will lead to chargebacks in favor of the customer. So this alone kills this company/product. () Banks might change their terms forbidding cus…

I agree with many of your criticisms (made a few of the same in another comment), but you missed a few points in their favor; looks like you spent a lot of time on this rant, it would have been good to spend a few minutes reading their FAQ and watching their video to make sure your criticism were valid.

  Adding a card seems flawed. You're asked to take a picture 
  of the physical card after swiping to "prevent fraud" ok 
  but unless Coin uses some advanced image processing/OCR to 
  validate the card with the swiped data, you can take a 
  picture of any card. So big fail here.
Why do you expect them not to do image processing and OCR? Credit cards have standardized, highly OCR-able fonts. I would be very surprised if they didn't OCR it.

  Most users are totally fine with credit cards and big 
  wallets.
I'll have to disagree with that. There may be a few people out there who appreciate the physicality of the cards, but based on personal experience, I'll bet a lot more would love to streamline it. In fact, I would love to not carry a wallet at all, just maybe a billfold and a single card or my phone. The problem is this doesn't go far enough; it only eliminates a few cards from the wallet, it does nothing about all of the health insurance cards, rewards cards, drivers license, membership cards, subway cards, etc that clutter people's wallets.

  The obvious issue of losing Coin and losing everything. 
  People like backups. It's a mindset.
According to their video and FAQ, the cards are backed up to your phone. If you lose it, you can just get a new one and transfer your cards to that. And your phone will warn you when you lose it. Actually, one of the big draws are those two features together. Much less anxiety about leaving your card behind.

    Battery issues with digitizing a non-battery product 
    (credit card).
They explicitly state that the battery is non-chargeable and non-replaceable. You don't charge it. According to their usage model (which includes much heavier usage than I use any of my cards, I generally use a card once or twice a day, maybe 4 or 5 times on a weekend), it will get two years life.

While I share the same concerns about privacy, compliance, card not present, and so on, I feel like you went out of your way to pick out problems, ignoring several things that were obvious from their FAQ.

Re: Coin

#574

Post by ececconi »

coldtea wrote: post #478
sxtxixtxcxh wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one imprints anymore. that's not true at all; have you been outside of any major city in america?

As an avid road fan, I've been in 47 out of 50 states (no Hawaii, Alaska or Vermont) and roadtriped around 50.000 miles, in the course of 7 years. I've stayed in hundrends of small cities, from Ogalala, NE to Ozona, TX and Oatman, AZ, and used my credit cards for all kinds of purchases, from Kroger and CVS, to outlet stores, gas, local shops, small eateries, fast food places, restaurants etc. Never had a vendor inpri…

Have you never been in a cab in a major city?

Re: Coin

#575

Post by binarycrusader »

blazingfrog2 wrote: post #491
tedivm wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many credit card companies are starting to issue new cards which are completely flat, making it impossible to make imprint. My new CapitalOne card is an example of this. Is your company planning on refusing to do business with them?

Flat may be fine. However, from what I've seen in the video, the Coin is not only flat but also almost totally anonymized. The cashier would not be able to verify the name against a photo ID or even take a picture of the card. This would be possible with a non-imprintable card.

Unless required by local or state law, most major credit card companies prohibit the requirement of supplementary identification to complete a transaction.

With that said, they require verification of the signature on the back of the card with the one on the receipt / screen.

In the event that the card is not signed, you are then allowed to require identification and the card must be signed by the customer before it is used.

Re: Coin

#576

Post by samweinberg »

>Q. Is Coin password protected?

>A. Your Coin account is password protected and the mobile app requires that you type in your password before you can access sensitive card details.

There is no way in hell I would trust a single password to protect all of my debit, credit, loyalty, or gift cards.

Re: Coin

#577

Post by saryant »

rmc wrote: post #285
Nursie wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the US hasn't adopted EMV. It's not perfect, but it has cut down fraud massively here in Europe. They're very hard to clone (I won't say impossible, but attacks against EMV have not generally been of this nature) and the transaction records at both ends will tell you whether the actual, real card was there. The liability is more clear-cut as a result. If the customer claims the charge was unauthorise…

Americans going to Europe: Remember that your credit card might not work as often in Europe. Be prepared for hearing "We only take chip & pin cards here" in shops etc.

I keep hearing this but I spent six months in Europe and the only place that wouldn't take my swipe card was SNCF ticket kiosks. Wasn't a problem anywhere else.

Re: Coin

#578

Post by saryant »

XaspR8d wrote: post #449
busterarm wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want chip and pin cards SO BADLY here. Mainly because it would make my trips to Europe a lot easier, where many systems I've encountered won't work on some non-EMV cards.

I didn't realize European automated machines would basically never accept my cards. On a subsequent trip I tried to get chip card, but neither my personal banker nor the branch manager at Wells Fargo had ever even heard of them and insisted I was confused about the problem. Shopping for a new bank, for many reasons.

Wells Fargo definitely has chip cards. They shipped me a chip version of my WF credit card out of the blue a while ago.

Re: Coin

#579

Post by abalone »

So what happens if you hand your card to a waiter/cashier and they accidentally tap the button while gripping it? "Card roulette"?

Re: Coin

#580

Post by abalone »

dakrisht wrote: post #272

It's a neat concept, but I just don't think this gets anywhere. Dead in the water - as much as I would personally like to see them succeed. The biggest problems here are security. () Merchants will hate it since there is no physical imprint / swipe of the bank-issued card. This will lead to chargebacks in favor of the customer. So this alone kills this company/product. () Banks might change their terms forbidding cus…

> there is no physical imprint / swipe of the bank-issued card.

I think you're mistaken. There is a swipe. It perfectly mimics the magnetic strip of the bank-issued card. The issuer wouldn't even know you didn't use the real card.

It wouldn't work for physical imprints, but neither does my Chase Sapphire Visa card. Point being even card issuers are comfortable EOL'ing physical imprints at this point. And it's not used for anti-fraud these days (real-time authorizations of swipes have replaced that); it's just a backup for when merchant systems are down.

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