In article 01c9608a$6670ed80$LocalHost@default,
"Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:

If you haven't had problems with "exact money only" and "no change
given" you must carry about a fair bit of cash. Hence the schemes for
parking and parking meter payment with mobile phones ?

What we haven't got is an easy method for micropayments, less than £2
say and especially over the phone and over the net.

I've used the US Express Pay system at vending machines a few times when
I either haven't enough change or the machine spits back dollar bills.
I just wave my AMEX or Visa card over the flashing blue light and a few
seconds later my $1.25 bottle of coke is delivered.

On 2008-12-17 19:40:14 +0000, Mizter T said:


On 17 Dec, 18:38, naked_draughtsman
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:43:57 -0800, Matthew Dickinson wrote:
You can now buy coffee in London with an ITSO compatible card.

see http://www.squidcard.com/coffeerepublic.html

This card is also being adopted by GMPTE for their smartcard.

I've had a pay pass enabled mastercard for some time now but I've not
found anywhere that accepts it.

According to Mastercard loads of places in London accept it though!


I remember when Visa's "payWave" system launched last year (the first
card being the all-in-one Barclaycard "OnePulse") there was talk of
initial limited acceptance in a few places like shops in Canary Wharf.
So I was rather surprised that, having seen a payWave terminal in a
swanky newsagents in Canary Wharf, I then found one a few days later
in a pretty rough-round-the-edges off licence in New Cross - and yes
they said a few people had already paid that way.

Incidentally, I assume that the Visa "payWave" and Mastercard
"PayPass" systems are compatible, in that a payment terminal in a shop
can handle both Mastercard and Visa cards?

Regarding the original post - very interesting about the ITSO-based
'sQuid card', though I need to do a bit of reading to decipher
everything that's going on here, what with the GMPTE agreement to
trial it and also Bolton council's involvement.

And as Neil has already said, in a sense this is similar to what Visa
payWave offers (as well as Mastercard PayPass) - and I'm sure there
are coffee establishments that accept those RFID cards. That said I
haven't yet come across a payWave or PayPass card that is prepaid -
i.e. one that you can top-up (as you now can with a few prepaid debit
cards) - at the moment the payWave and PayPass cards are being offered
by to the higher-ish-end of the market. The sQuidcard people appear to
hope that they can tap in to a far wider market than that, e.g. kids.

Lastly there were once plans for London's Oyster card to act as an e-
money system as well (i.e. to enable holders to buy low value items
not just pay for fares), but these got shelved back in 2006 - here's
an article about the plan being ditched...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05...tcard_shelved/

The aforementioned piece doesn't however touch on the issues of TfL
effectively having to act as a bank and the burden of the associated
regulation that would ensue if this plan was to go ahead, which I have
read elsewhere was a significant factor in the plans being dropped.
Given the possible security issues that now surround the MiFare
Classic smartcard (which Oyster uses), this is perhaps just as well.

Anyway, when it comes to buying low value items (apart from local
fares where Oyster is a boon), I've never had any particular issues
with using cash! From Mondex onwards, cashless payment systems for
small purchases seems to have been regarded as the holy grail (see all
the notions of cashless payment by mobile or 'm-payments') - I wonder
if it isn't just technology desperately looking for a use...

I cannot for the life of me see what the advantages are, for the
customer, of an electronic form of payment over cash for small amounts.
Cash is well developed, the bugs have been ironed out of it and it's
easy to see your current balance. The only disadvantage is that you
have to ensure that you have some in your pocket when you set out. Is
that so difficult? People have managed it for thousands of years.

There is an argument that sometimes you don't have the right money for
'exact amount only' transactions. I've only come across this concept on
some bus services and car parking machines. It is the attitude of
organisations which treats their customers with disdain. I cannot
imagine my local corner shop putting up a notice saying 'exact payment
only'.

The technology is a solution looking for a problem. Somebody, somewhere
is trying to skim a few percent off small everyday transactions. Why
else would they be pushing the idea? Why increase the costs of small
transactions and complicate something that is very simple - and above
all, works?
--
Robert

On Dec 18, 7:09*am, Robert wrote:
On 2008-12-17 19:40:14 +0000, Mizter T said:







On 17 Dec, 18:38, naked_draughtsman
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:43:57 -0800, Matthew Dickinson wrote:
You can now buy coffee in London with an ITSO compatible card.

seehttp://www.squidcard.com/coffeerepublic.html

This card is also being adopted by GMPTE for their smartcard.

I've had a pay pass enabled mastercard for some time now but I've not
found anywhere that accepts it.

According to Mastercard loads of places in London accept it though!

I remember when Visa's "payWave" system launched last year (the first
card being the all-in-one Barclaycard "OnePulse") there was talk of
initial limited acceptance in a few places like shops in Canary Wharf.
So I was rather surprised that, having seen a payWave terminal in a
swanky newsagents in Canary Wharf, I then found one a few days later
in a pretty rough-round-the-edges off licence in New Cross - and yes
they said a few people had already paid that way.

Incidentally, I assume that the Visa "payWave" and Mastercard
"PayPass" systems are compatible, in that a payment terminal in a shop
can handle both Mastercard and Visa cards?

Regarding the original post - very interesting about the ITSO-based
'sQuid card', though I need to do a bit of reading to decipher
everything that's going on here, what with the GMPTE agreement to
trial it and also Bolton council's involvement.

And as Neil has already said, in a sense this is similar to what Visa
payWave offers (as well as Mastercard PayPass) - and I'm sure there
are coffee establishments that accept those RFID cards. That said I
haven't yet come across a payWave or PayPass card that is prepaid -
i.e. one that you can top-up (as you now can with a few prepaid debit
cards) - at the moment the payWave and PayPass cards are being offered
by to the higher-ish-end of the market. The sQuidcard people appear to
hope that they can tap in to a far wider market than that, e.g. kids.

Lastly there were once plans for London's Oyster card to act as an e-
money system as well (i.e. to enable holders to buy low value items
not just pay for fares), but these got shelved back in 2006 - here's
an article about the plan being ditched...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05...tcard_shelved/

The aforementioned piece doesn't however touch on the issues of TfL
effectively having to act as a bank and the burden of the associated
regulation that would ensue if this plan was to go ahead, which I have
read elsewhere was a significant factor in the plans being dropped.
Given the possible security issues that now surround the MiFare
Classic smartcard (which Oyster uses), this is perhaps just as well.

Anyway, when it comes to buying low value items (apart from local
fares where Oyster is a boon), I've never had any particular issues
with using cash! From Mondex onwards, cashless payment systems for
small purchases seems to have been regarded as the holy grail (see all
the notions of cashless payment by mobile or 'm-payments') - I wonder
if it isn't just technology desperately looking for a use...

I cannot for the life of me see what the advantages are, for the
customer, of an electronic form of payment over cash for small amounts.
Cash is well developed, the bugs have been ironed out of it and it's
easy to see your current balance. The only disadvantage is that you
have to ensure that you have some in your pocket when you set out. Is
that so difficult? People have managed it for thousands of years.

There is an argument that sometimes you don't have the right money for
'exact amount only' transactions. I've only come across this concept on
some bus services and car parking machines. It is the attitude of
organisations which treats their customers with disdain. I cannot
imagine my local corner shop putting up a notice saying 'exact payment
only'.

The technology is a solution looking for a problem. Somebody, somewhere
is trying to skim a few percent off small everyday transactions. Why
else would they be pushing the idea? Why increase the costs of small
transactions and complicate something that is very simple - and above
all, works?

Electronic tagging. It's all going in the database. When they find
that people who drink coffee have more heart attacks, your database
record of beverage purchases will be used to deny you insurance etc
etc.

On 18 Dec, 07:09, Robert wrote:
On 2008-12-17 19:40:14 +0000, Mizter T said:





On 17 Dec, 18:38, naked_draughtsman
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:43:57 -0800, Matthew Dickinson wrote:
You can now buy coffee in London with an ITSO compatible card.

seehttp://www.squidcard.com/coffeerepublic.html

This card is also being adopted by GMPTE for their smartcard.

I've had a pay pass enabled mastercard for some time now but I've not
found anywhere that accepts it.

According to Mastercard loads of places in London accept it though!

I remember when Visa's "payWave" system launched last year (the first
card being the all-in-one Barclaycard "OnePulse") there was talk of
initial limited acceptance in a few places like shops in Canary Wharf.
So I was rather surprised that, having seen a payWave terminal in a
swanky newsagents in Canary Wharf, I then found one a few days later
in a pretty rough-round-the-edges off licence in New Cross - and yes
they said a few people had already paid that way.

Incidentally, I assume that the Visa "payWave" and Mastercard
"PayPass" systems are compatible, in that a payment terminal in a shop
can handle both Mastercard and Visa cards?

Regarding the original post - very interesting about the ITSO-based
'sQuid card', though I need to do a bit of reading to decipher
everything that's going on here, what with the GMPTE agreement to
trial it and also Bolton council's involvement.

And as Neil has already said, in a sense this is similar to what Visa
payWave offers (as well as Mastercard PayPass) - and I'm sure there
are coffee establishments that accept those RFID cards. That said I
haven't yet come across a payWave or PayPass card that is prepaid -
i.e. one that you can top-up (as you now can with a few prepaid debit
cards) - at the moment the payWave and PayPass cards are being offered
by to the higher-ish-end of the market. The sQuidcard people appear to
hope that they can tap in to a far wider market than that, e.g. kids.

Lastly there were once plans for London's Oyster card to act as an e-
money system as well (i.e. to enable holders to buy low value items
not just pay for fares), but these got shelved back in 2006 - here's
an article about the plan being ditched...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05...tcard_shelved/

The aforementioned piece doesn't however touch on the issues of TfL
effectively having to act as a bank and the burden of the associated
regulation that would ensue if this plan was to go ahead, which I have
read elsewhere was a significant factor in the plans being dropped.
Given the possible security issues that now surround the MiFare
Classic smartcard (which Oyster uses), this is perhaps just as well.

Anyway, when it comes to buying low value items (apart from local
fares where Oyster is a boon), I've never had any particular issues
with using cash! From Mondex onwards, cashless payment systems for
small purchases seems to have been regarded as the holy grail (see all
the notions of cashless payment by mobile or 'm-payments') - I wonder
if it isn't just technology desperately looking for a use...

I cannot for the life of me see what the advantages are, for the
customer, of an electronic form of payment over cash for small amounts.
Cash is well developed, the bugs have been ironed out of it and it's
easy to see your current balance. The only disadvantage is that you
have to ensure that you have some in your pocket when you set out. Is
that so difficult? People have managed it for thousands of years.

There is an argument that sometimes you don't have the right money for
'exact amount only' transactions. I've only come across this concept on
some bus services and car parking machines. It is the attitude of
organisations which treats their customers with disdain. I cannot
imagine my local corner shop putting up a notice saying 'exact payment
only'.

The technology is a solution looking for a problem. Somebody, somewhere
is trying to skim a few percent off small everyday transactions. Why
else would they be pushing the idea? Why increase the costs of small
transactions and complicate something that is very simple - and above
all, works?
--
Replacing cash is beneficial when you don't interface with a human,
but a machine. Machines are not good at taking notes and feel
vulnerable when left alone at night, so much prefer handling e-cash.

All the micro payment cards suffer from chicken and egg problems.
Retailers don't take them because users don't get them. Users don't
get them because retailers don't take them.

Humans have a problem with cards because you don't know how much money
you have left on the card. (Remember those phone cards where you could
count the dots used?)

On 18 Dec, 09:45, disgoftunwells wrote:
Humans have a problem with cards because you don't know how much money
you have left on the card.

That's why [a tiny subset of] people are interested in mobile phone
near-field communications. Basically the "card" is embedded in the
phone, and you can check the balance and load credit onto it using the
phone's screen and internet connection.

U

On 18 Dec, 09:49, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 18 Dec, 09:45, disgoftunwells wrote:

Humans have a problem with cards because you don't know how much money
you have left on the card.

That's why [a tiny subset of] people are interested in mobile phone
near-field communications. Basically the "card" is embedded in the
phone, and you can check the balance and load credit onto it using the
phone's screen and internet connection.

The whole ITSO concept for adhoc tickets (as opposed to season
tickets, where the DfT can force people to use an ITSO card whether
they want it or not) is predicated on these NFC phones being widely
deployed AND used.

As yet you can't buy an NFC phone in Car Phone Warehouse. That might
change, it might not. It took Bluetooth about 6 years to go from
leading edge to ubiquitous, but it's still not widely used except for
handsfree kits.

Robert wrote in news:2008121807091316807-
coppercapped@googlemailcom:

The technology is a solution looking for a problem. Somebody, somewhere
is trying to skim a few percent off small everyday transactions. Why
else would they be pushing the idea? Why increase the costs of small
transactions and complicate something that is very simple - and above
all, works?

I don't disagree with what you say, but there are some other reasons. One
is the cost of handling cash, especially when it has to be collected from
otherwise unmanned places like vending machines. The other is security and
audit; for example vending machines are frequently stolen or broken into
and the cost of repair or replacement usually greatly exceeds the value of
the money inside.

Coin, and especially note, accepting equipment is expensive and much less
reliable and prone to vandalism than RFID interfaces.

Even at a manned position, RFID transactions are faster than cash, so that
at a busy place fewer counter staff are required, or queues can be handled
faster (as can be seen by reduced dwell times on buses since the
introduction of Oyster).

Peter

--
Peter Campbell Smith ~ London ~ pjcs00 (a) gmail.com

On 2008-12-18 08:56:25 +0000, MIG said:

On Dec 18, 7:09*am, Robert wrote:
On 2008-12-17 19:40:14 +0000, Mizter T said:







On 17 Dec, 18:38, naked_draughtsman
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:43:57 -0800, Matthew Dickinson wrote:
You can now buy coffee in London with an ITSO compatible card.

seehttp://www.squidcard.com/coffeerepublic.html

This card is also being adopted by GMPTE for their smartcard.

I've had a pay pass enabled mastercard for some time now but I've not
found anywhere that accepts it.

According to Mastercard loads of places in London accept it though!

I remember when Visa's "payWave" system launched last year (the first
card being the all-in-one Barclaycard "OnePulse") there was talk of
initial limited acceptance in a few places like shops in Canary Wharf.
So I was rather surprised that, having seen a payWave terminal in a
swanky newsagents in Canary Wharf, I then found one a few days later
in a pretty rough-round-the-edges off licence in New Cross - and yes
they said a few people had already paid that way.

Incidentally, I assume that the Visa "payWave" and Mastercard
"PayPass" systems are compatible, in that a payment terminal in a shop
can handle both Mastercard and Visa cards?

Regarding the original post - very interesting about the ITSO-based
'sQuid card', though I need to do a bit of reading to decipher
everything that's going on here, what with the GMPTE agreement to
trial it and also Bolton council's involvement.

And as Neil has already said, in a sense this is similar to what Visa
payWave offers (as well as Mastercard PayPass) - and I'm sure there
are coffee establishments that accept those RFID cards. That said I
haven't yet come across a payWave or PayPass card that is prepaid -
i.e. one that you can top-up (as you now can with a few prepaid debit
cards) - at the moment the payWave and PayPass cards are being offered
by to the higher-ish-end of the market. The sQuidcard people appear to
hope that they can tap in to a far wider market than that, e.g. kids.

Lastly there were once plans for London's Oyster card to act as an e-
money system as well (i.e. to enable holders to buy low value items
not just pay for fares), but these got shelved back in 2006 - here's
an article about the plan being ditched...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05...tcard_shelved/

The aforementioned piece doesn't however touch on the issues of TfL
effectively having to act as a bank and the burden of the associated
regulation that would ensue if this plan was to go ahead, which I have
read elsewhere was a significant factor in the plans being dropped.
Given the possible security issues that now surround the MiFare
Classic smartcard (which Oyster uses), this is perhaps just as well.

Anyway, when it comes to buying low value items (apart from local
fares where Oyster is a boon), I've never had any particular issues
with using cash! From Mondex onwards, cashless payment systems for
small purchases seems to have been regarded as the holy grail (see all
the notions of cashless payment by mobile or 'm-payments') - I wonder
if it isn't just technology desperately looking for a use...

I cannot for the life of me see what the advantages are, for the
customer, of an electronic form of payment over cash for small amounts.
Cash is well developed, the bugs have been ironed out of it and it's
easy to see your current balance. The only disadvantage is that you
have to ensure that you have some in your pocket when you set out. Is
that so difficult? People have managed it for thousands of years.

There is an argument that sometimes you don't have the right money for
'exact amount only' transactions. I've only come across this concept on
some bus services and car parking machines. It is the attitude of
organisations which treats their customers with disdain. I cannot
imagine my local corner shop putting up a notice saying 'exact payment
only'.

The technology is a solution looking for a problem. Somebody, somewhere
is trying to skim a few percent off small everyday transactions. Why
else would they be pushing the idea? Why increase the costs of small
transactions and complicate something that is very simple - and above
all, works?

Electronic tagging. It's all going in the database. When they find
that people who drink coffee have more heart attacks, your database
record of beverage purchases will be used to deny you insurance etc
etc.

That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Now. Thirty years ago it
would have shocked me.
--
Robert

On 2008-12-18 10:13:36 +0000, Peter Campbell Smith
said:

Robert wrote in news:2008121807091316807-
coppercapped@googlemailcom:

The technology is a solution looking for a problem. Somebody, somewhere
is trying to skim a few percent off small everyday transactions. Why
else would they be pushing the idea? Why increase the costs of small
transactions and complicate something that is very simple - and above
all, works?

I don't disagree with what you say, but there are some other reasons. One
is the cost of handling cash, especially when it has to be collected from
otherwise unmanned places like vending machines. The other is security and
audit; for example vending machines are frequently stolen or broken into
and the cost of repair or replacement usually greatly exceeds the value of
the money inside.

I assume the machines have to be visited to be re-stocked. Then remove
the money at the same time. It is not necessary to make two visits.

If they are so often stolen or broken into then they can't be very
profitable because of all the extra costs. Remove them.


Coin, and especially note, accepting equipment is expensive and much less
reliable and prone to vandalism than RFID interfaces.

Agreed.


Even at a manned position, RFID transactions are faster than cash, so that
at a busy place fewer counter staff are required, or queues can be handled
faster (as can be seen by reduced dwell times on buses since the
introduction of Oyster).

Peter
I have seen supermarkets (on the continent I will admit) where the
change (in coin) was held in an automatic machine at the checkout. You
handed the check-out person your money, the amount was registered in
the till and the change was automatically delivered down a chute. Only
notes were handed out by hand. It was very quick.

This could be adopted for all sorts of other transactions. even
ruggedised to work on buses. The buses in Munich are fitted with coin
operated ticket issuing machines and I have never yet found one that
hasn't worked.

I am not familiar with this 'Oyster' thing, so I have no experience of
the reduced dwell times. If dwell times do cause a significant cost,
then the dwell time can be reduced to zero (i.e., excess time above
that required for getting on and off) by bringing back the conductor....

--
Robert

On 17 Dec 2008 23:19:01 GMT, "Michael R N Dolbear"
wrote:

I paid all I had, £1.17, for a large coffee the other day 'cause the
guy hadn't change for £10.

IMX, it's mainly only bus drivers that don't have enough float to
change even small value notes - it's not usual for a shop to have done
it to me. Though I've not paid a *London* cash fare for ages.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.