About Me 0084: Making Money Cash

The next few years in the mobile industry are going to be interesting not only because Google and Apple are competing with each other at making the most advanced mobile operating system, or because Nokia, for the first time in their 145 year old corporate history, have a non-Finnish citizen running the ship, but because the fundamental way we interact with each other and the world around us is going to change thanks to near field communication.

Man used to carry cash until roughly 50 years ago when the first credit card with a magnetic stripe was released. It brought about a huge change in people’s spending habits, not only because they could actually borrow money and pay it back at a later point in time, but because the visual artifact of slips of paper and coins was removed from our understanding of how money really works and how much it’s actually worth. Now, with the recent announcement of Isis, a collaboration between Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile aimed at making your mobile phone the only thing you need to take with you when leaving you home, the world is set to change yet again.

How does that make Visa, one of the ancestors of plastic cash, feel about their role in the future of the daily transactions that make our world economy go round and round? I’m not going to copy and paste the entire article, which I recommend you read, but here is the main argument:

“It might be easy to build an iPhone app that lets you enter in the phone number of a co-worker you want to pay back for lunch, a common promise in the new mobile-payments world. But then someone has to do the intricate behind-the-scenes data processing that makes sure the card isn’t stolen, the people involved aren’t scammers, the payer’s account has the necessary funds and the actual money transfer happens quickly and without a glitch.”

They’re on the defensive, citing their experience with handling mobile payments, but just like Visa killed cashed half a century ago, maybe the little NFC chip inside your next smartphone will the beginning of something new and exciting?

[Via: NFC World]

This post is a little self-indulgent, as I know not many of you had the pleasure and pain of being a Helio subscriber but if you were in that elite group, you may be eligible for some cash from a class-action lawsuit regarding early-termination fees.

As with most class-action lawsuit endings, the lawyers are the ones making the most money, as users will likely not get much more than $5 or $10. The legal action claims Helio was unlawfully charging users extra on the ETF, even though this was supposed to be reduced by $5 a month after a certain period.

I remember Helio and that amazing dual-sliding Ocean handset quite fondly but the fees were way too high for the demographic it was targeting. The nail in the coffin was the release of the Apple iPhone a few months after the Ocean, as this provided a better overall experience (except for 3G) for about the same price on a better network.

By the time Helio was sold for pennies on the dollar to Virgin, I was already fed up and moved on to another winner, the BlackBerry Storm. I didn’t pay my ETF right away but did immediately when contacted by a third-party collector. If that situation is similar to yours, then you may be entitled to some money.

According to the Termination fee settlement website:

If you paid a flat rate Early Termination Fee to a third party, such as a debt collector, you are also entitled to a refund equal to the difference described above. You must submit proof of payment (a receipt, a credit card statement, or other proof) to the Settlement Administrator.
If you don’t appear in Helio’s records and have no proof of payment, or if you paid a third-party debt collector and have no proof, or if you simply were charged the Early Termination Fee but refused to pay it, or if you were never charged the Early Termination Fee but swear under oath that you stayed with Helio due to the Early Termination Fee, you are entitled to $10

Any other Helio users out there?

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Making Money Cash

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