[662] in WWW Security List Archive
Re: Credit Card Security
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marc VanHeyningen)
Tue May 2 23:12:18 1995
From: marcvh@spry.com (Marc VanHeyningen)
To: "Brian W. Spolarich" <briansp@umich.edu>
cc: Paul Rarey <Paul.Rarey@Systems.DHL.COM>, www-security@ns1.rutgers.edu
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 02 May 1995 15:52:12 EDT."
<Pine.SUN.3.91.950502150317.19818S-100000@stimpy.us.itd.umich.edu>
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Date: Tue, 02 May 1995 16:34:06 -0700
> > The model that still works best for me is http:/www.fv.com/tech
>
> Reading the fine print proves interesting, however:
> [ ... ]
> 2 percent of the sale amount plus $0.29 times the number of
> transactions plus $1.00
>
> This is fine if your transactions are of a reasonably large amount (say
> over $30.00), and you've priced with the above in mind. If the
> transactions are in the "pittance" range, however, this becomes
> unworkable. Its too expensive.
This is a limitation of credit cards in general, not FV. Credit cards are
not designed to work well with transactions of small amounts.
> So, First Virtual comes along and says "Hah, we'll put ourselves in the
> position to theoretically mediate ALL transactions!" But they're
> expensive, and someone may come along and do it cheaper. So I establish
> a First Virtual account, and then a Second Virtual account (the
> competitor who has just set up shop on the other side of the router), and
> I've even got an account with the VCU (Virtual Credit Union). Pretty
> soon I've got a dozen username/password pairs to manage again, and I'm
> back in the same situation I was before, except that I've spent $20.00 on
> setting up accounts with each of the transaction mediators.
Real people have multiple credit cards from various places, depending
who offers the best deal, and have multiple credit card numbers to manage.
We seem to get by somehow. We have multiple credit cards, multiple keys,
multiple most everything related to money and security. I don't expect the
situation to be that different as things move online.
- Marc
