Earlier quoted context omitted.
Begging with an iPhone?
a begger in a big town like NYC can clear 90-120K no problem.
Perhaps, but why would a person give money to someone begging with an iPhone?
Squareup
61–70 of 158 posts
Re: Squareup
#62Interesting idea, I really like the hardware piece. Not sure how large of a market there is for this. Mom + Pop stores use CC terminals (cheaper than an iPhone), so that leaves this open to mostly people who accept payment outdoors at farmers markets, sports events, etc.. For that to work you'd have to be comfortable giving a merchant your credit card, which isn't a sure thing considering they can disappear without a…
Is it cheaper than getting a terminal? The idea behind this is you already have a cell phone. Why by an additional device to do this, which worse yet has a bad interface and can't be upgraded.
Re: Squareup
#63Good technology but it's mainly for businesses. I'm still waiting for the ability to pay with your cellphone to any merchant. This is happening in Japan and Korea right now among others. Maybe an IPhone or Android will have an RFID chip in the future. Or maybe there will be a mobile app that displays a QR code that a merchant can scan and grab your credit card information.
No, it should be other way, merchant displays QR code with merchant's identity, payment amount, transaction ID and you authorize the transaction.
Re: Squareup
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes but you have to look at the density of people. $250 every day = $25/hour if you "work" 10 hours a day. So 1 person donating $1 every 2.4 minutes. In that 2.4 minute period, there are probably 1,000 people walking by. Is it really that far fetched, that 1 out of those 1,000 people will "give back"? Especially in a city like New York where there are plenty of high income individuals?
Analysis is not evidence. Yes, it sounds reasonable. But that doesn't mean it's true. There are many factors your simple model doesn't take into account.
The person he replied to said it "seems highly unlikely". This isn't a peer-reviewed journal here. We're speculating. I will mention that I gave $20 dollars to a girl last week who claimed she had had her stuff stolen and didn't have enough money to get a train back to her house. There's a significant chance she was scamming me, and the point is, with a plausible story, I'm pretty sure you can find many "suckers" every day.
Re: Squareup
#65This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…
I'm pretty sure this is a risk borne by the credit card industry already. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, this is essentially the same risk as that of handing your credit card to a waiter.
Re: Squareup
#66This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…
It seems like what you are suggesting is akin to credit card skimming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud#Skimming
How is this any different?
Re: Squareup
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
a begger in a big town like NYC can clear 90-120K no problem.
In order to make $90,000 begging, you would have to get $250 every day of the year. This seems highly unlikely. I'd say most beggars make more like $20 a day, but I'm just doing armchair science here.
The Straight Dope has gone there:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2255/how-much-money...
Re: Squareup
#68This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…
It seems like what you are suggesting is akin to credit card skimming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud#Skimming How is this any different?
barrier to entry is much smaller, you don't need to piggy back on a legit business or have to play a spy to install a skimmer at the bank.
All you need is a taxi, and iPhone, and you can go around town collecting credit card numbers.
And unlike websites, there is no paper trail to link you to the scam.
Re: Squareup
#69This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…
It seems like what you are suggesting is akin to credit card skimming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud#Skimming How is this any different?
Exactly. I can rent some storefront right now and set up a fake card swiper. Maybe the barrier of entry for this kind of thing is lower... but is it lower than creating a web page and stealing credit card numbers?
The beauty of credit cards is that you're not responsible for fraud. I know that when I go to a restaurant the server could easily take a quick cell camera shot of my card, but I accept that risk because I know that I monitor my card activity and that I can recover that money if it does happen. The same applies here.
Re: Squareup
#70Wow - love the concept and vision here. Were I such a person, I might dub this payments 2.0. This image on their home page gave me chills, though. http://a1.sqimg.com/static/6c1cc3c1ad109e13d0be182c75c470762... But that's likely only because I'm a half-paranoid security geek.
I seriously gotta wonder how the iPhone of some random person (which has various third party apps on it, etc.) is going to meet the kind of security requirements the card issuer cares about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Secu...