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Credit Cards That Think They Are Gadgets
holy_calamity writes "Pittsburgh startup Dynamics Inc has unveiled gadget-like credit cards with buttons, lights and even displays built into the same space as a conventional card. One card has two buttons on the front, which, when pressed, rewrite the data on the card's magnetic stripe, allowing it to act as multiple bank or credit cards in one. Another has several buttons and a display in place of the card's number. Only after entering a PIN is the magnetic stripe populated and the full card number revealed, and after a short time both go blank again for security."
I wonder how long it'll be until somebody builds onboard biometrics into one of these things.
You mean, digital passwords you can never change? Sounds secure...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
purchase? Though this seems like a much safer alternative to today's credit/debit cards, although like TFA says, what will this really do for security? How long until a flaw is discovered or it is cracked?
Why don't they just tie this shit into your cell phone instead? They already have something similar in Japan with swipe phones for the JR line.
Why does every company have to try and put another gadget in your pocket. They should just integrate better with existing gadgets so I don't have to wear fucking cargo pants and have a wallet that is 3 feet big.
Perhaps finally we have here a magnetic strip that isn't prone to being stripped of its information?
"His name was James Damore."
Scammers will love these, they'll find a flaw where they can reprogram any name and card number, swipe a card and clone it.
Pretty soon, our credit cards will even make Julienne fries!
I wonder how long a card like this will last in an average wallet, perhaps facing demagnetization, wear and tear, and other issues of being in a pocket and constantly jostled around.
However, it it can handle that, this could be a great thing to have, as not just a credit card, but as an authentication device. Punch your PIN, punch a challenge phrase, give the vendor the response, and that will do a lot to minimize credit card fraud.
Of course, skimmers with cameras will still be an issue -- just videotape the person typing on the card and not the PINpad, and if it uses an active cryptographic handshake, run a MITM attack.
I wonder how long it'll be until somebody builds onboard biometrics into one of these things.
Screw that, I'm waiting for these guys to port Quake to a credit card.
I wonder how long it'll be until somebody builds onboard biometrics into one of these things.
About 5 years ago.
They already had this system working PERFECTLY in monopoly. Hasbro should sue.
God, I just wish that they would put a simple on/off switch on/in them ...
I know chip&pin isn't perfect, but it'd be a step in the right direction..
I just went on vacation and had no problem with my cards until the end, when someone cloned one of my cards and "swiped" it nearly ten days after I'd last used the card in that particular city.
Curiously the card was never out of my sight. They carried a machine to the table in restaurants and swipe on the spot, as is common in Europe.
Then, when my genius bank thought there might be fraud, they called me on my land line at home. This despite having told them my travel plans and they knew I wouldn't be home for another 24 hours. Since I didn't get back to them soon enough they let the fraudulent charges go through -- one of them for over $2000 -- and I had to deal with it the hard way when I got home.
Cards that will populate the mag-strip with transaction-specific codes each time. So you can type the code in, the guy at the restaurant can pick up the card with your ticket, and swipe it once.
But if he tries to scan the stripe and clone the card, the number he gets is useless, because it is transaction specific.
I would envision each CC being allocated a block of 200 random CC numbers, to be used in sequence, when it is printed, 200 random initial CVV2 numbers, and 1000 random CVV2 offsets in the form of a number between 0 and 999. For each transaction, pick a number, with no number re-used until 199 more transactions have been made.
Each time a number is used, the CVV2 is to be the initial CVV2 number plus the next CVV2 offset, modulo 999. CVV2 offsets are not re-used until 999 more transactions have been made.
Each time a number is used, the CC company can determine it is valid and compute exactly the right CC and CVV2 numbers that should be used by the next 10 transactions.
Unless there is delayed processing involved, they can also know to reject any number other than those 10.
Even if there is delayed transaction processing involved, the CC company can know a code 199 transactions ago is "too old", because there have been transactions made since then that are too old.
There should also be a way to enter a special PIN to generate a 'vendor specific' code that can be used for multiple transactions.
Possibly assigning card users larger pools of numbers, so expiration dates, and dollar limits can be encoded using the CC# and CVV2.
If multiple failures are detected with a CC# (e.g. someone tries to clone one number and try it with multiple CVVs), then that CC# is retired permanently, and the CC company sends the customer a new file to flash their credit card's memory with.
A major corporation that someone I know has worked for used to use what looked like a very thick credit card to log into what I believe was a VPN. You would input a PIN on the front, and it would display a code that would be valid for 30 seconds or so for logging into the VPN that it calculated itself, based on the current time and PIN. I think this card was made by RSA, now I think the same company uses a slightly different system.
You mean, people read titles?
This could make a long-time dream come true for me. I use one-time use numbers online but in brick-and-morter transactions (like paying at a restaurant), I still have to give my real credit card number. Perhaps these cards could be made to generate a one-time use number. Then, when I'm paying at the grocery store, they get one number while the pizza place gets a second number. I'm sure there would be some security hurdles to clear but it is a promising development.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
That would be an essential requirement to replace plastic.
Open Standards Portal
Can it be programed to remind you of your PIN?
Smivs on the intertubes!
When I get my credit card stolen, I'll lose a $20 gadget instead of giving the thieves access to my $0.20 bank account or my credit card with fraud protection where I simply click "Report" on any charges that weren't mine (and I have something like a week to report it stolen, so even if I don't notice it immediately I'm still not liable)?
Also, this in no way stops credit card skimmers at ATMs, gas stations, etc., nor RFID readers.
The positive thing I see about this is the ability to program multiple cards into one card. I kinda like that. Even compared to putting it in my cell phone. If it's cold enough out, I'll have my cell phone buried deep and answer with my headphones (either corded or bluetooth), especially since it's a touchscreen and I'll be damned if I'm gonna take my cell phone out *and* take-off my gloves. Having 1 credit card that I could keep in an outer pocket, alone (so as not to be a target), would be nice.
Also, if I'm at a restaurant, I really don't want to hand my waitress my cell phone to take back to the back...
No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
It also costs me money to take out cash, but I don't get an extra fee for using a credit/check/debit card. Seems like a no-brainer to me. I use my check card for everything and check my balance daily to make sure I enough money. And I even call myself an adult.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
What if I get mugged? I would lose my $10! I live perfectly within my means, and I work part time. I always use my debit card, using cash would be too inconvenient. First I would have to go to the ATM every week, or every few days, then I would need to get a bigger wallet. My current wallet only holds 4 cards and not a thing over. Now I would also have to keep track of not only my bank account balance, but also my current cash balance. Too much!
You don't see a lot of Nigerian CC Theives pickpocketing cards
... DIRECTLY FROM YOUR SCHOOL RECORDS
Credit Card Fraud is not due to Physically Stealing the Card. Maybe back in the 1960's when people were using 3 piece paper receipts that had to be run through a manual stamper this card could have made sense but it is a waste of time to try to protect accounts this way.
Does anyone remember TJMax had a few million card numbers stolen
There are about 20 big hacks where millions of card numbers were stolen.
In addition some people use their cards with un-reputable merchants
The idea of putting a password on your card is bogus when most thieves never need physical access to your card to steal from you...
And this does nothing about companies that release personal data about you and your account to their "AFFILIATES"
Or the fact that every college and High School sells your personal data to list companies. THATS RIGHT
Name address, birth date, parents names and more
The card is one more level of stupid
however it may protect you from your kid ordering crap off tv.
If they are doing all of this, and a main issue begging to be solved is credit card number theft, why not just add one simple layer of security? Have the security 3-4 digit PIN on the card change every 5 minutes or so? Similar to how SecureID works. If the ID given does not match the current, previous, or next one on the credit card computer the transaction fails. I would also make the security pin longer to prevent random guesses from working. Add an exponentially increasing lock-out period for failed attempts (and maybe send an email and/or phone message warning after a couple fails) and that should do the trick.
It also costs me money to take out cash, but I don't get an extra fee for using a credit/check/debit card. Seems like a no-brainer to me. I use my check card for everything and check my balance daily to make sure I enough money. And I even call myself an adult.
If it costs you money to take out cash, maybe you should consider a different bank. It costs me nothing to use one of my bank's ATMs to get cash and it costs me nothing to make purchases with my debit card but I consider it bad form to use my debit card on a purchase of less than 20 bucks.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Even if the numbers/strip are obscured without a PIN the finger smudges on the card over the commonly used numbers will make the PIN a trivial matter to guess. What is the point of this security? Would you not call in the card missing/stolen just because it has better security?
This is a great idea let's do it! Maybe the card will run Windows too for even better security - far out!!! Put ie6 on it too so I can surf the web in complete safety from active exploits.
Because cell phones are buggy pieces of shit, and I wouldn't trust them with my credit card number and PIN for anything. Especially as they become more and more tied to the web.
Another way to do this is use something like Visa CodeSure which gives you the ability to enter a PIN on the card so that dynamic passcodes can be created. Commercially available now too.
http://www.visaeurope.com/en/about_us/innovation/visa_codesure.aspx
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I hope you fall over dead. I mean, really. If you're going to be absurd, I shall indulge as well.
Stores price goods so that they profit no matter how you pay. The exceptions are notable because you will see a sign to the effect that, for purchases under $X amount, a CC will not be accepted.
It is better for me to use a CC instead of carrying cash. If I am mugged, that cash is gone. If all the mugger gets is a CC, I can cancel it before it's used, or contest any charges, if I am too late.
- EMV cards are actually gadgets. Very limited, no blinky lights and such, but has a CPU, encryption is performed on the card, and it doesn't need a mag stripe. Many don't ever get swiped.
- Mag stripes will be obsolete not long from now. Already, if you travel to Europe, many retailers refuse US cards without a chip, even though the terminal will read the stripe. It's all about risk shifting. Anything the issuers can do to avoid risk is good for them, so they want to shift risk to merchants or card holders. Merchants want to shift risk also. Guess who doesn't have any good ways to shift the risk elsewhere... Yup, customers. So European merchants hate mag stripes, and won't accept signature transactions if they can help it.
EMV adoption in the US is slow. Costs.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This is all just a way to make you pay for more and more. Card companies/Banks have to write off fraud, usually, and they hate doing this, so every new card gimmick that comes along will be aimed at making fraud more your problem and less theirs.
But it will also be used to make you pay for everything big companies won't. Let's create an example: Say you walk into Walmart and buy a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. You pay for the Jeans at the checkout. However, Walmart never pays the supplier, Calvin Klein (or the distributor). Thanks to all these shared records, the databases can track everything and one day you get a bill from Calvin Klein for the jeans you purchased at Walmart.
Sounds implausible right? I'm right now fighting with Direct TV for services I purchased through Verizon. Verizon didn't pay Direct TV, so Direct TV is billing me instead, even though I paid Verizon. I never got a Direct TV bill before this one. I was never their customer (directly), I was a Verizon customer. And yet here I am, stuck with the bill.
Trust me, my above example at Walmart may be implausible now, but 5 years from now it'll be commonplace to see the average joes being shafted at both ends by large companies. This card is one more step towards that end.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The most useful change in credit cards would be giving buyers a stack of one time passwords, each one issued to the vendor tied to the specific parties and dollar amount of the transaction, with a short expiration date.
The best way to do it would be a smartphone app that took a token from the vendor, the vendor's ID (another onetime string from a vendor pool of onetime ID#s), encrypted it with the dollar amount and a onetime ID# from the buyer's pool, and sent it over the network to the credit corp. The credit corp would decrypt it and credit the vendor's account. That way no ID info is shared that can be reused.
If they want to make a physical credit card that does those things once connected to a network (like a chipcard), great. Let them put a fingerprint sensor and PIN on the card, along with a display of the available credit remaining and outstanding balance to date. But the one time passwords are by far the most value to deliver to the consumer, and therefore to the vendor, too.
--
make install -not war
Um, since the new rules have gone into effect, you have to LET your bank accept a debit transaction you don't have the funds to pay. While this embarassing when they decline the transaction, this avoids paying $37.90 for a latte at Starbucks. So turn off overdraft privilege at the bank and live on the balance you have. No problem. Credit union users, you may have to do this specifically with a rep.
And I have more than $10 in my pocket right now. It's on two debit cards. Work just like cash at stores.
But taking time is not usually a problem with debit cards. Fishing around for bills, counting them out, waiting for the clerk to recount them, waiting for the clerk to make change, this all takes time. If you're moderately competent, you can slam dunk a debit transaction faster than you can count out $37.90.
And while small purchases do hit retailers hard with fees, on the other side, retailers get impulse buying they might not otherwise, settlement is electronic and largely automatic so no carrying money to the bank and either waiting for it to be counted or waiting for the bag to be opened and counted later, and if you are paying attention, you might get competitive info on your customers. Good for retailer, not necessarily good for consumer, but privacy is pretty much gone anyways.
And of you want to be lass of a jerk, consider using it as debit and not as credit. Most signature transactions cost the merchant more than PIN transactions. Don't belive me? Visa is running some promotions along with issuing banks that you get entered into a drawing by signing for your transaction. This is NOT so they can collect less in fees. Trust me, they collect MORE. And this is how they fund the giveaway. Nice.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
As long as merchants still pay for credit card fraud, where is the business case and incentive for the card issuers to adopt this technology as they are currently laying off the risk and the benefits for adopting do not accrue to them while they incur all the costs of adoption? As a consumer, I would purchase this just to collapse all my mag-stripe cards (not just credit/debit) to one card that was secured with a PIN that I could change myself, if it could be sold that way.
What if the US did away with cash, and instead we started using credits like scifi? Well at first you'd think you'd carry a credit card around, and maybe a device to transfer credits from one to another with an indicator of how many transfer so no one cheats? Then I figured the device could be on the card itself, and two cards interact in a certain method.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to look over how a politician obtains and spends his money? Public officials should lose their privacy while they're in office and all their money transactions should be able to be scrutinized.
Illegal sales like drugs would be more difficult to do because if someone gets caught by the police, the police could then scan the offender's device and see all of his contacts.
Of course you automatically upload to the IRS every tax season at least and FBI maybe more. I'm thinking with cell phone capabilities, it could auto network.
I guess there are a lot of downsides to this too that I'm not seeing, but since it has some good points its worth at least idly talking about. What are some downsides we'd have if we moved to an all credit system? I guess one would be the worry that the government could seize your money with a few clicks. Or maybe two would be hackers.
God spoke to me.
Don't buy any thing that you cannot afford.
I don't. I pay off my credit card bills in full every month.
Use cash to pay for everything you can. I hate people who use plastic be it credit cards or debit cards for individual purchase of less than 10 dollars.
Too bad. I always swipe a credit card no matter how small the transaction, because it's faster than cash. A lot of stores don't even make you sign for small transactions these days. I also don't have to deal with bagfuls of loose change in my pockets. I hate waiting behind people in line while the cashier fumbles for and then doles out a dozen little physical tokens to each one of them. (Although I admit that's not nearly as infuriating as when I see someone start to pull out a checkbook after the final total gets rung up.)
This is the 21st century. The postal service is going down the tubes because electronic messaging is more efficient than physical paper. The Bureau of Printing and Engraving should follow suit.
Also consider that it costs a store money per transaction so you are actually being a jerk if you use our debit card for small purchases.
That issue is due to ineffective enforcement of antitrust laws. If the credit card cartels didn't have a near monopoly, transactions wouldn't cost more than a couple of cents, and credit cards would cost the store less than handling and securing paper money. (I'm sure that those armored car deliveries aren't cheap.)
I do my part to address this problem by generally voting for candidates who would tend to strengthen antitrust provisions.
Why would I do that? Cash is quite liquid - other people can dispose of it easily, and there's nothing really to show that "this $20 is mine." In addition, the filth on most money is rather distasteful, from a purely hygienic standpoint. Instead of filling my pockets with other people's bacteria and other snot, why not just use my debit card or credit card (I pay off the balance in full every month)?
Cash also lends itself to being easily frittered away with a dollar or two here, a dollar or two there. Cards allow you to keep closer track of your transactions and balances.
As far as taking more or less time, by the time I haul out my wallet, count out bills & check to see if I have appropriate change, it's just as easy to have simply swiped a card and keyed in a pin. And if the store's machines are acting up, it's not uncommon for the cashier to be unable to (or very slow to) calculate what my change should be on a cash transaction, too.
If the store is concerned about price-per-transaction costs, that's their problem, not mine. Some stores impose minimum limits for use of cards, so if the owners are that concerned, they can impose the same limit. If they're not willing to, I guess they're not very concerned about the transaction fees.
So... tell us again why cash is so much better? As far as I can see, the only argument *for* using cash is that you feel it takes longer to use a card, and in my experience, the difference in time is so small as to be nonexistent.
cash, credit, or bioscan?
I have a great credit union, and they don't charge me. But many banks out there do. I also carry cash, but I don't plan out my purchases far ahead of time to ensure I have adequate cash at all times.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Magnetic stripe huh? ...2008.
I think I haven't used that part of my card ever. This was issued in
It's secure chips and online verification all the way in scnadinavia now. Helpfully, it is hard to overrun your bank account with a debit card this way. I wonder if this was deployed for my or the banks safety?
Bot Assisted Blogging
According to an article I read, Walmart currently doesn't actually take ownership of their inventory until it is sold. That's right...they don't pay the manufacturer until they've already sold the item.
Brilliant way to leverage market dominance into increased interest earnings by holding onto their money a while longer.
We'll finally be able to "swipe" the card for tipping at the strip club now?
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
On a keypad that is used to enter only a single combination, wear patterns can leak information. That's one advantage the ATM's keypad has over one on your personal card.
An advantage of entering the PIN on the card's keypad, on the other hand, is that it cannot be gleaned by a fake ATM machine.
While I agree with most everything you say, I just want to point out that the minimum purchase requirements for card use are almost always not allowed based on the terms and conditions of the bank that is providing the swiping machine/software. It's a crap rule, but it is the rule.
'Populate the magstripe' - er, how's that done in accordance with international Standards for machine-readability of encoded digits on each track? And who cares, when the only half-good security nowadays is on a chip which is already there?
Don't use a debit card. If stolen or mis-used you are liable for your entire balance (more if you have overdraft protection). Credit cards limit you liability to $50.
That's very possible, but it doesn't change the overall dynamic a bit. If the shopkeeper feels that transaction fees are eating into his profits, then he's well within his rights to refuse to accept credit cards at all. If it was strictly a losing proposition, then they wouldn't offer the capability; They may lose a few cents on my $2 transaction, but clearly, the proportion of profitable transactions is enough to absorb that loss.
Am glad I'm down to 1 credit card.
It's not that debit card transactions cost less necessarily, but rather that VISA doesn't get a cut of the debit side at all. Debit card transactions (when used as debit cards) go through a EFT network like Star, Cirrus, PLUS, Interlink, etc. rather than through VISA.
Also, many businesses pass on the debit card overhead to you as an additional fee on the transaction total, whereas in general, VISA/MC/Amex won't let them do that. In that case, yeah, it is cheaper for the business, but you get screwed.
Finally, debit card transactions may or may not cost the business less, depending on the transaction amount and the merchant account agreement details. As I understand it, an ATM-style transaction with PIN costs the merchant a flat transaction fee in the ballpark of $0.35-$0.55. A CC transaction usually costs some base amount plus a percent, and the details vary widely. That base transaction fee is usually considerably less than the transaction fee for an ATM card. So for transactions under... say eight or ten dollars, the CC transaction probably costs the business less than the debit transaction. For larger transactions, it costs them more. And, of course, the details vary widely depending on what sort of merchant accounts the store has, so you can't really generalize that number. The break-even point could be $0 or it could be $50.
By using a debit card (or, for that matter, any credit card that doesn't pay cash back), you are only hurting yourself. The store builds those transaction fees into the costs of goods. Thus, if you don't cost them that transaction fee, you're still paying the higher cost as though you were, plus you're missing the opportunity to get some of those transaction fees back at the end of the month or whatever. Thus, in effect, you are subsidizing the meals of people who pay with methods that cost the store more and pay them cash back. Those extra few cents you gave to the restaurant go towards reducing the average cost paid, which means you get back a tiny fraction of what you put in. By contrast, if you use the cash back credit card, you get back a much larger chunk of what you put in.
No matter what payment method you choose, the transaction fees are not going to have a significant impact on the store's bottom line or on their prices, but getting cash back does make a significant impact on your finances, which you can then use to put more money into the economy. In the long run, it is best if stores make as close as possible to the minimum amount of money that they can survive on, thus concentrating the least amount of money in the hands of the people at the top of corporate food chains. Obviously this is less true when you're talking about sole proprietorships with single-digit employees. On the other hand, most of those sorts of shops are restaurants, and the average transactions at such shops are in a range ($5-10) that costs about the same amount of money for CC or PIN-based transactions anyway. Thus, you might as well take the cash back; it is effectively a way to take money out of your CC company's pocket, and it's hard to argue that this is a bad thing.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"Give me your wallet... and your eye" is not a phrase I'd like to hear.
Would some of the credit card companies go for something like this? I would guess they like having a piece of plastic in your wallet that you might look at on a fairly constant basis. Free advertising and a reminder to charge more on card XYZ.
I once read that is the reason that credit cards have a 2 or 3 year expiration date. They could last longer and they know they could save money shipping and producing, but the card refresh is a chance to get the card in front of you again in the hopes that you will use it more.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
But does it run Linux?
"It's not that debit card transactions cost less necessarily, but rather that VISA doesn't get a cut of the debit side at all. Debit card transactions (when used as debit cards) go through a EFT network like Star, Cirrus, PLUS, Interlink, etc. rather than through VISA."
Well, my point was rather generic, that Visa/MasterCard don't get the same cut on PIN transactions that the do with signature.
"Also, many businesses pass on the debit card overhead to you as an additional fee on the transaction total, whereas in general, VISA/MC/Amex won't let them do that. In that case, yeah, it is cheaper for the business, but you get screwed."
I haven't been surcharged for PIN in years. And it's unenforcable on both sides. Merchants already add in transaction fees, so it's the cash customer that is getting screwed. If I want the convenience of a non-cash transaction, I should be an adult and recognize the costs. The cash-payer, they should should be most upset. The market is winning this one, the holdouts are losing. I see no solution other than permitting diversion, and asking for different prices for cash. How about checks? Essentially similar transaction costs. Do merchants charge more for checks?
And fees are so different and complicated that we should not try to figure that out too closely. It doesn't much matter to me as a comsumer.
Cash back cards always cost merchants more. That's the value proposition, more sales but it costs more. It's actually more an enticement for merchants to accept one card over the other, diversion, than it is anything else, and a perfect storm of promotion. Cash back, reward points, whatever you call it, you pay for it somewhere. Let's remember, in the real world, you do in fact pay for it all.
"In the long run, it is best if stores make as close as possible to the minimum amount of money that they can survive on, thus concentrating the least amount of money in the hands of the people at the top of corporate food chains."
What? That's only true within a highly competitive market where price is the differentiator, like supermarkets. Wal-Mart claims they pay that game, but I don't think so. Marketing talk.
"Obviously this is less true when you're talking about sole proprietorships with single-digit employees. On the other hand, most of those sorts of shops are restaurants, and the average transactions at such shops are in a range ($5-10)"
Whoa. $5-$10 restaurants are probably QSRs (quick-service, Mcdonald's/Starbucks, etc), and they love non-cash transactions because they inspire impulse purchases. If you have to think if you have $5 for a Starbucks, some day you will realize you just paid $5+ for coffee, and not very much coffee at that. And if you show up at McD's with $4 in your pocket and realixe you have your debit card with you, well, you buy a $6 meal instead. Yep, you paid $2 more than you might have. Starbucks loves their prepaid and stored value cards because it decouples the purchase from the expense. Consumers often don't realize how much money they piss away each week in trivialities. I take out $x from my account on Fridays, and if it's gone on Monday, I know I just frittered it away. My goal is to reach Friday with some left. I budget that way for my Starbucks, Quik Trip, and such.
"that costs about the same amount of money for CC or PIN-based transactions anyway. Thus, you might as well take the cash back; it is effectively a way to take money out of your CC company's pocket, and it's hard to argue that this is a bad thing."
It's not money out of the CC companies' pockets, or your bank. It was YOUR money to start with. think of it as a discount on purchases. If you buy something you would not ordinarily buy because of the 'cash back', you lost. If you use a card instead of cash, you're making a decision AND enriching the CC companies. It's a choice, so lets be honest.
Overall, you have to think of and treat your debit card like CASH. It is. Don't get too bogged down in fees, promotions, and cash back. It's all your money. You spend it wisely, foolishly, or don't pay attention, your choice. Always.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Not with retail stores at least; you don't have to pay Calvin Klein because you never signed a contract with them. The only reason you have to pay Walmart is due to shoplifting laws, not contract law. Conversely, you signed a contract with Verizon and that presumably contained a contract with DirectTV as well buried in fine print, in another document they never sent you but you could've mailed to ask for, or was contained in those 'terms which we may change at our discretion without notifying you'.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Faster than cash? I don't think so! Usually, when I'm at the grocery store, and the line slows to a crawl, it's because of someone swiping their card. Best case, they have to hit "credit or debit", type the amount, and answer "Are you sure?", which is slower than pulling out the damn cash. More often, they don't know what to punch, or they try paying from an overdrawn account, or any of a thousand things that can go wrong.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I don't think that I've ever had to type in an amount. Like I said, for small amounts, It's often swipe and go. No pushing buttons or using pens of any kind.
Unless the store has one of those automatic coin dispensers (which about 98% of them don't), cash transactions can't hope to compete with that on speed.
Using a credit card is being given free money, as long as you pay it off in full each month. You are getting an interest-free loan, and free money in the form of rewards programs. Why not make use of it?
Being stuck in the 1900s using cash only is ridiculous. You're wasting paper and ink, and you're spreading disease with your filthy currency.
Using cash for no reason is childish. People who refuse to change with the times are like little kids who won't give up their security blanket.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
and they don't like anthropomorphizing either.
Actually, no, they don't cost the merchants more. The fee a merchant pays for taking credit cards is exactly the same whether it's a cash back card, a debit card used as a credit card, or any other type of card. That rate is defined by their merchant account agreement, and depends solely on A. the type of merchant, B. the volume of transactions that merchant performs, and C. which of at least a few dozen credit card processors they are using.
Depends. I was speaking from the perspective of a single person. The average price for a sit-down meal for me at any of dozens of decent restaurants is somewhere right around the $10 per person mark, sometimes including tip, sometimes not. If you expand that out to $5-15, it covers almost every restaurant out there. Obviously it's higher when you're paying for a family, but there are still far more people buying meals alone than buying meals as a family, particularly when you think about office workers at lunch. I maintain that the average payment at most restaurants is probably somewhere in the $5-15 range for this reason, with the exception of restaurants that refuse to split the check.
I am being honest. Yes, it is essentially a discount on purchases. My point was that the vast majority of people are going to pick the credit card whether you do or not. Therefore, your decision not to accept the discount is insignificant. In effect, your choices are:
As for your argument that purchasing something because of cash back is a loss, let's be clear here. I'm not saying that it is a good idea to choose to purchase something to get cash back. That would be idiotic. I'm saying that by choosing to get cash back on a purchase you would have made anyway, you now have additional funds that you otherwise would not have had, and that this money will either be saved or spent. Some of it, statistically speaking, will be spent, and this helps drive our economy. More to the point, you, as a consumer, will statistically spend more of it than someone higher up in the food chain---a CEO of a restaurant chain, a shareholder of a credit card company, etc.---would spend, so the best thing you can do to drive our economy is to take the cash back.
The reality is that there's not a snowball's chance in you-know-where that we're going to get the vast majority of consumers to stop using
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
1. CASH is always the same speed.
Think of those times when you were in a hurry and you were stuck behind some someone who enters in the wrong pin or chooses the wrong bank account type when they were buying items that cost less than 20 bucks. What if there was a network error? Had they used cash, you would have been out of there long before they finally got the transaction to work.
2. Cash is accepted everywhere.
Not every place accepts Visa or Mastercard and a lot of places do not accept Amex. Some places do not accept debit cards for logistical reasons (ferries, planes and many taxis). Cash is generally accepted everywhere.
3. Cash does not carry a per transaction fee when traveling in a foreign country.
Most credit cards charge a fee per transaction on top of their poor currency exchange fees which is why I take cash with me when I travel to Europe, the States or Japan. In fact, Japan is still very much a cash based society outside of their PASMO/SUICIA system for convenience stores and trains/transit. Don't expect your North American credit or debit card to work over there.
4. Cash is easily transferable between people.
You can lend/give cash to anyone but you cannot do the same with a credit/debit card.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
oh...no there's not. Why, again?
Why would I do that? Cash is quite liquid - other people can dispose of it easily, and there's nothing really to show that "this $20 is mine." In addition, the filth on most money is rather distasteful, from a purely hygienic standpoint. Instead of filling my pockets with other people's bacteria and other snot, why not just use my debit card or credit card (I pay off the balance in full every month)?
Cash also lends itself to being easily frittered away with a dollar or two here, a dollar or two there. Cards allow you to keep closer track of your transactions and balances.
As far as taking more or less time, by the time I haul out my wallet, count out bills & check to see if I have appropriate change, it's just as easy to have simply swiped a card and keyed in a pin. And if the store's machines are acting up, it's not uncommon for the cashier to be unable to (or very slow to) calculate what my change should be on a cash transaction, too.
If the store is concerned about price-per-transaction costs, that's their problem, not mine. Some stores impose minimum limits for use of cards, so if the owners are that concerned, they can impose the same limit. If they're not willing to, I guess they're not very concerned about the transaction fees.
So... tell us again why cash is so much better? As far as I can see, the only argument *for* using cash is that you feel it takes longer to use a card, and in my experience, the difference in time is so small as to be nonexistent.
I have yet to be robbed of my cash in the last 40 years. I have had 4 different credit cards from 4 different companies have their databases broken in to and my accounts were affected.
If you use cash, once it's gone, there is no more money. I have 3 credit cards and a debit card. My debit card is rarely used as it does not offer the protections of a credit card and I cannot afford the 3-6 month waiting time to get my money back if anything is stolen from my account. My 3 credit cards have a total of $27,000 I could spend on it. Your credit card is actually easier than cash to fritter away. You think to yourself, "It's only a $3 latte," and, by the end of the month, you've put $200 worth of shit on your card. If you had the cash in your pocket and that was all the cash you had for the month, you'd think twice before spending it.
It doesn't take me more time to haul out my wallet as I know relatively close to what I've spent and have my money ready when I get to the cashier.
I work in the public schools and there is always a need for cash. You need it to pay to get into athletic games, the concessions, donations, fundraisers, etc. Right now, we are collecting money for a young man who is 13 and his mother died on Tuesday. He has no other family. It's cash or check only.
On the occasion that I eat out, I use cash as often as I can. I don't like the fact that your waitress is your cashier. They bring you the bill, you give them your credit card, and they disappear with it for a while. Then, you write in the tip and leave. They still have access to your credit card after you've left because they need to run it again to put the tip on.
Yeah. It's already worked into the price at most well-run stores, so you might as well use it. It's only a tiny bit of inflation.
we had been brought as consultants to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server ... the startup had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use; the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce"
somewhat as a result, in the mid-90s, we were asked to participate in the x9a10 financial standard working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments (aka debit, credit, stored-value, gift-card, face-to-face, point-of-sale, internet, high-value, low-value, contact, contactless, wireless, transit turnstyle, aka *ALL*) which resulted in the x9.59 financial transaction standard. Part of the standard was slightly tweaking the existing paradigm to eliminate skimming, evesdropping, data breach and other similar threats involving harvesting "static" data for performing fraudulent transactions (did nothing to prevent such activities, just eliminated threat that such activities could use the information for performing fraudulent transactions). Part of x9.59 is format agnostic and allowing authentication proportional to risk (i.e. possibly single-factor for low-value ... and exact some components also doing various levels of multi-factor authentication for higher values).
The cost for such components could be deployed in such away that the aggregate, overall infrastructure expense is less than current paradigm ... and has sufficient integrity that the cost to compromise would always be higher than any expected resulting fraud (standard is also format agnostic).
Part of the issue is in the current infrastructure, major portion of existing fraud is born by merchants (in the form of various fees and other charges). Raising the bar on existing retail payment fraud would likely drive the crooks to switching to attacks involving opening new accounts (rather than attacks on existing accounts) ... including using "synthetic ids" (no actual corresponding person) ... which would shift all of the burden to the financial institutions.
> I wonder how long it'll be until somebody builds onboard biometrics into one of these things.
We did it more than 5 years ago. Our company failed because the product was priced too high for the market. Our cost to PRODUCE it was an order of magnitude higher than current dumb cards.
At least for RFID, this would be much more fun:
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/cyeiz/reddit_i_present_to_you_my_superfun_idea_for_rfid/
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
Well, I remember hearing about the first ones being used as lock picks.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.