The above link leads to one of many articles talking about the joint venture of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile coming together with mobile payment company, Isis.
It's a situation that I see a number of people being wholeheartedly divided on for a very long time, to be honest. Why?
Well, as the short story of this very complicated endeavor: USA cellular giants Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have started a venture in attempting to eliminate the need for any sort of physical trade of money outside of one's cell phone. The idea will be to utilize, it seems, a similar technology as what's used in credit cards and debit cards now when a consumer just flips his or her card across a magnetic scanner, and off they go. (Keep in mind, this is the explanation we received where I work, one of these three 'giants'.)
The biggest thing that I can advise to anyone that intends to use this service, especially early on, is to read up on anything and everything you can about it. If you think from the standpoint of losing your phone: the general cellphone user does not think to lock his or her phone. Even with the easy of securing devices such as the Android line-up (my personal favorite) through a pattern lock that triggers anytime the screen falls asleep, most people don't think to do this.
Couple this with the fact that most people will not realize their phone is missing for at least thirty minutes, depending on the susceptibility and functionality of the program when it goes into full-swing, this could end up with consumers incurring more damage than could ever be wrought with a missing credit card or debit card in that time frame. More over, the cell phone companies certainly will hold no liability to the damages that incur. Well, except perhaps in California, but the technology is so new, I'm sure they haven't developed anything yet for it there.
California consumer law states that any damage done on a missing cellphone is not the responsibility of the consumer (keep in mind that it is possible to see who is using the device). Every other state, damages up to the time that the consumer alerts the company is the consumer's responsibility.
For some people, this is a dream come true. Wave of the future! Perhaps it is! I would just caution anyone wanting to involve their personal finances in this brand new thing to really study it and consider the repercussions before jumping into it headfirst. Hear what the companies have to say, but also hear what tech websites and current users have to say. Most likely, the first phones to get this will definitely be Android and perhaps the iPhone, the top phone types today.
And me? I'll stick with cash and cards, thank you!
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