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MCX Says Merchants Doing What's Best for Customers, Being Attacked for 'Challenging the Status Quo'
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My personal goal is to do away with having to carry my wallet everywhere. I already carry my phone all the time.
This is what I want.
NFC solutions seem to make this possible and I can leave my credit cards and cash safely at home.
I am also ok with options. I should be able to use NFC if I want, cash or credit card.
This is what I want.
NFC solutions seem to make this possible and I can leave my credit cards and cash safely at home.
I am also ok with options. I should be able to use NFC if I want, cash or credit card.
While I don't feel sorry for MCX, they are between a rock and a hard spot. If they would have allowed the Apple pay payments the war would've been over and they would've lost as no one would want to use their system. They took the other option and you can see the result.
They have a bad system that was flawed to begin with.
If they really knew what was best for consumers, they wouldn't have just been hacked. Tsk tsk MCX not off to a good start!
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/29/re...s-been-hacked-testers-email-addresses-stolen/
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/29/re...s-been-hacked-testers-email-addresses-stolen/
For the same reasons people use cards instead of cash? I can't remember the last time I used cash for anything other than tipping, exchanging money with individuals, or at vending machines.
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Go to Radio Shack. I found more than 6 hard to find ipHone 6 space gray 32 mb in many stores near me when everyone else had weeks of backorders.
Their logic seems to be, "We are selling a piece of poo. I'll bet if we refuse to sell Charmin then people will be much more willing to wipe their bottoms with our piece of poo."
A bit graphic, maybe... but I really wanted to say "poo" and have it be contextual.
I believe that chip reader is different then the NFC cause with the chip you slide the card into the front of the terminal compared to just tapping the NFC reader at the top.
There's a handful of interesting things about MCX, but it seems like they're dead already but don't know it yet. The desirability of the platform just goes down with every revelation.
So overnight, they have transformed their little company from a company whose main purposes were to sidestep credit card transaction fees and collect customers' personal data to one that's suddenly all about embracing credit card transaction fees and collecting customers' personal data.
Sorry, MCX. You still lose big time. My personal data is, as the name implies, PERSONAL.
Some people on here are so obtuse. Its not about Apple pay versus currentC. Merchants are doing exactly what many businesses would do and that is to protect their bottom line. I've said it from the very start, that something has to be done to incentivise merchants to adopt Apple pay, otherwise they won't adopt it. As it stands now, with Apple pay merchants have to pay more than they would with just regular credit card payments. So of course they're going to go with an inferior payment system that gives them more. When Apple and the banks hashed out their agreements, they sure didn't think about anyone but themselves. And this is the result.
What these companies are doing is horrible. They are going out of their way to actively block a technology that customers seem to like to replace it (sometime next year) with a technology that is clearly not very customer friendly and frankly sounds like more of a pain in the butt than just using a regular credit card. I created a kickstarter that will hopefully raise awareness of this by creating decals that can be placed on the windows of stores that are doing this telling customers that Apple Pay and Google Wallet are not accepted at this establishment.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/921830824/stop-blocking-apple-pay-and-google-wallet
While I certainly don't condone defacing private property, a little sticker is harmless and will hopefully raise awareness of what these companies are doing to the non-tech community.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/921830824/stop-blocking-apple-pay-and-google-wallet
While I certainly don't condone defacing private property, a little sticker is harmless and will hopefully raise awareness of what these companies are doing to the non-tech community.
"MCX Says Merchants Doing What's Best for Customers"... Nope, BS, never going to use that junk. I saw Apple Pay at Walgreens today; too bad I can't use it. Credit card is also fine. What's best for consumers is for MCX to get Shrek'd and die off. Most of the reviews for the CurrentC app are basically "kill yourself".
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probably hacked by someone connected with apple or google.
the best hackers aren't all sitting around in basements getting their geek on.. they're working for the governments/corporations.
My complaint to the FTC.
There's a drop-down selection in the complaint details that offers a "mobile payment like Google Wallet". Then, I entered the corporate addresses for CVS, Rite Aid, and MCX.
The is the text of the complaint that I filed. Feel free to modify it for your use:
Last weekend, Rite-Aid and CVS disabled the existing NFC functionality in their point-of-sale terminals. In doing so, they blocked the use of Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and contactless credit cards. CVS has tacitly admitted they did so because they will be offering a different mobile pay solution next year. That solution is Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium of US merchants that claim to jointly earn $1 trillion in revenue annually.
While reviewing your ROUNDTABLE ON COMPETITION AND PAYMENT SYSTEMS, dated 2012-10-19, I noted this statement: " Two broad categories of anticompetitive harm theories are (1) exclusion and (2) overly inclusive joint venture. For exclusion, harm may arise if a joint venture denies some key element to rival systems and thereby reduces competition. Whether this is a viable theory would depend on factors such as the freedom that the joint ventures members have to participate in multiple mobile payment systems (multi-home), the extent to which the members, individually or collectively, have market power with respect to the denied element, and the availability of adequate substitutes for that element."
MCX has admitted that members must exclude other mobile payment systems. Currently, the technical solution is to disable NFC, depriving consumers of the key element to support mobile payments with Google Wallet and ApplePay. But, MCX claims they are free to leave the consortium (but presumably forfeit membership fees), and no longer offer mobile payment via MCX. So, MCX is forcing a merchant to select the mobile payment system they wish to offer, to the detriment of the consumers that choose the competing scheme.
There are many other problems with MCX, such as the lack of protection for disputed transactions, and the pervasive amount of data (social security number, drivers license number) that is collected for "validation". In contrast, Google Wallet and Apple Pay users can choose to remain completely anonymous to the merchant, and the information exchanged during the transaction cannot be reused for fraud if the merchant's point-of-sale system is compromised. Consumers should have the ability to choose the method of mobile payment that meets their needs and satisfies their security/privacy concerns, without regard to whether a merchant supports it.
MCX and the member merchants of the MCX consortium should be investigated, and if warranted: sanctioned for anti-competitive behavior.
There's a drop-down selection in the complaint details that offers a "mobile payment like Google Wallet". Then, I entered the corporate addresses for CVS, Rite Aid, and MCX.
The is the text of the complaint that I filed. Feel free to modify it for your use:
Last weekend, Rite-Aid and CVS disabled the existing NFC functionality in their point-of-sale terminals. In doing so, they blocked the use of Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and contactless credit cards. CVS has tacitly admitted they did so because they will be offering a different mobile pay solution next year. That solution is Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium of US merchants that claim to jointly earn $1 trillion in revenue annually.
While reviewing your ROUNDTABLE ON COMPETITION AND PAYMENT SYSTEMS, dated 2012-10-19, I noted this statement: " Two broad categories of anticompetitive harm theories are (1) exclusion and (2) overly inclusive joint venture. For exclusion, harm may arise if a joint venture denies some key element to rival systems and thereby reduces competition. Whether this is a viable theory would depend on factors such as the freedom that the joint ventures members have to participate in multiple mobile payment systems (multi-home), the extent to which the members, individually or collectively, have market power with respect to the denied element, and the availability of adequate substitutes for that element."
MCX has admitted that members must exclude other mobile payment systems. Currently, the technical solution is to disable NFC, depriving consumers of the key element to support mobile payments with Google Wallet and ApplePay. But, MCX claims they are free to leave the consortium (but presumably forfeit membership fees), and no longer offer mobile payment via MCX. So, MCX is forcing a merchant to select the mobile payment system they wish to offer, to the detriment of the consumers that choose the competing scheme.
There are many other problems with MCX, such as the lack of protection for disputed transactions, and the pervasive amount of data (social security number, drivers license number) that is collected for "validation". In contrast, Google Wallet and Apple Pay users can choose to remain completely anonymous to the merchant, and the information exchanged during the transaction cannot be reused for fraud if the merchant's point-of-sale system is compromised. Consumers should have the ability to choose the method of mobile payment that meets their needs and satisfies their security/privacy concerns, without regard to whether a merchant supports it.
MCX and the member merchants of the MCX consortium should be investigated, and if warranted: sanctioned for anti-competitive behavior.
What I still get is why doesn't Apple (and Google) simply remove CurrentC from the App Store?
When Bose (and the NFL) took aim at Beats products last month, Apple responded by removing Bose products from their online and retail stores.
I don't see this situation as all that different.
When Bose (and the NFL) took aim at Beats products last month, Apple responded by removing Bose products from their online and retail stores.
I don't see this situation as all that different.
There is no such thing as a 32GB (never mind 32Mb) iPhone 6 in any store in the universe.
What are you talking about?????
I assume you meant 32 GB...which is interesting because Apple didn't make the iPhone 6/6+ in a 32 GB capacity.
Yes because CurrentC is good for the consumer 
it's good for the merchant not the consumer, just because they don't have to pay transaction fees to the CC companies doesn't mean their greed is going to go away, they will still jack prices up on everything.
it's good for the merchant not the consumer, just because they don't have to pay transaction fees to the CC companies doesn't mean their greed is going to go away, they will still jack prices up on everything.
Well, that and the three-year exclusivity agreements they were forced to sign before any of them knew the BIGGEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD was developing a simple, secure electronic wallet solution, using the same technology as the mobile OS that currently has the largest market share.