Nov 17, 2023·edited Nov 17, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs
I’m so glad we don’t have swipe readers any more, they would never let you in when you needed it.
Mind you it can be worse, at a ex employer someone programmed some doors (not all) with a 3 second delay between the card being read (or if coming the other way the door button being pushed) and the lock releasing. It took a lot of moans and people walking into the closed door before they fixed it.
Mind you at the same employer they put the door controller inside the room it was controlling, the controller locked up so a hole was drilled through the wall to allow the magloc to be released - the same idiots put the controller pc in a room controlled by itself…
Contactless entry cards were a thing in the USA in the mid-80s. The particular company I worked for then had a card reader on the door to/from the common area in the building, which saw much traffic of the Percy pointing variety. Since the reader was just below hip height to the average male, and the cards were way too thick to fit in a wallet, there was much bumping of butts to bring back pockets into proximity with the reader. How the very few women in the tech company negotiated this I cannot say.
It has arcane rules on which days it can be used (not last Saturday, for example) and then 9 times out of 10 it takes (what seems like) 10 minutes before the "gameboy" terminal abandons the transaction.
True story as told me by a colleague. Colleague and spouse returns to hotel room and key card doesn’t work. Goes to reception and gives room number they couldn’t get into. Sure thing says receptionist and they go back to the room. They enter, and realise..... this isn’t their room. As they exit, the real occupants arrive. Couple then retire to reception once more to give them a bollocking for poor security .....
Nov 17, 2023·edited Nov 17, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs
Here, in sunny rural Spain, contactless was not even an option until Covid, or was it Brexit, I do so confuse the 2 having both been responsible for so much fuckery, but I digress.
Contactless payments have had the exact opposite effect than the, hopefully, intended one, i.e. to hasten the people in front of you through the checkout in the supermarket so you get to minimise your time spent in retail hell.
Note the lady in front, fumbling in her purse for her card which she left in the car.
Fume at the gentleman with 500 cards in his wallet, none of which work because he maxed them all out at the 'night club' last night.
Rant at the pensioner who would not know a debit card from a hand grenade.
Curse the yoof who 'forgot' to charge his phone.
Need I go on?
Bring back cash, all it requires is being able to count, but I suspect even that small task is asking too much in this digital age.
A young woman in front of me at the supermarket till decided to pay using cash AND card AND vouchers. Each of these had to be validated in turn - including the cash, as the notes had to be scribbled upon with a magic pen one by one.
You know those tills marked 'Card payments only'? I reckon they should have separate 'Weird payments only' so I can avoid it.
The number is 2. My contactless card is refused on alternate uses, such that I rarely bother any more. Also, our joint account is with one of those highly strung French banks that refuses to integrate with Apple Pay or Google Wallet. It insists that smartphone contactless payments from their accounts can only be made using its own custom NFC app. I stopped using it because it rejects payments 100% of the time, despite the app assuring me that everything has been set up correctly,
I almost always use a contactless credit card and frankly it works just hunky dory. Only on the odd occasion does it revert to the pin number; I think it's a secret test for senility. However, the bank, through which the credit card is issued, won't let this card be used via NFC on the phone. They will allow me to pay by their debit card via the phone though. Now I prefer the (probably mythical) extra security that a credit card gives; it's not a direct connection to my immense stash stored in the bank vault.
For some reason, I reckon that if the credit card company pays out to a scam, they have to look to me for payment which I can refuse, whereas if the bank loses my money, it becomes my problem.
Late one afternoon, and at short notice, I was sent to the Isle of Man (from the mainland) armed with my bag and company credit card. I was there by demand from the Consultants and they did not expect to pay.
I knew the consultant well and we had a very good meal at the restaurant, together with a few 'refreshments' before retiring. I put the whole expense on my hotel tab.
Next morning, I went to settle the bill and lo-and-behold the credit card was refused. Swipe, chip, pin all rejected (it is entirely possible I had forgotten the pin number....). Giving the consultant a look that implied desperation, he offered to pay! And he did! Result.
Before or since, I have never known a consultant pay for any 'consumables'.
Even now I’m still shocked that the USA still struggles with contactless and Apple/Google Pay, particularly in restaurants. The “...nerdy explosion of smartphone payment spreads its love from Europe back across the Atlantic to where it was originally devised.” is making its way surprisingly slowly.
On a recent visit to the States we were constantly amused by the struggle of retailers and consumers to get their heads around Apple Pay. Made all the more amusing when we returned to the UK to immediately find an American grumbling that everything needed to be contactless and his card didn’t have that feature.
As you alluded to, given it was (effectively) created in the U.S. it’s surprising how shonky the payments system is out there.
Two well known big box home centre chains haven't yet embraced contactless, still requiring you to insert the chipped card. Occasionally I have to scrub the contacts to get a reading.
The actual place to hold/wave/flutter the contactless card varies, not just between stores, but even sometimes within a store, a case in point being a drugstore chain that won't replace old terminals until they die in agony (note here that older stuff often lasts longer than its replacements).
There's a restaurant chain that has a little terminal on every table with games, puzzles and yes, a means to pay your bill without waiting for the staff. Still uses swipe, though, and if you want a receipt you'll wait for that anyway.
Good news: the little stores are rapidly embracing tech, and you'll often see what looks like a tablet rather than a conventional POS terminal being used to tot up the damage. But there's still the "where do I hold the damn card" puzzle if you're new to the store.
Swipe cards sometimes didn’t work due to build-up of static charge, and the simplest way to make the stripe work was to “swipe” it on your (head) hair first.
(If you rub it on a cat’s hair you build up “cat”ions, which are positive, because cats are generally positive. Although now that I think about it, no, cats are not usually positive…)
To make “tap” cards work, imagine it’s a passive circuit that emits a digital sequence in response to being pushed through a magnetic field — dynamically. So don’t “place” your tap card upon the sensor, you must dynamically tap it, or even “snap” it. The faster the motion the more power generated, and the stronger the digital signal produced.
And if it’s a robot guided by an optical sensor, that can get dazzled by any chance reflection, and then mistake your body for an object to be end-effected: you got to run away out of the operational work envelope of that Terminator machine. Lock-out, Tag-out!
The mag stripe for airlines thing amuses me. There must be tons of stuff we have which is essentially obsolete because it was an idea that didn’t gain traction for whatever reason. But then I’m watching season 4 of For All Mankind, and newbie arriving on Mars is offered a black market Laserdisc....
On a cruise, had my cabin card mag strip wiped or corrupted by the magnet holding my camera case shut. Had to get it changed at reception. Happened twice before I realised what was causing it. . Oh the good old days!
That’ll be the next generation Ring doorbell/lock then. I’d like one of those (“Gandalf let me in”). His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs already use a spoken pass phrase to access your account.
I’m so glad we don’t have swipe readers any more, they would never let you in when you needed it.
Mind you it can be worse, at a ex employer someone programmed some doors (not all) with a 3 second delay between the card being read (or if coming the other way the door button being pushed) and the lock releasing. It took a lot of moans and people walking into the closed door before they fixed it.
Mind you at the same employer they put the door controller inside the room it was controlling, the controller locked up so a hole was drilled through the wall to allow the magloc to be released - the same idiots put the controller pc in a room controlled by itself…
Contactless entry cards were a thing in the USA in the mid-80s. The particular company I worked for then had a card reader on the door to/from the common area in the building, which saw much traffic of the Percy pointing variety. Since the reader was just below hip height to the average male, and the cards were way too thick to fit in a wallet, there was much bumping of butts to bring back pockets into proximity with the reader. How the very few women in the tech company negotiated this I cannot say.
The Ticket Resto Mastercard is the worst.
It has arcane rules on which days it can be used (not last Saturday, for example) and then 9 times out of 10 it takes (what seems like) 10 minutes before the "gameboy" terminal abandons the transaction.
True story as told me by a colleague. Colleague and spouse returns to hotel room and key card doesn’t work. Goes to reception and gives room number they couldn’t get into. Sure thing says receptionist and they go back to the room. They enter, and realise..... this isn’t their room. As they exit, the real occupants arrive. Couple then retire to reception once more to give them a bollocking for poor security .....
Here, in sunny rural Spain, contactless was not even an option until Covid, or was it Brexit, I do so confuse the 2 having both been responsible for so much fuckery, but I digress.
Contactless payments have had the exact opposite effect than the, hopefully, intended one, i.e. to hasten the people in front of you through the checkout in the supermarket so you get to minimise your time spent in retail hell.
Note the lady in front, fumbling in her purse for her card which she left in the car.
Fume at the gentleman with 500 cards in his wallet, none of which work because he maxed them all out at the 'night club' last night.
Rant at the pensioner who would not know a debit card from a hand grenade.
Curse the yoof who 'forgot' to charge his phone.
Need I go on?
Bring back cash, all it requires is being able to count, but I suspect even that small task is asking too much in this digital age.
A young woman in front of me at the supermarket till decided to pay using cash AND card AND vouchers. Each of these had to be validated in turn - including the cash, as the notes had to be scribbled upon with a magic pen one by one.
You know those tills marked 'Card payments only'? I reckon they should have separate 'Weird payments only' so I can avoid it.
Cash only needs one of the people involved being able to count.
Contactless has all the possible issues you've already mentioned and more. I'll add -
It's that random time when Chip and PIN is needed, so rare that it's been forgotten.
The contactless reader is wireless but has lost signal.
The system the reader connects to is throwing a wobbler.
There is also the fact that every n transactions the banks will decide that they need to validate the pin to ensure the cardholder is real….
I think it used to be 5 but maybe more now…
The number is 2. My contactless card is refused on alternate uses, such that I rarely bother any more. Also, our joint account is with one of those highly strung French banks that refuses to integrate with Apple Pay or Google Wallet. It insists that smartphone contactless payments from their accounts can only be made using its own custom NFC app. I stopped using it because it rejects payments 100% of the time, despite the app assuring me that everything has been set up correctly,
I almost always use a contactless credit card and frankly it works just hunky dory. Only on the odd occasion does it revert to the pin number; I think it's a secret test for senility. However, the bank, through which the credit card is issued, won't let this card be used via NFC on the phone. They will allow me to pay by their debit card via the phone though. Now I prefer the (probably mythical) extra security that a credit card gives; it's not a direct connection to my immense stash stored in the bank vault.
For some reason, I reckon that if the credit card company pays out to a scam, they have to look to me for payment which I can refuse, whereas if the bank loses my money, it becomes my problem.
Late one afternoon, and at short notice, I was sent to the Isle of Man (from the mainland) armed with my bag and company credit card. I was there by demand from the Consultants and they did not expect to pay.
I knew the consultant well and we had a very good meal at the restaurant, together with a few 'refreshments' before retiring. I put the whole expense on my hotel tab.
Next morning, I went to settle the bill and lo-and-behold the credit card was refused. Swipe, chip, pin all rejected (it is entirely possible I had forgotten the pin number....). Giving the consultant a look that implied desperation, he offered to pay! And he did! Result.
Before or since, I have never known a consultant pay for any 'consumables'.
Even now I’m still shocked that the USA still struggles with contactless and Apple/Google Pay, particularly in restaurants. The “...nerdy explosion of smartphone payment spreads its love from Europe back across the Atlantic to where it was originally devised.” is making its way surprisingly slowly.
On a recent visit to the States we were constantly amused by the struggle of retailers and consumers to get their heads around Apple Pay. Made all the more amusing when we returned to the UK to immediately find an American grumbling that everything needed to be contactless and his card didn’t have that feature.
As you alluded to, given it was (effectively) created in the U.S. it’s surprising how shonky the payments system is out there.
Couple of USA observations:
Two well known big box home centre chains haven't yet embraced contactless, still requiring you to insert the chipped card. Occasionally I have to scrub the contacts to get a reading.
The actual place to hold/wave/flutter the contactless card varies, not just between stores, but even sometimes within a store, a case in point being a drugstore chain that won't replace old terminals until they die in agony (note here that older stuff often lasts longer than its replacements).
There's a restaurant chain that has a little terminal on every table with games, puzzles and yes, a means to pay your bill without waiting for the staff. Still uses swipe, though, and if you want a receipt you'll wait for that anyway.
Good news: the little stores are rapidly embracing tech, and you'll often see what looks like a tablet rather than a conventional POS terminal being used to tot up the damage. But there's still the "where do I hold the damn card" puzzle if you're new to the store.
I’ve been using chip and pin in Canada since for ever. At least since Radisson and Grossliers were out hunting for beavers
Swipe cards sometimes didn’t work due to build-up of static charge, and the simplest way to make the stripe work was to “swipe” it on your (head) hair first.
(If you rub it on a cat’s hair you build up “cat”ions, which are positive, because cats are generally positive. Although now that I think about it, no, cats are not usually positive…)
To make “tap” cards work, imagine it’s a passive circuit that emits a digital sequence in response to being pushed through a magnetic field — dynamically. So don’t “place” your tap card upon the sensor, you must dynamically tap it, or even “snap” it. The faster the motion the more power generated, and the stronger the digital signal produced.
And if it’s a robot guided by an optical sensor, that can get dazzled by any chance reflection, and then mistake your body for an object to be end-effected: you got to run away out of the operational work envelope of that Terminator machine. Lock-out, Tag-out!
The mag stripe for airlines thing amuses me. There must be tons of stuff we have which is essentially obsolete because it was an idea that didn’t gain traction for whatever reason. But then I’m watching season 4 of For All Mankind, and newbie arriving on Mars is offered a black market Laserdisc....
On a cruise, had my cabin card mag strip wiped or corrupted by the magnet holding my camera case shut. Had to get it changed at reception. Happened twice before I realised what was causing it. . Oh the good old days!
Pedo Mellon a Minno.
A much more polite door lock system.
That’ll be the next generation Ring doorbell/lock then. I’d like one of those (“Gandalf let me in”). His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs already use a spoken pass phrase to access your account.
"the Joliet-standard verbal password"
The Rock Ridge extensions were much more reliable.
But of course only worked on some systems (glass doors).
(This comment was written in 2015 too.)