Mobile Pay Pass - Is It Safe?
A three to six month pilot of “Near Field Communication”-enabled mobile phones with “PayPass” is getting underway in New York City.
Pre-selected Citi MasterCard cardholders with Cingular Wireless accounts are participating in the trial and will receive Nokia NFC-enabled mobile phones with MasterCard PayPass payment functionality. MasterCard PayPass is a “contactless” payment program that provides consumers with a fast and convenient way to pay.
With their NFC-enabled phone, trial participants can pay for purchases at any merchant that accepts MasterCard PayPass by simply holding their phone near a secure PayPass payment terminal. If they choose, participants will be permitted to enable the PayPass functionality only at the point of sale and to disable it at all other times. The contactless payment transaction is automatically charged to the user through the same secure MasterCard payment network that processes traditional credit card transactions.
Now with all of the uproar of the No Swipe Credit Cards, what makes you think that there won’t be a great deal of fraud going on with this. I found it very interesting given the recent uproar that Citi would launch this proposed type of transaction. Especially in New York City where New York Senator Charles Schumer openly expressed his thoughts on the danger of credit card fraud.