Starbucks Partners With Square 145
Square, the start-up mobile payment service that aims to bring credit card transactions to anyone with a smartphone, has formed a partnership with Starbucks, a move that vastly increases Square's reach and visibility. According to the NY Times,
"This fall, Square will begin processing all credit and debit card transactions at Starbucks stores in the United States and eventually customers will be able to order a grande vanilla latte and charge it to their credit cards simply by saying their names. Though smartphone payments have a long way to go before they replace wallets altogether, Starbucks’s adoption of Square will catapult the start-up’s technology onto street corners nationwide, and is the clearest sign yet that mobile payments could become mainstream. ... At first, Starbucks customers will need to show the merchant a bar code on their phones. But when Starbucks uses Square’s full GPS technology, the customer’s phone will automatically notify the store that the customer has entered, and the customer’s name and photo will pop up on the cashier’s screen. The customer will give the merchant his or her name, Starbucks will match the photo and the payment will be complete."
Yikes (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one whose first knee-jerk thought was, "Wow, that's great! And from now on, I use nothing but cash!"
What's wrong with a simple asymmetric encryption system keyed to a particular cellphone, to be activated at checkout?
GPS-revealing apps already weird me out -- along with peoples' obliviousness to personal safety and/or security -- but automatically promulgating your name and photo to the store you enter quite exceeds creepy. At least this service is optional...for now.
Re:Crap coffee meets crap payment system (Score:4, Insightful)
...because everyone knows that the best things are the most popular. Don't you just love Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Beyoncé...
square's other cool tech = reenabling petty theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Square? You mean the purveyors of the butter-slice sized "I-can't-believe-it's-PCI-compliant!" (tm) mobile payment system? The first time I had some hipster process my card with his iPhone, I was apalled that there was a system that *can't* issue a physical receipt. I know, I know, most people swipe their cards and wave off the receipt, taking it on faith that the merchant will charge only the amount shown on the till and not a little more... or the maximum I just authorized with the card-present swipe. If the charge is off, you have no proof, no way of coming back, nothing at all.
Oh sure, I can stand there for another 2-3min while I ask said hipster to email or text me a "receipt" (at least it has a transaction number) usually accompanied with a lot of huffing and puffing about how giving me a receipt is a hassle and why do I want one anyway....? Because I just did the electronic equivalent of laying my wallet on the counter and saying "Take what you need." I'd like some acknowledgement of what was taken. Is that such a burden? I still write a few checks for bills and such so there are multiple transaction types debited against a single account, and I like to reconcile payments and balance my account periodically like a grownup.
I might slide more easily into the paperless future if the rate of "error" (not really) wasn't going up. Even in my run-o-the-mill consumer usage, I've had a few instances in the past year where a person (a local drive-up barista, a dude selling t-shirts at Comicon, etc) where there was a discrepancy between what I was told and what was punched in. It's never in my favor, and if I didn't catch it in tiny print on a smudgy screen before faux-signing with my finger... And when I ask for a receipt -- even a text pseudo-receipt -- they got all flustered, and one even refused (that was the one who'd added an even two dollars). Persoanlly, if you're that hard up to steal a buck from me, you can have it. But that doesn't mean it's right.
All of a sudden this older type of "skimming" is coming back into vogue, something that I haven't seen since... well, ever in my lifetime. My parents used to talk about deli guys with a finger on the scale, and cashiers with pennies on the counter to count how many dollars in the till they'd lifted from customers (so they could balance the till by pocketing the right amt of cash at the end of the day), but I thought they were funny old-people stories. Any now Square comes along with a magical box that re-enables a petty crime by depricating auth logs... and few people seem to give a crap.
Everything old is new again.
Re:Better than average (Score:4, Insightful)
Taco Bell is not Mexican food. It is Tex-Mex inspired junk food. That's not to say I don't enjoy it on occasion, especially a green buritto and a MexiMelt. But there are at least 30 good Mexican restaurants in Dallas I can go to for under $15 (food, non alcoholic drink, tax and tip), many under even $10. And there isn't a single meal at Taco Bell I would consider one of my favorite low cost meals. Del Taco just opened in Dallas, and I personally like it better.
Re:square's other cool tech = reenabling petty the (Score:0, Insightful)
Do you own and operate a brick & mortar small business? Do you take credit cards as a part of that business? If yes, how much was the initial cost of the setup? What percentage do you pay to each respective company for each transaction? If no, what percentage of your customers wished they could have purchased more, but were lacking their checkbook + enough cash on hand to pay?
The Square has done wonders for small businesses that otherwise would not be able to offer card transactions. And yes, if there is a mistake on the transaction, you can call up the company and ask to get it fixed. A $12 tip at a restaurant that should have been $2 gets refunded in 1-2 business days. If the merchant refuses or is otherwise unavailable, you dispute it with your credit card company.
Your other points are valid with respect to having a better audit system available and physical receipts. A mini, mobile printer that could integrate with the Square sounds like an excellent idea. Other mobile devices already offer this, and I can see the Square benefiting from this as well. If you have the resources, I would encourage you to develop and sell such technology to Square, you'd probably make a nice profit from it. Otherwise, it probably will be offered as an add-on in the future, just wait for it.
Re:Free Coffee (Score:5, Insightful)
These days, I'm going more and more back to trying to do only cash transactions for daily needs (groceries, eat out....etc). I really am not a fan of giving up my purchasing patterns to all these corporations just so they can try to sell me more or sell me crap I don't want or need.