I was walking around at walmart and noticed this thing saying that it was a credit card reader, I was interested so I checked it out on my phone and sure enough it works on Android and Apple devices!
This is a very unique credit card processor not only makes payments easy on the go, the product is actually free. If you download the app they will ship it to you, however if you buy it at the store they give you a full cash-back refund that they’ll deposit into your bank account. They will of course verify your identity and currently only support USA based banks as a method of withdrawing cash. They claim that you’ll get your funds after 24 hours if your over the minimum $10 balance, in reality this takes 48 to 72 hours, this is actually quite normal, they do in fact process the payment in 24 hours however most banks do take longer to actually clear payments so its no surprise.
There was a concern that this could be used for skimming, ie:stealing credit card numbers. Its not really simple nor is it really all that hard if you know where to look or have some basic programming skills. The app is safe and secure and will not allow you to view or store any card information (I’ll do a mitm attack soon to really test this, if its just ssl then its not that great) but they claim that it does DDDES and is PCI compliant.
PCI Compliant means that the data is always secured, however many claim this device is not, because the dongle itself just converts the card data into audio that could be played back, however that would require a modified app to do this, keep in mind that nearly all “pci compliant” readers don’t secure they’re swipes either, you can buy any old MagTek ps/2 card scanner and it’ll convert the card into keystrokes, I’ve seen many stores that do this and have tested it first hand. VeriFone however the company that was so concerned was the ONLY offender, they published a modified app that would copy the card number to the phone and let the public have it… WTF VeriFone! The fact is the this thing is pretty well made and low-cost, VeriFone was losing money so they tried to dis-credit them and only hurt themselves.
I love this little guy its only 2.75% per swipe, if your running a card without swiping it it’ll run you 3.5% +$0.15 each time (actually a good ass deal) and you can take Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover. They plan to add paypal support soon, I cant wait.
THE BOTTOM LINE ON SECURITY | If you don’t trust someone with your card, you shouldn’t give it to them, its really that simple.. Could someone modify this to work as a skimmer? Sure, and if they did chances are it’ll be your waiter or valet guy. Not the mercant, there is no threat to you as a user or mercent. I highly recommend this product.
oh, and keep in mind, if you register via the app, make sure to goto the website to add your bank account. I’ve seen a few idiots make horrible reviews because they thought there was no way to add your bank account.
http://squareup.com