Snippings

Sainsbury’s contactless and card payments went down leaving customers furious as they were unable to pay for shopping | The Sun https://buff.ly/3DPIRlq

“”They don’t tell you before you start shopping either. They like to let you fill up your trolley first so you waste your morning.”

I don’t understand why retailers don’t have a backup plan, since this sort of thing happens all the time. Ring it up as a cash transaction, take the receipt to the store manager or whoever and have them take the payment using an Android/iPhone. The till roll can be reconciled at the back end, surely?

Yes there would be a queue but there wouldn’t be abandoned carts and furious customers.

Or even just take a picture of the customer’s card and do a manual entry when the POS comes back up?

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Speaking at a side session at COP27 on Wednesday, former Bank of England (BoE) senior advisor and G20 co-chairman Michael Sheren said that carbon was “moving very quickly into a system where it’s going to be close to a currency,”

From ‘Carbon Very Close to Becoming a Currency,’ Tokenizing Nature is Next: COP27:

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Guaranteeing the right to pay in cash would also be a major win for incoming tourists.

From Norway Considers Forcing Businesses to Accept Cash – Life in Norway:

Allowing tourists to use Vipps would be a bigger win.

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Germans will no longer be able to withdraw money at night from ATMs in bank foyers thanks to a surge in cash-machine bombings.

From Germany to Close Bank Foyers at Night After ATM Bombing Spree – Bloomberg:

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A growing number of small U.S. retailers have been encouraging shoppers to try an alternative to credit cards called “pay by bank,” and payments experts predict this option will take off in a much bigger way in 2023.

From ‘Pay By Bank’ Trend Is Next Front In Merchants vs. Banks Payments War:

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A
record number of passengers are using smartphones or smart watches to travel on the Tube. Transport for London say that around 485,000 journeys a day are made by using the devices (a quarter of daily adult pay-as-you-go journeys) rather than an Oyster card or contactless bank card.

From Record number of people using smartphones and watches to travel on Tube | Evening Standard:

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VR/AR will, like the Segway, will find some niche uses. For Segway, it was warehouses, cops, and tourism. For VR/AR headgear it will be gaming, medicine, and hookups in meta-space. The porn possibilities are beyond immense.

From Doc Searls Weblog · On Twitter 2.0:

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“It’s important to prevent fraudsters from reaching people in the first place,” said David Lowe, director of fraud at Santander. “They are using various platforms to access consumers; there’s an opportunity for the Online Safety Bill to bring all the right players to the table.”
The Online Safety Bill includes both paid-for advertising and other types of fraud within its remit, placing a “duty of care” on online platforms to put measures in place to protect users.
Lowe also called for legislation that would require banks to better share data without breaching rules on privacy or competition, allowing lenders to more clearly identify potential criminals.

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In the UK, fraud is not just big business — it’s growing. Statistics from industry trade body UK Finance estimated that £1.3bn was stolen by criminals last year, an 8 per cent increase year on year. Data from Barclays found that purchase scams in July to September 2022 were up 70 per cent compared to the same period in 2021.

From Finance sector calls for government action on fraud | Financial Times:

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Given that the entire world of “crypto” is collapsing into a black hole of weirdness from which their may be no escape, it’s been hard to pick out a favourite crypto story of recent days but I think there is actually a standout, slam dunk, winner: James Zhong, who was caught by the Feds with $3.36 billion hidden in a popcorn can. He had $661,900 in boring old-fashioned U.S. dollar dollar bills under his floorboards as well. But come on: $3.36 billion. With a capital B. In a popcorn can.

Now, $3.36 billion is quite a lot of money. The reason that Mr. Zhang could fit in a popcorn tin was that the money was in Bitcoins. The private key that controls these Bitcoins was on a device in a popcorn can under the floorboards. I am sure that there are many good reasons why people might like to be their own bank and manage their money in this way and one of them is that the money was stolen. Which, in this case, it was. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams spelled it out: “James Zhong committed wire fraud over a decade ago when he stole approximately 50,000 Bitcoin from Silk Road. “

The stolen money had been missing from