Square iPhone Payment System turns your phone into credit card reader
By Vladislav Savov 
posted Aug 3rd 2009 6:09PM
posted Aug 3rd 2009 6:09PM
[Thanks, Derek]
posted Aug 3rd 2009 6:09PM
Number of applications downloaded from the iPhone App Store
After hitting a historic 1 billion downloads, Apple says the store cleared another half a billion apps in the following three months.
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Huh? This isn't new. Something like this has been around for awhile, it's called "Intuit GoPayment". My Palm Pre has it, you mean the iPhone doesn't have this?
Make a Blackberry version, and they'll get even more business!
I will NEVER let anybody use my credit card in one of these for any type of phone.
Why? What makes you so trustworthy of the normal readers they have at stores? Those could just as easily steal your credit card info. Hell, most (all?) of those machines will let you go through the log of all credit cards that were swiped for the day.
Credit card companies are very quick to refund fraudulent transactions anyways.
When I saw the authorize.net application for the iphone I knew it was only a matter of time. Granted this looks nowhere nearly as sexy as what I had pictured but if it works descent then kudos.
....can't you just enter your credit card information? Why the fuck do you need a swiper....
Hmmm...I dunno. Depending on who holds the merchant account, you may get a better rate for swiping then keying.
Card data being transmitted through the headphone jack?
Does anyone have a contact number, web address, or better information on this dongle device? I am looking for a card swipe of this nature for the iphone. ...or a good bluetooth equiv.???
* jared- I would think the head phone jack would be more secure than the bluetooth equivalents. No broadcasting, all direct contacts with the hardware
For me the real question is wether this reader has the ability to encrypt the data after the swipe, but before the data is passed to the phone. The decrypt would lie in the credit card software, at the processor, or maybe even as far out as the issuing banks. That way even a hack or key logger couldn't do anything with the data. This is where the industry is going.
** alex - yes, there can be a huge saving to some. If the merchant has an average ticket of $5 then its a mute point, or if the merchant transacts with their customers over the phone and can not swipe the card it is also a mute point. This is primarily due to the conditions set forth by Visa and Mastercard for qualifying transactions at lower Interchange Rates. However, with the correct type of retail merchant account setup and the following general conditions being met the merchant would pay less fees overall. (face-to-face transaction, swipe data collected, a signature obtained, and the transaction has to be batched within 24 hrs)
As an example most keyed accounts start out with rates that are 2%~2.39% +$0.30 for Qualified and closer to 3.79%~4% for Non Qualified transactions. A retail merchant account has less risk and therefore lower pricing. The qualified transactions would be closer to 1.75% for consumer credit cards and less than 1.5% for Offline Debit Cards (Visa Checkcard /Master Moneycard) Non Qualifieds are generally around 2.5% ~3%.
To use simple math-- Yea, on each $100 transaction, it might be a savings of $.50 or a couple bucks, but say at a $1000 you just saved $5... $10... $15... or maybe $20 bucks each time.
***Jordan-- btw eric is right -- I don't want necessarily be the one to point out the pink elephant in the room and ruin anyones warm fuzzies about the securities of Point of Sale Systems that your cards get run through probably several times a day, buuutttt.... I will. Most all of the magnetic swipe readers deployed are a form of keyboard wedge device and are viewed by windows computers much like your mouse or keyboard. Unlike the skimmers you here about on the news, there are any number of logger programs or even a simple notepad file that can run inside a computer and can collect the swipe data in an unsecure format without the user even knowing about it. People tend to focus on the security of the web and attacks from outside in. That's a start, but let's not forget about the proximity of the people. A USB port and a thumb drive is all it takes to infriltrate a system from a computer anywhere on a network. Fortunately for all of us as consumers, we have the dispute process to fall back on as a means of checks and balance against any fraud.
Relevant Background:
Point-of-sale company- Owner / Credit Card Processing Company -Owner,
Industry Consultant -14 years.