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Comment by ben1040 | Hacker News Reader

One cool feature about the Square mobile app is you can set up geofenced "tabs" that automatically get opened if you get close enough to an establishment.

So you keep your phone in your pocket, walk into Starbucks and order a drink as you do every morning. You tell them "put it on John's tab." You get a receipt in your email immediately thereafter, and never have to pull out your phone or wallet.

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Question: Yesterday I saw you in Starbucks and heard you say "put it on John's tab". Today I see you are 2 behind me in the queue. What stops me from strolling up to the counter, big grin and saying... Put it on John's tab please?

Wouldn't the proximity of your phone mean they would take the payment from you even though you haven't authorized it?

I'm pretty sure that a picture of the customer appears on the cashier's iPad app/register.

Yep, you can't enable the tab feature without first taking a photo of yourself with the app.

In that case, the cashier can easily charge you without your consent. Of course, you get the confirmation mail and can cancel the transaction but this is inconvenient.

Making payments too easy makes it easier on the bad guys as well.

Yes, but the kinds of purchases this is used for is usually < $10. It's not really worth anyone's time to follow someone around to get a free coffee.

Ah!

So we're relying on the cashier to care deeply enough to do this validation.

Remember the phase when credit cards were being issued with a picture of the card holders face on the front? And all the stories about the card with a picture of a petite Indian female being used by a large white male to ring up purchases?

I like the concept of Square, and I'd like for this to work. But the cashier being a face-recognition gateway seems like a horrible idea.

Also, what if there are more than a few people with that name there? John is a very common name.

Starbucks isn't supporting the geofencing: http://www.splatf.com/2012/08/starbucks-square-payments/

The cashier is just going to look at me totally lost. Even in Silicon Valley, maybe one in 100 customers is going to use Square.

I don't see the value for Starbucks customers either.

Why would they look at you lost? If Starbucks is implementing this they will have to train their staff in how to use it and paying by saying your name is one of the best features of the product. It will be great for Starbucks as I assume it is a much quicker way to checkout than processing a credit card and, at least where I'm from, Starbucks always has long lines.

Tons of small businesses in San Francisco use Pay With Square already, and they don't have the rigorous employee training procedures that Starbucks has.

I use Pay With Square all the time—at tiny bakeries, big coffee shops, and restaurants. No one will look at you lost.

It's convenient because I don't need my wallet, I don't need to sign a receipt, and I don't need to do anything other than order and walk away.

It's a humanizing experience actually. Try it once or twice. My mind was blown the first time I paid with my name using Square, and since then I have explicitly sought out coffee shops which have it, because of the quality of the experience.

Doesn't this now or won't it eventually dismiss with the credit card portion all together thus making the margin available to Square?

Right now it just settles the charge to whatever credit card you have on file with Square.

Maybe eventually Square will let you link it to a bank account or prepaid account and they'll keep the spread.

I always look at my receipt upon purchase, even for a $7 latte and scone. This may require a leap of faith beyond most people's comfort zone, at least initially. But very promising.

I don't know how the app works (it might already do some of this), but it would be nice if it would vibrate when you get charged and perhaps allow configuring it for a list of default purchases such that it vibrates twice if it is for a different than usual amount so you don't have to look at it.

The app has receipts and notifies you of stuff happening.

Once square has linked your credit card is linked with your phone number and email, every time you make a transaction with that card, you get a text message/email receipt.

I suspect you're typical-mind-fallacying.

Is there any information available on how this works with iPhone? Does the app have to be running in order for the geo-fencing to work? Thankful for any information on this.

I don’t work for Square so I can’t talk about their specific implementation, but here’s how it should work:

When a “tab” is set up, the app can register with iOS to receive notifications when a user enters the geofenced region. As usual, the app will be suspended when you close it (i.e. not running), but when iOS detects you’ve entered the region, it’ll move the app into the background so it can run temporarily. In the case of Square, they might get a better GPS fix on you and tell their servers that you’re actually really close to where you have a tab open.

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