Facebook Introduces Payment System 95
An anonymous reader writes: Today Facebook announced a new feature for its Messenger services: the ability to send money to friends. The payment system will work by connecting debit cards from Visa or Mastercard — no credit cards, and no bank accounts. The company claims they aren't trying to make money on it, since it'd be such a small business compared to their ad revenue. "Once the $ button is tapped, users simply enter the dollar amount and hit Pay. The money is instantly taken from their debit account and delivered to the recipient's debit account. Facebook never holds the money, though the receiver's bank will usually take a few days to make the funds available as is standard. Both users see a confirmation message detailing the transfer status and time." Facebook says transaction information is encrypted, and users will protect their cards with a dedicated passcode (or fingerprint identification).
Yeah, Right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not credit... so your account stays drained (Score:5, Informative)
Great, another ACH debit mechanism, which means that when a fraudster empties a bank account, it stays emptied because there is nowhere the protection present that a credit card has in place.
I would place this on the heap of "run, don't walk away from", also-ran payment standards like CurrenC... avoid at all costs.
Now, if they had used the Visa/MC credit mechanism, things would be different. Fraud wouldn't completely destroy an end user's bank account.
Re:Not credit... so your account stays drained (Score:5, Informative)
They won't do so because of the CC fees that are involved on a per transaction basis.
IF you're going to be dumb enough to sign up for such a silly service, at least make sure you're using an alternate account with a minimum amount of funds in it so when it does get compromised, it isn't an epic event. Disable overdraft protection, unlink it from your primary accounts.
Overall, it's a bad idea anyway. It's Facebook lol.
Re:Not credit... so your account stays drained (Score:5, Funny)
Overall, it's a bad idea anyway.
But but but... I'll get so many new Friend requests from Nigeria! Finally, I'll be *popular*!!!
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I'll get so many new Friend requests from Nigeria! Finally, I'll be *popular*!!!
And though you protest your disinterest,
I know clandestinely
You're gonna grin and bear it,
Your new-found life-long poverty!
(With apologies to Stephen Schwartz...)
Re:Not credit... so your account stays drained (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine tried that idea with another service. When he got nailed while on vacation, instead of the bank saying, "sorry, no funds" and stopping transactions, the bank still allowed it and added a hefty NSF charge onto each transaction. Even more of a kicker was the fact that he was out on vacation and didn't realize the negative quad-digit balance until he got back... and by that time, he got stuck in Chex Systems's database, which means you are pretty much fscked credit-wise (or even trying to get a savings account) for seven years.
Re:Not credit... so your account stays drained (Score:4, Interesting)
Debit also incurs interchange fees. Typically 25 cents plus 25 cents plus 1% (the merchant pays 25 cents, the user pays 25 cents, and the merchant then pays another 1% of the transaction as fees).
The only reason I knew about the debit fees to customers was a retailer who was super honest kept refunding people who used debit a quarter. he said his bank charges him 25 cents, the user gets another 25 cents tacked on to the amount and there's also a tiny percentage taken as well. Not as much as credit, but still. He decided long ago he'd eat all the fees so he paid everyone who paid in debit a quarter out of the till.
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The whole thing is a minefield. Although it'll probably take off, as xkcd predicts [xkcd.com].
Re:Not credit... so your account stays drained (Score:4, Interesting)
Introducing maximum daily transfer limit, unique PINs and other old inventions that effectively solve the problem for ATM fraud.
Which incidentally work just as well here, as the crime is very much similar.
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Great, another ACH debit mechanism, which means that when a fraudster empties a bank account, it stays emptied because there is nowhere the protection present that a credit card has in place.
In the US, this [usnews.com]. VISA talks about Zero Liability [visa.com], with restrictions. That's zero compared to the legal $50 liability.
The only difference I've found is that your bank account will be zero until the money is put back, and I don't know what happens to bounce fees that occur in the meantime.
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I dont see the need for this feature... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also 2 day delay will instantly kill this feature.
I dont know if this is available in the USA.
However here in Canada, from any bank I can do an Interact e-mail transfer.
Recipient receives the e-mail in 20-30 mins, followings instructions and cash is transferred bank to bank instantly.
Cost is $1.50. which is less than ATMs charge to withdraw your cash.
I pay my rent this way (as there is an electronic log), and transfer money to the ex for child related things, again because of electronic log.
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I dont know if this is available in the USA.
It's not. Wire transfers typically cost $30-40. Paypal is much preferred for small amounts. One 'hack' for larger amounts than Paypal will allow is to have an account at national bank and have your friend go to one and deposit cash into your account. Except the national banks usually charge a monthly fee for small accounts, so it's not cheap and it's certainly not easy. Facebook money will be very popular here.
We can't have nice things 'cause terrists (used t
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I live in the US and can do this as well. Email or via SMS. Not sure why Billy can't.
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Chase Quickpay is of among other services, available to do the things our neighbors to the north does. Id check with your bank and see if you have this ability.
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The USA doesn't have that because we have an antiquated banking system. We still don't even have widespread PIN and chip support at retailers.
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That's coming in October. After that, merchants are responsible for any fraud using the old swipe system.
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What's your point? If we were doing something different, we'd be hearing that the "corp-America" is breaking world wide banking standards
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Also 2 day delay will instantly kill this feature.
I dont know if this is available in the USA.
However here in Canada, from any bank I can do an Interact e-mail transfer.
Recipient receives the e-mail in 20-30 mins, followings instructions and cash is transferred bank to bank instantly.
Cost is $1.50. which is less than ATMs charge to withdraw your cash.
I pay my rent this way (as there is an electronic log), and transfer money to the ex for child related things, again because of electronic log.
Ubiquity is the selling point - ok, this is US only, but for local transactions where cash is either not present (no ATM around) or inconvenient ($28 when everyone only has 20's) then this could be "easier" than other payment apps - esp. if you're all already using the app.
Plus - what about paying for your night-in with your "acquaintance with benefits"?
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But yes, email transfer is fast (for both sides) and cheap. The recipient doesn't have to wait "until the cheque clears."
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You need a TD account and to use a TD ATM (if available).
Also have either a large amount sitting in your checking account or be paying a monthly fee for free ATM transactions.
Someway, somehow, you are paying. Even if its just in loss of interest from parking it in checking :)
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No option to pay a monthly fee and be able to draw money from every fucking ATM?
That is a nice "luxury". Walk to any random ATM and that's all (though the "official" ones will also display account balance and allow a minimum draw of 10 euros rather than 20 euros)
That can be possible. Funny thing is I thus don't give a shit about paying by phone, "contactless payment" and such since I always have cash no matter how meager it is.. The modernity and computer networking can stay where it is, on fixed, wired and
The NEED. (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS will tell Facebook who among your friends you are willing to send money to.
Let that sink in for a bit.
And giving money to someone is a pretty good sign that they are a real friend and not some fake facebook 'friend'.
Think about the value of THAT data to advertisers and also to Homeland security.
THOSE relationships will be sold off at a very high premium.
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>However here in Canada, from any bank I can do an Interact e-mail transfer.
I did not know this, but then my wife does most of our banking.
>Cost is $1.50. which is less than ATMs charge to withdraw your cash.
I pay zero at TD, so long as I'm using a TD ATM.
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As I mentioned here: http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
Re:I dont see the need for this feature... (Score:4, Interesting)
You need a better bank.
I pay zero to send or receive email money transfers, and zero to withdraw cash from an ATM (not that I ever use an ATM any more...)
Interac (no "t") is why Canada is years ahead of the US on electronic payments. one type of card available to almost everyone (unlike credit cards which can be hard to get if you are poor, unemployed, or have bad credit) and which works at practically every retailer in the entire country, usually without any fees.
Any time I travel outside of Canada, whether to the USA or Europe, I'm always amazed at how far behind places are for electronic payments. I haven't needed cash in my wallet in Canada in years, you simply never find a situation where it's needed. Every business takes Interac, Visa, and MasterCard, and I pay the same price in the store whether I use that or cash, so I might as well do the convenient way, and every person can receive email money transfers. The only reason left for cash in Canada is for "anonymity" (and it's always debatable how well that works anyway)
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When I was in England, Ireland, France, Italy, and Greece, I found cash was essential. Sure all the big chain places took cards, but the small places didn't. If you stopped to grab a sandwich at a cafe, you probably needed cash.
In Canada even a small mom and pop shop always takes credit cards and debit cards. I found the same could not be said in any of the countries we visited.
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The US has been behind on payment methods for at least a decade or two (which was when I first started paying attention).
The first time I saw a chip on a card that actually belonged to me and was useful (instead of a foreign-exchange student handing me his used-up phone card as a novelty, or somesuch), was with the US Army, basic training, circa 2002.
I haven't seen a similar chip transaction since then. Sure: Most of the readers I run across can now accept a chip-based card, but I've never actually -seen-
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To pay my rent I went up to the banking machine in the bank (like an ATM, but does transfers and other account-related stuff), typed in my landlord's details, added a message about who is paying, put the amount, and pressed "submit". It took about 3 minutes, and now my rent is paid automatically, without additional charges. This is not uncommon, and is quite probably the norm for most people over here in Europe.
Your experience sounds fresh out of the late 1800s - I do not envy you, and I hope you get bett
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1. Mail a check (cost of stamp)
2. go to the post office, swipe my debit card and get a money order which I then mail to my landlord. (cost of stamp plus money order is $1.50, benefit is USPS debits my card instantly instead of watching for a check to clear).
3. PREFERRED - log into my bank website and enter my rent amount into a box for the payee (landlord). Click submit. The bank then mails a check to the landlord. This debits from my account semi-instantly and is
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I find it interesting that all of your choices involve mailing some manner of paper document.
I suppose I could do any of those 3 things as well, but it seems so...insecure: Mail can (and does) get lost and misdirected. Recovering a lost money order sounds like a huge PITA.
At the last house I rented my first rent payment was by money order. It got lost, took a lengthy spin around the postal system, and came back. The landlord was fortunately very understanding. After that, I handled rent in-person for t
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Any time I travel outside of Canada, whether to the USA or Europe, I'm always amazed at how far behind places are for electronic payments. I haven't needed cash in my wallet in Canada in years, you simply never find a situation where it's needed.
You should travel south. Australia, NZ and most of the developed parts of Asia have also had this for years. Reading Slashdot I wonder what they do in the US, outside of Silicon Valley and NASA, everything seems to be stuck in the mid-20th century...
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We are stuck in the mid-20th century here in the US. It's a real difficult life/
Got to go, my cell phone is notifying me that a package I ordered online had arrived.
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I'm on the continent from the other side of the pond and I don't pay ATM fees, monthly bill for the debit card covers it already.
I can do wire transfer for free (in country or Europe) with no e-mail involved (except confirmation I receive). But it's mainly for paying the rent and similar, and I have to add the recipient account's "wire numbers" beforehand. Using e-mail for funds transfer seems weird, e-mail seems kind of crappy and insecure.
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The only thing in the e-mail is a link to a central transferring site (interac), from there you choose your bank, logging to your account and choose which account you want to transfer it into. Its very secure. Never heard of any fraud in Canada from this method.
The e-mail basically contains no information and the link itself either.
In Canada we still get gauged on ATM fees. Even if you pay the monthly, if you use an ATM that is not from your bank, you'll pay from 2$ up to 5 or 10% (with a limit) depending
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Similar deal in NZ, but it may take a few hours, and it costs nothing. It's a pretty standard way of paying someone if you can't be bothered messing about with cash. Ours doesn't use email though, just bank account numbers (and increasingly phone numbers, but I haven't explored how that works.)
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UK FTW, we have 'faster payments' which have no fee for personal accounts and typically take about an hour to go through (using online banking).
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UK FTW, we have 'faster payments' which have no fee for personal accounts and typically take about an hour to go through (using online banking).
There seem to be two, BACS and the "faster payment", which is built on BACS. Although the time for faster payment is nominally an hour or something, it's usually there by the time I've managed to log into the destination account.
It'll be like playing FarmVille (Score:2)
Greetings, friends. Do you wish to look as happy (Score:2, Interesting)
Greetings, friends. Do you wish to look as happy as me? Well, you've got the power inside you right now. So, use it, and send one dollar to Happy Dude, Don't delay, eternal happiness is just a dollar away.
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You forgot to log in, so I can't send you any money via slashpay.
Who wants this? (Score:2)
There an old SNL ad spoof called "Bad Idea Jeans" that comes to mind.
Facebook already knows everything about you. Now you want them to know who you're sending money to also?
I literally did a face palm.
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Are you really so arrogant or paranoid that you think Facebook cares about you? Facebook doesn't have a guy at a desk whose only job is to track your movements online and plot against you. Facebook might care in order to put this person at the top of your Messenger list, or something equally anodyne.
If you're this scared of Facebook, don't use it. If you don't use it, stop jamming up discussions about how you don't use it. No-one cares. You are scared of Facebook, and that's OK.
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Sounds just like Square Cash (Score:3)
This looks to me just like Square Cash [square.com].
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Or this is just a nice feature which will encourage people to use Facebook and Messenger, allowing them to serve these people more ads. Not everything has to be directly monetised.
And please stop with the "yur the product! me so smrt!" nonsense. We get it. We are adults. We know these things cost money to run. You are not some wise oracle showing the world what they failed to see for years. Do you also chime in pointing out that 1984 is not an instruction manual?
I know you mean well, but we hear this
Facebook already has enough email "chain letters." (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook has way too many fake contests, chain posting asking you to share with everyone, etc.
This will quickly enable all sorts of scams.
Re:Facebook already has enough email "chain letter (Score:4, Interesting)
For that matter, it was in pre-messenger "Chat" for Facebook that many of us were hit by those "Hey, I'm stuck in London and my wallet was stolen, can you send me some cash?" scams from hacked accounts.
Making it easy to say yes to that kind of crap is just ridiculous.
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the receiver's bank will usually take a few days ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are there still countries where this is legal ?
We got rid of this shit 20 years ago.
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Yes in the *snicker* "#1 country in world" *snicker*. It's also called Dumbfuckistan or more simply the "USA".
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Only for cheques. Interac eTransfers and payments are instantaneous.
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Are Canadians forced to use those banks??????????
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Who the f*** is we, *Anonymous Coward*
This is a great idea... (Score:1)
...I'm constantly getting messages from Facebook friends about how they are stuck overseas and their passport and credit cards have been stolen, and they need me to wire them money. This will make that process so much more convenient.
(Hm? Those are people trying to scam me, you say?)
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Direct transfer (Score:2)
What phone? (Score:2)
Great for pay to play games and games with DLC (Score:2)
The subject line says it all!
My life has been missing this (Score:5, Funny)
"Self", I said, "you haven't been feeling fully integrated into today's online society. What could you do to make sure that a major corporation with a history of disdain for its users and their privacy could come to have possession of your financial data? Banks are so old fashioned. Your checking account should be social!"
Today is a happy day indeed.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Anyone who trusts Facebook deserves to get fucked. (Score:1)
The handwriting is on the wall.
Facebook is not your friend, it will suck your private data and resell that data
to any entity which is willing to pay.
And now they are entering the payment arena ? Excuse me, I need to make some
popcorn, this is going to be good.
changetip (Score:2)
http://www.coindesk.com/change... [coindesk.com]
https://www.changetip.com/how-... [changetip.com]
Protip aims at competing with changetip as well:
https://www.indiegogo.com/proj... [indiegogo.com]
A Possible Reason? (Score:2)
So far, everyone seems to be missing one possible motive for Facebook to be doing this.
Now, "Sloppysock McBuckstick" has a verified debit card that says, "George McFly", associated with the account. Shortly after, Mr. McFly gets an email advising that their account is locked out for using a false name.
If I really want to send money to friends... (Score:2)
I already have a system. It works like this: "I'm out of cash, will you pick up this tab?". "Yeah, no problem. I owe you for pizza last night anyway". A long time ago, we were BSing over some beers and jokingly floated the notion of "pizza currency"--an entire economy backed by pizza as a highly perishable store of wealth, thus requiring some unique accommodations. In reality though, "pizza currency" transactions are small dollar figures that tend to cancel out in the long run among true friends. Eve
Should have seen something like this coming (Score:2)
David Marcus left PayPal last year to go work with Facebook in the mobile messaging division of Facebook. Honestly looking at the screen shots it almost looks like the PayPal app.
David Marcus letting the cat out of the bag [facebook.com]
Grab some popcorn and cross your fingers. Would be nothing more enjoyable in seeing Facebook vs. PayPal in a drag out legal fight including similarities in look and feel of the app, patents, and most specifically non-compete agreement that Marcus should be bound too.
Please, no (Score:2)
FB is now a pseudo-PayPal?
There are all sorts of reasons this would be a horrible idea, not just privacy.