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Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

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Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#261

Post by zyxley »

Someone1234 wrote: post #13

> Final lets you give a unique credit card number to every merchant, or a disposable one-time use number for one-off purchases. This is something I have been asking for since forever! People on here claimed it was "impossible" because of how credit cards work, I guess not... > Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that…

> They need to be careful what they advise. That advice could (and likely WILL) result in people getting taken to collections.

I previously worked at a web hosting company where people would pull this kind of thing. Generally we didn't bother with collections because it was often more hassle than it was worth (the biggest part of our cost was the support and anti-fraud process, not the actual service), but nonpayment would get accounts deactivated and blacklisted automatically, so they'd have to call in to us (and get recorded in our tracking system in case of repeat incidents) to pay and get things turned back on.

I had some sympathy for people dealing with accidental credit card expirations, but there was always a weird minority of people who would knowingly and sometimes repeatedly cancel cards or dispute payments and yet get angry at us for the audacity of turning off their websites.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#262

Post by riffraff »

otoburb wrote: post #68
andrewdietrich wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, virtual cards have been around for years. But we've researched the space extensively and did not find a product we like or could use consistently. So we built Final. Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US.

>Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US. Would appreciate if you could give some examples for non-US customers, at least for another point of comparison.

intesa/sanpaolo/bci/cib/whatever (has a ton of brands in europe) has virtual cards with time-based expiration (at most 12 months) or single use.

I am reasonably sure ING and unicredit did that too some years ago.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#263

Post by jack-r-abbit »

[deleted] wrote: post #254
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now... imagine your small business popped, you had no income, and you exhausted all your savings... because too many of your customers didn't pay for the goods/services they obtained from your small business. That is quite the moral pickle to be in, if you ask me.

[deleted]

(Forgive me if I misunderstood... but your reply to my comment leads me to believe your business went under due to people skipping out on their debt to you.)

I'm sorry for your loss. But this is why we should all strive to repay our debts... even to corporations[1]. I would imagine that some of your customers that stiffed you may have had the very attitude you described when you said "But from a corporation? Their losses are priced into their interest rate." They, too, may have assumed that your loss was priced into your rates. It must not have been. Perhaps other businesses don't either. It makes you wonder just how many people/business get totally screwed by people defaulting on debt to them. You suggested that chasing might understand differently if s/he had lost a business. Of course you are also entitled to your opinion. But, honestly, I'm a little sad that you don't see the other side of it, having been shattered by people not making good on their debt to you.

[1] I understand that Corporation ("big C") is generally directed at the big, huge things like Walmart and Chevron. But corporation ("little c") is just a legal term and can still be the small business down the street.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#264

Post by kingnothing »

eli wrote: post #64
untog wrote: post #4

Having panned Plastc yesterday, this is like night and day - where Plastc is trying to solve "I have too many credit cards in my wallet" with an overdose of technology, Final is solving an actual real problem (credit card fraud) with an intelligent use of technology. In fact, I don't even want a physical card (chip and pin will make that difficult anyway), I just want an online service that will generate a new credit…

Is credit card fraud a real problem for consumers? My experience has been that my number gets stolen and American Express overnights me a new card. It's mildly inconvenient to update my recurring billing info, but it's not something I feel like I need a product to solve.

You don't even have to bother updating your old recurring accounts -- Amex seems to recognize those transactions and continues to allow charges to go through to the old number.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#265

Post by dmdeller »

drglitch wrote: post #223

As some have pointed out, Citi had this[1] since about 2004, Fleet/Bank of America [2] had it in their setup as well for as long as i can remember. The problem is going to be PCI compliance - the rules that govern merchant procedure for accepting physical credit cards. Specifically, the last 4 digits must be visually validated on the card and typed in to avoid cloned cards (chips largely solve this) in most stores. F…

The banks' monitoring software is in fact a hassle for me. I've only ever had legitimate purchases denied. The retailer's order flow is not usually optimised for this case, requiring a tedious, often manual process to get my order reinstated, while at the same time often causing the retailer to treat me with suspicion (they can't tell why the charge was denied the first time, and are sometimes reluctant or unable to retry the same card again).

As far as I can tell, Final is not really about reducing fraud, which, as you correctly state, is mostly a non-problem for customers. Instead, its value is in increasing my personal convenience, by reducing the annoyances the credit card companies force me to deal with as a direct result of their absurdly outdated technology.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#266

Post by seanflyon »

coryfklein wrote: post #233
Igglyboo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheques are extremely common in the US. I'm forced to pay my car insurance by mail each month with a paper cheque, it's terrible.

I'm in the US, and if I were you I'd drop your car insurance provider in a heartbeat. There are so many other options that let me pay online and provide competitive rates, it just is not worth my time (or the chance that I'll forget) to mail checks in every month.

Many banks offer a free service that will write and mail cheques for you every month. Getting a sensible insurance provider is fine too.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#267

Post by laumars »

Someone1234 wrote: post #13

> Final lets you give a unique credit card number to every merchant, or a disposable one-time use number for one-off purchases. This is something I have been asking for since forever! People on here claimed it was "impossible" because of how credit cards work, I guess not... > Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that…

> They need to be careful what they advise. That advice could (and likely WILL) result in people getting taken to collections.

> Don't like your ISP? Just cancel the CC number, then 12 months later get a bailiff turn up and seize your stuff...

Cancelling payments like that is what a lot of UK banks do advise their customers to do. Particularly with (but not exclusive to) insurance services. I've known banks actually recommend cancelling the payments through them instead of trying to cancel via the company itself.

Services like internet / phone lines, gas and electric would be different though since they're paid in arrears.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#268

Post by cdcarter »

alkonaut wrote: post #242
coryfklein wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the US, and if I were you I'd drop your car insurance provider in a heartbeat. There are so many other options that let me pay online and provide competitive rates, it just is not worth my time (or the chance that I'll forget) to mail checks in every month.

Isn't there a common system for transferring money such that every corporation has a public "number" to which you can send money, meaning that HOW you do that (your internet bank or whatever) isn't really a concern of the receiver? I mean each insurance company etc. can't each be setting up their own solutions for online payments, right?

Each insurance company is indeed setting up their own solution for online payment.

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#269

Post by andrewpi »

downandout wrote: post #76

Chip and PIN, at least in the US, is useless right now because virtually no merchants have the equipment. As for the browser plugin that generates a unique number for each transaction, PayPal had this in 2008 and closed it down. I'm not exactly sure why, but if they couldn't make it work, I have my doubts about newcomers being successful with it. The one interesting thing this card can do is disable charging to the p…

I've actually noticed a lot of merchants have installed chip-and-pin compatible terminals over the last 6 months or so. (mostly at the larger retailers)

Re: Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

#270

Post by jack-r-abbit »

raverbashing wrote: post #164
alkonaut wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently in the U.S. and saw a person use a paper cheque. I'm not joking.

The US banking system is frankly, ridiculous In Europe anyone can send money online to any other account in the EU , given the account number, usually for free. The fact that the US doesn't have that as commonplace as in Europe is ridiculous Canada is slightly better, they already are ditching the magnetic stripes off cards.

But I shouldn't have to give you my account number for you to send me money. I don't really want to maintain a mental list of who has my account number and who to update if I change banks or something. I'm not saying checks are the best solution for all situations but they have enough use cases to make them somewhere better than ridiculous.

Every time my cleaning lady comes, I just leave a check for her on the counter. I could leave cash but then I have to make sure I have that much cash on hand every time. I could probably get an account number from her and do some sort of transfer each time. But honestly, that doesn't sound at all easier for me than just writing a check. I think that is the only check I write on a regular basis anymore. I used to send my gardener a check but I started paying his invoice online through my bank. And I'm pretty sure they actually print a check and mail it to him on my behalf. :)

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