Will the hi-tech cashless future leave a dinosaur like me behind?

[Big Boy]

Scary - it makes you wonder why they need to e-mail forms for completion and return. Surely they already know more about us than we know ourselves.

[STEVE G]

^I wasn't scared, I was happy to buy some cat food with contactless and so was the cat!

[Big Boy]

LOL, dinosaur that I am, I've never used contactless, so I'm not sure if it would make me happy or not.

I'm sure my UK cards are contactless, but I've never really checked/tried.

Please don't laugh too hard (or even pity me), but I've often thought if contactless, how do I stop somebody going close to me and stealing my information/money? I know a very naïve question, and there will have to be some security involved. However, I watch my UK soaps, and I often see somebody waving a card at a box to pay for a coffee. There never seems to be any check on price, etc.

[STEVE G]

...Please don't laugh too hard (or even pity me), but I've often thought if contactless, how do I stop somebody going close to me and stealing my information/money?

The people close to me in Thailand know way more about 1,000bt notes than they know about contactless cards.
I'm going to have an empty wallet from now on!

[GroveHillWanderer]

Please don't laugh too hard (or even pity me), but I've often thought if contactless, how do I stop somebody going close to me and stealing my information/money? I know a very naïve question, and there will have to be some security involved.

As per the article below, the optimum range of these cards is set at 4cm so someone would have to get really, really close to be able to siphon money off your card.

https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/ ... w-it-works

Are contactless cards safe?

They call the idea that people are going around regularly taking money off contactless cards without the owner's knowledge, an urban legend.

If you want to be totally safe though, RFID blocking wallets are available from various places (Amazon for example) starting at around £5.

However the article above reckons they're unnecessary.

[Big Boy]

Thank you for that - as I said, it was basically a totally uninformed worry, combined with watching people using contactless cards on UK soaps.

Only yesterday did somebody buy a cup of coffee. There was no mention of cost, just a blind swipe of the card over a box. Neither the seller or buyer looked to see what was being paid for, or ant check to see the transaction had processed correctly. OK, it was only Coronation Street, but the entire process seemed very loose. I hope more care is taken in real life.

[Dannie Boy]

Even in the UK I tend to buy most things with cash, but when I do use contactless payment I check to make sure I’m paying the correct amount, plus my bank accounts are set up so that I automatically (and immediately) get a message on my phone confirming how much has been taken from my account. I’m definitely not a techie guy but if I can manage it, I’m sure you could BB.


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[Big Boy]

Thank you - that is re-assuring that there is an option to check. I've been watching people pay contactless on TV since Covid, and have never seen one person check a thing.

[STEVE G]

^The amount comes up on the screen of the small terminal that you wave the card across.
They seem to be pretty much the same anywhere in the world.

[Big Boy]

That is what I would have hoped, but if you watch TV (not everybody does, especially UK soaps) you will never hear an amount being charged, neither will anybody check for an amount being charged on a screen.

Being what feels like a million miles away from this technology, what I see on TV is obviously not a good representation of reality.

[dtaai-maai]

^The amount comes up on the screen of the small terminal that you wave the card across.
They seem to be pretty much the same anywhere in the world.

Yes, and at my local supermarket of choice (Morrisons) you are always told the total at the checkout as well. Loyalty cards also come on a smartphone app these days, with a barcode scanned at checkout. It does take a bit of getting used to, and you sometimes have to be a bit patient queuing behind an old biddy. Or me...

[STEVE G]

^Also, when I've been out socialising with much younger colleagues in Europe, I've been informed that the only people who still use cash are homeless people who can't get bank accounts and drug dealers!

[Big Boy]

No, this is all very re-assuring. It is not the way the technology is being shown to the 3rd world watching UK TV (illegally). The entire process looks very carefree. Maybe it is a deliberate ploy to make it look very simple to viewers to encourage them to sign up. I'm just a little bit more cautious with my money.

I've used the scan maybe a dozen times now, and I'm quite happy it isn't so bad. I don't think I'd be happy using it with my sledge hammer fingers whilst under the influence, but that is a matter of self trust. Not a problem with the system.

[buksida]

The wifi cards don't work properly in Thailand, at least not in MV where you still need to enter the pin and you can't just tap to pay as you do in the UK/EU. Likewise in Makro which has a monopoly deal with one bank and won't accept cards from others. Thailand 4.0 ... where you probably can pay using really safe QR code from Scambook or Twat-tok.

If you're worried about safety, get yourself a 'Faraday wallet', I got one last time I was in the UK, where pretty much everything is contactless now.

[STEVE G]

^I've used my Bangkok Bank contactless card several times in Lotus, both in MV and out in Mon Mai and it's worked fine, just like back home and with an SMS confirmation within seconds.

..... It is not the way the technology is being shown to the 3rd world watching UK TV (illegally). The entire process looks very carefree. Maybe it is a deliberate ploy to make it look very simple to viewers to encourage them to sign up. I'm just a little bit more cautious with my money.

Maybe it's because on TV they're just acting and there's no chance of them losing any money if it goes wrong!