Too funny. Though it looks like most of the reviews have come in the last 24 hours.
I couldn't find it in the AppStore.
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Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC Detailed as Convoluted System With Minimal Consumer Benefit
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Too funny. Though it looks like most of the reviews have come in the last 24 hours.
I couldn't find it in the AppStore.
I'd be happy to boycott these douchebags if I could even usePay I'm still waiting for US Bank, ATT Citi card, and a couple others to allow me to add my accounts. Hurry up you (bleeps)
Call them and complain. Every day if you've got the time. They'll get the message.
On the contrary, it takes just a few hours to make a usable fake from a good print, and almost anyone with slight skills can do it.
However, I keep pointing out that it's not strangers / thieves that we need worry about.
It's the people around us who have plenty of time and opportunity to get a good print, make (and even test) a fingerprint without us knowing about it, then use it while we're asleep or distracted.
In other words, our teenage kids, disgruntled or joker coworkers, or our evil college roommate
Do you have examples of this happening? The only instance of Touch ID being spoofed that I've heard of was in a highly controlled environment where they had all the right tools and were able to lift a perfectly clean fingerprint.
That is a stupid comparison. The bank where I have my checking account issued my credit cards ... so duh .... they have the information.
MCX isn't paying you enough for this ....
Correction on Apple Pay (assuming a jacket pocket somewhat near the NFC reader, which tends to be right where one stands to pay anyway):
1. Pull phone out just enough to see it is asking you if you want to pay
2. Place finger on home button for a second, then drop the phone back into pocket
You don't generally need to "tap" the phone or whatever. It just needs to be there in the immediate vicinity of the reader and it will be ready to pay.
There's a huge difference. My personal information is given to credit card companies to provide ME a SERVICE and to establish credit. CurrentC is requiring my personal information so they have ACCESS to MY money.
Strange as it seems, its was 359 1 star reviews 2 hours ago, then 659 1 star reviews about 20 mins ago, but right now its back down to 359 1 star reviews
..And since Walgreens and CVS, for a reason I will never understand, seem to both be located at the same intersection ALWAYS, it won't be difficult to choose Walgreens instead of CVS. It's like they knew this was going to happen and wanted us to be able to easily choose.
Some stores--Winco for example, and many gas stations--do. Pretty sure the same is true of Costco, but I don't shop there.
They all only accept cash or debit cards, no credit cards. I've even been to some gas stations where using a debit card will ding you with a small transaction fee, but result in a lower per-gallon price (I assume matching the per-transaction fee but lower overall transaction cost paid by the gas station).
The difference with all these retailers is that they very specifically sell themselves based on low costs, and use the increased margins toward that end. For gas stations, it's obvious--you can either look across the street at the place that accepts credit cards and costs more per gallon, or sometimes the station itself has a separate, higher credit card price per gallon. In the case of Winco or Costco, it's more abstract, but they do have very low prices, so one generally assumes that the 2% is getting more or less passed along in the form of the sticker price.
With CVS, Walmart, and other CurrentC members, they might pass on the savings to the consumer, but at best, since they also still accept credit cards, it would be a savings proportional to whatever (small) percentage of their customers use the technology, and it would be spread out across everyone, regardless of how they pay. Just as likely, prices will remain the same and they'll fatten their operating margins slightly.
They could--and this might be the planned endgame--switch it so that the loyalty card requires you to use CurrentC, in which case you do get the benefit from their lower overhead, but I think that's unlikely to ever come to pass. Maybe they'll go halfway and have special CurrentC sales or e-coupons or something, but that seems like rather a mess.
Your money and soul too please.
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Good, they'll need them to sell when they realise people will go elsewhere.
I'm sure. I'm glad I don't work at MCX/CurrentC. Their phones are probably ringing off the hook.
Strange as it seems, its was 359 1 star reviews 2 hours ago, then 659 1 star reviews about 20 mins ago, but right now its back down to 359 1 star reviews
Just checked again and it is showing 659 for me.
My original social security card is imprinted with the words "Not to be used for identification". And yet we in the US are constantly asked to use it for identification. If you apply for a job, the business needs it. If you apply for credit, you need it. It's basically how the government tracks you financially, which is all tied to the Internal Revenue Service which uses it for tax purposes.
That must be why I see so many shops and restaurants around here with little signs next to the register saying "Please don't use cash! We'd rather pay swipe fees!"
Not.
If the point of this is to use ACH to avoid credit card processing fees, maybe the retailers should simply discuss with Apple and Google integrating in ACH to go along with Apple Pay? It might be a slap in the face to Visa and the like, but it would be worth considering.
However, I'm fairly sure the whole "we now have all your data for targeting ads" is a big incentive too.
However, I'm fairly sure the whole "we now have all your data for targeting ads" is a big incentive too.
Mom and pops are different, as it's typically the owner that's counting the money and personally driving the deposit to the bank.
When we are talking walmart, Best Buy, or any of the retailers part of the CurrentC disaster, they all have employees that count the money, prepare the deposit, and the Brinks guy shows up every day to pick it up and drop off any change order.
When you are talking about a mom-and-pop donut shop, they like cash, ESPECIALLY in the food industry, because they don't report ALL of it to the IRS.
Funny thing is, those companies (CVS, Rite-Aid, Walmart, etc) are going to lose a lot more than $500k in profits over those three years. CVS made $34.6M in revenue, of which over $6M was profit, in just the last quarter. Over three years, that translates to $72M (if all quarters were like the one ending in June 2014, which is probably low-balling it). That $500k is just 1/144th of their profits. That is, if they lose 1% of sales due to refusing to take people's money at the register, they have lost far more than that investment.
From CVS's perspective, though, they see this as a long-shot (now, maybe not when it was first concocted) to get rid of an operating expense equalling about 2% of revenues (assuming most customers pay with credit cards at a convenience store) or $700k per quarter, which would boost their quarterly bottom-line net income ($1.246M last quarter) by more than 50%. Which, of course, is huge. So, you can see their incentive. It is just a really bad bet to make, and clearly anti-consumer, so there is no reason for us, the folks with the money they want, to go along.