Contactless Payments
Oct. 13th, 2011 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatEgg has been bought out by Barclaycard. As a result I am to receive a barclaycard. I'm taking steps to remedy this but in the interim I've been reading the wee booklet they sent me and am struck by its assurances about contactless payments
"you'll be able to make contactless payments up to £15.
...
it's really safe to use so you can shop with confidence knowing your account is secure.
....
Instead of inserting your card in the Chip and PIN reader and entering your PIN, to make a contactless payment you simply hold your card near the reader. And that's it - off you go."
No, it obviously isn't "really safe" otherwise you'd let me spend more than £15 at a time with it. In fact I can see no protection at all, under this system, which prevents someone with the right kind of reader wandering around a crowded shopping centre quietly nicking £15 from every customer in range. I had hoped that, like Chip and PIN, you might at least need to confirm your purchase with a PIN number (even though there are security issues with broadcasting PIN numbers wirelessly between devices) but it doesn't look like you do.
I'm also imagining the chaos that will be caused when the person behind you in the queue accidentally pays for your shopping because they were standing too close and holding their credit card while you were fussing around in your bag.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but I can't see anything which suggests that contactless credit cards aren't the plastic equivalent of wandering around with your purse open and a sign on it saying "help yourself". Well, OK, you do need the right kind of card reader and then a way to quickly launder your ill-gotten gains but I have rather more confidence in the ingenuity of the criminal fraternity than I do in the forethought that has gone into preventing abuse of these things.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/55919.html.
"you'll be able to make contactless payments up to £15.
...
it's really safe to use so you can shop with confidence knowing your account is secure.
....
Instead of inserting your card in the Chip and PIN reader and entering your PIN, to make a contactless payment you simply hold your card near the reader. And that's it - off you go."
No, it obviously isn't "really safe" otherwise you'd let me spend more than £15 at a time with it. In fact I can see no protection at all, under this system, which prevents someone with the right kind of reader wandering around a crowded shopping centre quietly nicking £15 from every customer in range. I had hoped that, like Chip and PIN, you might at least need to confirm your purchase with a PIN number (even though there are security issues with broadcasting PIN numbers wirelessly between devices) but it doesn't look like you do.
I'm also imagining the chaos that will be caused when the person behind you in the queue accidentally pays for your shopping because they were standing too close and holding their credit card while you were fussing around in your bag.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but I can't see anything which suggests that contactless credit cards aren't the plastic equivalent of wandering around with your purse open and a sign on it saying "help yourself". Well, OK, you do need the right kind of card reader and then a way to quickly launder your ill-gotten gains but I have rather more confidence in the ingenuity of the criminal fraternity than I do in the forethought that has gone into preventing abuse of these things.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/55919.html.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:04 pm (UTC)The second time they did that I decided I was just too lazy to keep changing.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:34 pm (UTC)I'd far rather be able to say "this one" by putting it in the reader, and confirm that it's the one I meant by entering a PIN, and be able to spend more than £15 at a time.
Contactless cards have no use and many problems, as far as I can tell.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:06 pm (UTC)The only way to be sure you're using the right card is to open your wallet, take out the correct card, wave it at the reader, then put it back. I don't see why that is any better than putting the card in a contact reader. In fact it's worse, as you have to make sure you hold your wallet far enough away from the reader to avoid card 2 being read as you're waving card 1 near it.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 05:44 am (UTC)The time saving aagainst putting in a PIN is about, oh, ten to twenty seconds. Probably not really worth it, but as I'm normally in a tearing hurry it feels as though I've saved more time than that!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 08:17 am (UTC)So the time saving isn't because it's contactless, but because it's a simpler transaction that drops the PIN check. You could get the same effect with a contact reader - why not just change Chip & PIN readers so they only require a PIN for transactions over £15? That would get the same effect as contactless cards at the cost of a software update, no new technology required.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 08:21 am (UTC)You obviously don't need the PIN anyway since the M6 Toll doesn't require PIN numbers (though obviously it does get a good look at your vehicle licence plate instead). I'm fairly sure PIN is used to let merchant's guarantee that the cardholder was present. I suppose I should have a look at what the T&Cs concerning fraud are on the card. If someone steals my card and uses it to buy stuff contactlessly, who is liable for the loss? If its the bank taking the hit then I guess that's their look out.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 10:17 am (UTC)What I would probably do is have a record on the card of how much has been spent since it last required a PIN. For any transaction, if the amount is over £15 or the running total has reached say £50, then the card automatically insists that the PIN be entered and then resets the total to nil (assuming the PIN is right).
They say that you're protected provided you've not been negligent and you've reported the loss of the card, though I'm not sure what that means if it gets used before you've realised it's gone.
From my point of view, being able to use a card to make small payments without a PIN is a small convenience; the contactless bit is a bit of a red herring, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 10:24 am (UTC)PINless opens up a different can of worms with the issue of card theft.
Contactless+PINless looks like a nasty combination to me but I suspect that banks will carry most of the burden if someone does find an exploit.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 12:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:35 pm (UTC)I can just see it now : the checkout machine goes mad (or has had the wrong button pressed by Stacey-I-Never-Touched-It) and starts stealing £15 off everyone who walks past within range. Cue lamenting by all staff trying to work out how to stop it, a call to Head Office which will be dealt with next Tuesday, and the coning-off of Hal Checkout, which can now be safely approached only by pensioners carrying cash in their socks...
It should be entertaining to watch. I was thinking of moving to the cash in socks model anyway, as a staging post to the inevitable Turnip Economy we will be forced to adhere to once the petrol runs out.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 08:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 07:55 pm (UTC)I have been with HSBC Mastercard for over 35 years and have only had two spats with them in that time, both of which they sorted in my favour immediately.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 08:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-13 09:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 08:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-14 06:42 pm (UTC)