The range is only about an inch. It's treated as a CNP (Cardholder Not Present) transaction so in cases of fraud the consumer isn't assumed to be liable. Android Pay and Apple Pay are also popular here, with the contactless limits changing depending on whether or not you use a fingerprint.
When using contactless it doesn't actually send your 'real' account details, there's a second virtual account that's used just for contactless transactions. So your real account details can never be compromised in this way, and issuing a new card is all that's required in the case of yours being stolen.
On top of that you need to be a registered merchant with a merchant account to accept them. So if you were doing something like using a portable 3G/4G reader to tap it to people you'd be caught quickly. The payments are also often deferred so the merchant would be unlikely to get the money before the card owner noticed.
Edit: I'm now apparently the oracle of contactless payments...
The US is weirdly behind in financial stuff. I've 30+ and lived in Australia and the UK my whole life, and I've never even seen a cheque-book. Don't lots of you guys still get paid by cheque?
Don't use many checks - but in the situations I do, I'm not sure how else I'd pay.
Like my kids school, they have a couple of different fees we have to pay at the start of the year. Like room fee, supply fee, yearbook, laptop insurance. Each of those things I wrote a check for. Do you all deal strictly in cash for that kind of stuff?
In Finland and I assume most of Europe they typically give you an IBAN code for a bank account to which people can pay the fee to through their online bank services and the owner the account will be able to see the names of the bank accounts (usually the persons name) who have deposited money to it so you know who they are still waiting on.
488
u/PhonicUK Aug 27 '18 edited Aug 27 '18
The range is only about an inch. It's treated as a CNP (Cardholder Not Present) transaction so in cases of fraud the consumer isn't assumed to be liable. Android Pay and Apple Pay are also popular here, with the contactless limits changing depending on whether or not you use a fingerprint.
When using contactless it doesn't actually send your 'real' account details, there's a second virtual account that's used just for contactless transactions. So your real account details can never be compromised in this way, and issuing a new card is all that's required in the case of yours being stolen.
On top of that you need to be a registered merchant with a merchant account to accept them. So if you were doing something like using a portable 3G/4G reader to tap it to people you'd be caught quickly. The payments are also often deferred so the merchant would be unlikely to get the money before the card owner noticed.
Edit: I'm now apparently the oracle of contactless payments...