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Major Delays, Revamped Beta For Credit-Card Consolidating Gadget Coin
The premise behind Coin is attractive: consolidate credit cards onto a single card-sized gadget. However, on Friday the company announced a delay in the release of its final version from this summer to spring of 2015, and in a way that angered many of the project's crowd-funding backers. The announcement of a delay was not only sudden, and quite close to the previously announced shipping date, but upset those who'd pre-ordered by outlining a confusing beta program that would involve an interim product release — recipients of the beta version (limited to 10,000) would have had to then pay $30 to upgrade to the final product. As CNET reports, the delay until 2015 remains, but with regard to that beta program,
Coin has now reversed its stance. The beta program will be free -- meaning preorder customers who opt-in will no longer forfeit the $55 they paid and will still receive the finished Coin product next year. The program will also expand from 10,000 customers to 15,000. Regardless of whether your smartphone is running Apple's iOS or Google's Android operating system, preorder customers can opt-in to Coin's beta program through its app and will be eligible for a device if they fall within the 15,000-person threshold. The order is determined by when you bought your Coin.
Coin customers, some who placed orders as far back as November 2013 when the startup first opened its website for preorders, were displeased not so much with the product delay as with the way Coin handled the situation. The company had, as recently as August 14, sent out an update explaining that a long-awaited shipping announcement would arrive at month's end --yet without an indication that it may miss its shipping target.
All the major credit card companies will be rolling out soon-to-be-mandatory chip systems for their credit cards. The point of this chip is specifically to prevent copying of credit cards. Coin is dead in the water.
Beyond this, how many register monkeys will decline the transaction because it's not the original card? I was trained at my old retail job by an actual Mastercard representative never to allow use of a credit card without a signed back, much less a card that's literally a personal copy.
Technically, I see how it works but why would a merchant accept this thing? It doesn't look like a credit card and it's missing all of the anti-fraud elements built into the physical cards. According to their FAQ, Coin is trying to substitute an image on your smart phone plus their gadget for your physical card but I don't see that any of the actual credit card issuers are actually endorsing this. As a merchant you might be in violation of your merchant agreement by accepting this thing.
Outside of the US, Chip & Pin is king. In many parts of Europe, you can't even use a card that doesn't have a chip. No chip, no pay.
In Australia, for purchases under $100, you use Paypass/Paywave. Simply tap and go.
Coin is a cool idea, but it's stillborn. It would have been cool 10 years ago, but the world moved on.
Reading, it sounds like it is able to replicate various mag-stripes, and therefore can replicate various credit-cards.
This, in a world where credit-card issuers are trying real hard to get away from mag-stripes and over to chip-only operation, makes no sense.
Personally, I've seen a LOT of stores over the last 4-5 years, where the mag-reader has been taped over (or a standard cardboard thing inserted), so the only option is to use the card-chip; likewise, several new portable readers (in restaurants, taxis), that only read chips and not mag-strips.
Sooo.. what is it about this product, that makes it worth however little money it may cost??
Considering this:
- Most card readers today use the smart chip only.
- By using this, your bank will probably remove any support and blocking for your card and account.
- When scanning and taking a picture of the card. Your essentially giving your card info to a program, on a device with little or no security.
- Looking at the video, it shows you your pin number for that card on the unit.
- Complete failure in the video: Theres nothing to stop the restaurant waiter from pressing the button to change selected card.
Theres a million other reasons why this device is completely idiotic. Clearly someone had an idea and money before doing research or using common sense.
I hope this device succeeds as it will soon fail when its users report stolen account transactions, which, your bank will not resolve.
The premise behind Coin is attractive: consolidate credit cards onto a single card-sized gadget
First, calling this thing "credit card sized" amounts to nothing short of a lie - More like a PCMCIA-card sized, or about four credit cards thick. It wouldn't fit in my current wallet, which doesn't even like holding the older embossed-number style cards because of the extra thickness.
Second, my credit/debit/gift cards already come on credit card-sized devices. And they don't need batteries.
Third, how many cards do people have that they need this? One credit card, one ATM card, and on the rare occasion I get a gift card for something, I use it ASAP to avoid some crazy terms of service eating the balance away. As the only possible audience I see for this, the sort of crazy coupon ladies who have two dozen store-specific cards just so they can play games with juggling discounts and no-payments-for-x-months - And even in that case, Coin only holds eight cards total, making it still useless.
And finally, NFC has made the entire concept pointless. Coin has built dedicated hardware to do something that every smartphone (except the iPhone, because fuck you that's why) on the planet can do much, much better.
So someone explain to me what I've missed here... What killer use have I failed to consider for the Coin?
Reading, it sounds like it is able to replicate various mag-stripes, and therefore can replicate various credit-cards.
This, in a world where credit-card issuers are trying real hard to get away from mag-stripes and over to chip-only operation, makes no sense.
Personally, I've seen a LOT of stores over the last 4-5 years, where the mag-reader has been taped over (or a standard cardboard thing inserted), so the only option is to use the card-chip; likewise, several new portable readers (in restaurants, taxis), that only read chips and not mag-strips.
Sooo.. what is it about this product, that makes it worth however little money it may cost??
You must not be in the US. I've never had a card with a chip. Mine doesn't even have raised letters, the only option is the magnetic strip. I suspect the US is the target audience for this.
Even if it continued to work for years despite changed CC companies make to their cards, I'd be worried that it would break in my wallet or that regular use would eventually degrade it. My normal credit cards always look pretty haggard after a few years, and I don't have to pay almost $100 for those. This is a nice idea, but just seems to have too many problems.
...adding capability to deal with chips is what the delay might be about? Bottom line, if a clerk can access 'data' on your card (whether it's a chip, mag strips, or quantum dots) then you should be able to access it, too.
You must not be in the US. I've never had a card with a chip. Mine doesn't even have raised letters, the only option is the magnetic strip. I suspect the US is the target audience for this.
Chips are coming in the US. The credit card processors are shifting fraud liability in October 2015. Merchants will have to take responsibility for fraud committed on mag stripe transactions, but not chipped ones.
But then again, I could be wrong.
With a few minor exceptions this will only be used to commit fraud. Is against merchant account agreements to accept this method of credit card purchase. The original card must be presented.
Now sure, some companies will accept it anyway, but since many won't you'll have to have all your cards on you anyway. The net effect is the only people using it will be trying to buy stuff from credit card numbers that aren't their own. Half the restaurants you go to will have staff carrying these to clone your card.
So what you are saying with coin is that if I were into data theft, I could get this device, swipe customer cards, take a picture of the signature strip and then use as many other peoples cards as I want, from one easily manageable, destroyable data source.
In the UK this would never be accepted, as many have said, as it lacks the chip.
Also if you are in a business lunch meeting you may have your phone on mute, so having your phone alert you if you leave it behind redundant.
Waste of money, waste of time ...
A multi-card, with variable magstripe and a display, came out ~1999 and got nowhere. They had a couple fixed
antennas that emulated the swipe when they were adjacent to read heads (there being only 80 and
40 characters in tracks 1 and 2 respectively; not hard to send them fast) and stored multiple cards. I
believe they were using an on-card PIN to enable the device so arguably it boosted security some.
They did have a problem with the initial cards being slightly too thick, but I think they expected
more than a 2 year battery life. Alas I forget the company name. But there are likely patents
involved.
The variable magstripe could easily emulate the technology used for variable CVV used
with near-field (dCVV or CVC3) but the gadget misses a chance as I see it to be useful
in e-commerce which pretty much chip and PIN is not. (See e.g. some subsidiary downloads
over at www.gce.com for info on how this mightbe done.) I cannot imagine multiple issuers
allowing sharing of keying material (crypto keys) with a third party to let them use chip & PIN but
an alternative device that gives good security for e-commerce and that used its own card numbers (to
avoid the key-sharing issues) might actually be useful. Getting one's own card numbers is
not hard and arrangements with issuers would at least not pose insuperable security
risks then.
If you are waiting for this thing to do chip & PIN, I think Dante's quote expresses
your prospects:
Lascia omne speranzi, voi'chentrate
(all hope abandon, ye who enter here)
All the banks are issuing new terminals that accept chip+pin in the US. Start watching your local markets and smaller shops -- many of them already have the new readers. My corporate card was just re-issued last month with a Chip+Pin -- if I try to swipe it on one of these new readers, it denies the transactions and prompts me to insert it near the bottom.
I'd say 25% of the merchants I've visited in the last two weeks have a chip+pin reader already. Major chains where they have their own branded readers don't have them yet at all.
Even if this thing fails for its intended application, I'm still excited about the tech and the sleak package. My wallet at has more rewards type cards than CCs so if all else, it'll be nice to collapse those into Coin.
The system being implemented in the US isn't traditional chip&pin -- it's just "chip". The card will need to remain in the reader while the transaction is processed, but there will be no PIN requirement.
Not true. There is a PIN requirement for cards that have a PIN assigned to them. US Banks have switched from the "Chip + Signature" to "Chip + Pin" system in the last year.
Merchants will have to take responsibility for fraud committed on mag stripe transactions only if they don't offer the ability to use EMV. If they offer EMV but the customer still swipes, fraud is still on the issuer/processor. Swipe is going to be around for a while still.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
That will depend on your bank, and your account. Some banks will require customers to use PINs, others may not.
John
Once the merchants have the terminals in place and the liability has shifted to them, the issuers will have strong incentive to deploy chip cards, as they will have the least secure piece of the system. Mag stripes will be gone in just a few years.
John
Mine doesn't even have raised letters
"Doesn't Even" is not the right term for a new trend. Many parts of the world are getting rid of raised letters on credit cards. In Australia they simply started rolling out the infrastructure for chips a long time ago and we have been on chip and pin for years (and only last month outright banned the use of magstripes), but the removal of the raised letters is something that I have seen only emerge in the past year here.
Not all, and not even the largest. From the Bank of America site (emphasis mine):
What's the difference between chip & signature and chip & PIN? Does my card have a PIN?
Chip & PIN is a very similar technology, except that you use a PIN to complete a purchase instead of a signature. Both chip & PIN and chip & signature offer enhanced security against counterfeiting compared to traditional magnetic stripe-only cards. Bank of America does not currently offer chip & PIN technology.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Are you sure that you have a credit card and not a debit card? While, in the past, I've had credit cards without chips (of course), I've never had a credit card without raised personal information (CC number, Name, expiration date). If nothing else, that was needed even before magnetic strips were in use and is still a fallback in some situations when connectivity goes down for the store.
My debit card, on the other hand, is flat, like yours.
In Europe it's also becoming very common to see NFC readers attached to terminals as more and more cards are now "contactless".
I shared the news of Coin last November. That's when I pre-ordered one for myself and let the Coin folks know they had made it to slashdot's front page. That was my first and only submission to slashdot.
They didn't so much as thank me for all the free publicity, which irked me a bit, but whatever. I still paid full price for my pre-ordered device and eagerly waited for June 21, 2014, the first day of summer. Summer 2014, when I'd finally be getting my Coin. As June 21 came and went, I realized that they had only said "Summer 2014", not "start of" or "first day of" or anything like that. Okay, so I'll sit tight a little longer. Finally, now in August, I got an email telling me that the time was drawing near, and that I'd be able to provide my shipping information in the Coin app, at which point they'd ship me the device I had paid for nearly a year earlier. Just one catch: I have an Android phone, and the Android app won't be available until September 25, 2014. I checked my calendar and indeed, that ain't summer. I sent an email out to the Coin support team seeking confirmation that I will in fact not be receiving my Coin in "Summer 2014". Their response, received on August 14, included the claims "We are on track to launch and begin shipping soon" and "We apologize we don't have more details regarding shipping your Coin at this time".
That's some bullshit. August 14 is barely one month before the end of Summer 2014, and they still couldn't tell me that there was no way they'd be hitting their shipping target, despite having implied as much in earlier communications. Now they're saying that they're not just running a few days late, no. I won't be getting my Coin in late September or early October. No, now I'll be waiting until "Spring 2015". Based on the way they've handled this so far, I'm starting to suspect that their "Spring 2015" will fall somewhere around June 20, 2015, the very last day of spring, which is one day short of being one year later than I had wrongly expected.
In the meantime, they're offering beta devices to all the angry pre-order customers. Well, they will be, once their Android app is released. Also, it's not for all the angry pre-order customers, as there's a limited number of beta devices available. I have mixed feelings about this myself. On the one hand, I'd like to get my hands on some hardware, as it's been quite a while since I gave them my money and started evangelizing for them. On the other hand, if I've learned anything from slashdot in the last year, it's fuck beta. I'll probably end up flipping a coin (the non-vaporware kind) on September 25 to decide whether or not to just ask for a refund.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
..but will within the next few months.
How hard is it to check these things instead of cherry-picking your responses? It's been on many/most of their credit cards for over a year.
Most of BofA's credit offerings have Chip & Pin available already. It just hasn't made it to their standard debit card yet.
You're assuming the quote you pasted refers to chip and PIN - it does not. From the same FAQ I quoted:
Bank of America does not currently offer chip & PIN technology.
This site clearly shows that BofA ONLY offers Chip-and-signature cards - their chip-and-PIN section has NO MENTION of BofA.
Another ref: http://thepointsguy.com/2014/0...
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.