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walkitoutI had a ton of fun in dealer rooms at RavenCon and at BaltiCon. Several dealers told me their Square or whatever device “didn’t do phones”, but of course they all did. And they were all surprised that they worked. And then one of them failed to notice a payment hadn’t completed immediately, but I was chatting with the neighboring stall and we redid it no problem. I also hadn’t bothered to check for the ack text that time, but I went back and checked all my previous purchases; it really was just that one.
Recently, when I was chatting with someone while buying furniture (hopefully this is anonymous enough because I’ve been buying so much fucking furniture), I was told they switched processors when their processor would only allow NFC payments (card or phone) up to $500. I will note: this is a _furniture_ store. The processor’s explanation was that NFC payments were less secure than physical cards (presumably with the chip, because if they meant swipe, boy, this is a much stupider story than I had thought). We agreed that this was foolishness, but then I got to thinking about it.
Isn’t a phone NFC payment — Apple Pay or whatever — _MORE_ secure than the same payment on the same card using NFC? I means, if I lost my card, someone could use the card. But the phone is gonna be harder. Obviously, for _me_ the phone is more secure because tokenization.
But the whole thing really made me realize just how befuddled we have all become about the many types of payment available and how they work and how to tell that they did work — or didn’t work.
Good news, tho — at the furniture stores, it is belt and suspenders all the way. They get my address, phone number, physical address, they make sure that the transaction completes, I get an ack SMS and another from the card’s app, and there is usually an emailed receipt and I also get a printed receipt. We know sooooo much about each other.
It does feel a little weird tho that so many people doing in person transactions on the business side appear to have a really shaky understanding of how these things work. On the other hand, stories of cashiers not knowing how to handle cash transactions where someone handed over coins to try to make things come out even are Legend.
Recently, when I was chatting with someone while buying furniture (hopefully this is anonymous enough because I’ve been buying so much fucking furniture), I was told they switched processors when their processor would only allow NFC payments (card or phone) up to $500. I will note: this is a _furniture_ store. The processor’s explanation was that NFC payments were less secure than physical cards (presumably with the chip, because if they meant swipe, boy, this is a much stupider story than I had thought). We agreed that this was foolishness, but then I got to thinking about it.
Isn’t a phone NFC payment — Apple Pay or whatever — _MORE_ secure than the same payment on the same card using NFC? I means, if I lost my card, someone could use the card. But the phone is gonna be harder. Obviously, for _me_ the phone is more secure because tokenization.
But the whole thing really made me realize just how befuddled we have all become about the many types of payment available and how they work and how to tell that they did work — or didn’t work.
Good news, tho — at the furniture stores, it is belt and suspenders all the way. They get my address, phone number, physical address, they make sure that the transaction completes, I get an ack SMS and another from the card’s app, and there is usually an emailed receipt and I also get a printed receipt. We know sooooo much about each other.
It does feel a little weird tho that so many people doing in person transactions on the business side appear to have a really shaky understanding of how these things work. On the other hand, stories of cashiers not knowing how to handle cash transactions where someone handed over coins to try to make things come out even are Legend.