uAmerican Express Creates Its Own Version Of PayPal: Amex Express Checkoutr

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• It might be hard for one to argue that there’s a lack of options when it comes to digital wallets and mobile payment systems. The list that includes among others Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, and Square is getting longer as American Express announced today that it would make a foray into the increasingly crowded sector with Amex Express Checkout.

  TechCrunch reports that Amex is launching a new system similar to PayPal that allows cardholders to pay for products and services online by simply entering the password they already use to access their accounts.

  The feature, which went live in the U.S. today, is starting with a select group of retailers including Gap, Hulu, Cole Haan, Sabon, 1-800-FLOWERS.com, Ticketmaster and Avis Car Rental.

  Much like with PayPal, Amex Express Checkout transfers an account holder’s information to the merchant through a system that autofills details in real-time for select transactions. Users simply input their Amex account password to confirm the purchase.

  Amex executive vice president for digital partnerships, Leslie Berland, tells TechCrunch that the credit card company made the decision to create Express Checkout after realizing consumers were ditching their traditional wallets in favor of digital ones.

  The company developed the new system simply by building on their existing service that allows card members to make online payments through the Amex website.

  In order to push out the new service to customers, Amex announced it would partner with mobile payment company Stripe to create automated integration. That means merchants that already use Stripe’s API can click a box to add the Express Checkout option.

  Berland tells TechCruch that even though the company is setting out with its own system, it won’t be abandoning its partnerships with others, including Apple Pay.

  “We’re partners with Apple Pay and our customers love Apple,” she said. “What they are doing at the point of sale is very exciting and we want to be a part of it. And when we talk more broadly we are comfortable and excited to be with all wallets, not one exclusively. We will have to see how merchants integrate them and what consumers want. For us it’s all about differences and differentiation in the future.”

  Amex Negs Digital Wallets To Build Its Own Checkout, Pairs With Stripe To Spread It Wide [Tech Crunch]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uRegulator Issues “Guiding Principles” For Making Real-Time Payments Safe, Securer

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  (thetruthabout)

  If you buy something with a debit/credit card or an online check, there can be a delay of hours or days before the other party gets those funds. Advances in technology are allowing payment platforms to cut that down to mere seconds, which could help consumers by preventing banks from re-ordering multiple transactions to maximize overdrafts. But as non-cash payments inch closer to real-time transactions, federal regulators want to ensure that companies are following certain best practices to make things safe and consumer-friendly as possible.

  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today released a set of Consumer Protection Principles [PDF] meant to guide companies in developing real-time or near real-time payment systems while ensuring they remain a safe and secure option for consumers.

  “While American consumers benefit from and make use of these payment systems, there remain opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce transaction costs for consumers, and reduce credit and fraud risks,” the CFPB says. “There is also greater opportunity for consumers to have real time information about their account balances so they can know when they do and do not have funds to transact.”

  The CFPB believes that in order to be safe, transparent, accessible, and efficient, these new, faster payment systems must keep certain protections in mind including allowing more consumer control over payments, securing data and privacy of personal information, and creating fraud and error resolution protections.

  In the realm of consumer control over their payments, the principles state that systems must be clear about when, how and under what terms customs have authorized a payment.

  “Systems enable consumers to put parameters on the payment, such as limiting the time period for which an authorization is valid, the amount, and the payee,” the guidelines state. “Systems also specify procedures for consumers to easily revoke authorization.”

  As for ensuring personal information is protected, new systems should make sure that when customer data is collected it is only used in ways that actually benefit the consumers.

  Additionally, payment systems should be accompanied by consumer protections with respect to mistaken, fraudulent, unauthorized, or otherwise erroneous transactions.

  The systems should have the capability to reverse erroneous and unauthorized quickly once identified, the CFPB notes.

  Regulators say the guiding principles outlined today could go a long way in making sure that systems aren’t just useful but actually helpful to consumers.

  “Companies developing new financial technologies should be building systems from the outset with consumer protections in mind,” Richard Cordray, CFPB director, said in a statement. “It is a lot easier to build something right from the start than it is to retrofit it. The CFPB will continue our work to help ensure that financial services marketplaces are safe and transparent for consumers.”

  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Outlines Guiding Principles For Faster Payment Networks [CFPB]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uPolice: Robbery Suspect At Check Cashing Business Left His Pay Stub Behindr

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  (Alan Rappa)

  Though there is a decided lack of actual bread crumbs found at the scene of most crimes committed by consumers (outside the bread factory/sandwich shop), once in a while there are some pretty obvious clues available to investigators. In one such recent case, police say a man accused of robbing a Connecticut check cashing establishment left them a pretty big hint, by way of his paycheck stub.

  Police say the man made off with $4,100 after holding up two female workers with a handgun just before they opened the store one morning, reports the Stamford Advocate. In the hand that wasn’t holding a gun, surveillance video reportedly shows, he was gripping a water bottle and a piece of paper. He ended up dropping both objects.

  According to the arrest affidavit, officers on the scene found that slip of paper, which turned out to be his paycheck summary. Armed with this new knowledge of the suspect’s identity, they went to his home and showed his family photos from the security video. They confirmed it was him, police say.

  The cops had a chance to inform the suspect of his accidental bread crumb when the man called his father and a lieutenant got on the line to fill him in. Though he apparently promised police he’d return home, he didn’t turn himself in for two more days.

  “He walked in the front door after we negotiated with his family,” said Stamford Police Capt. Richard Conklin, calling the arrest “a very good job by our investigators who were able to quickly isolate a suspect and then obtain an arrest warrant for him.”

  He’s scheduled to appear in court on Friday to plea to the charges of first-degree robbery, third-degree assault and carrying a pistol without a permit.

  Police: Stamford robbery suspect left own check stub [Stamford Advocate]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uDiet Pepsi Sweetened With Aspartame May Be Sold Onliner

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  (Julia Zucker)

  Earlier this year, PepsiCo announced that Diet Pepsi, long sweetened with aspartame (some of us still call it by the brand name NutraSweet), would be switching over to sucralose (which you’ll find in Splenda). But just in case people still crave that distinctive aspartame taste, Pepsi’s CEO says the company will find a way to make it available.

  The Chicago Tribune reports that during today’s PepsiCo quarterly earnings call, CEO Indra Nooyi explained that “for those consumers who still love Diet Pepsi with aspartame, we’ll figure out how to make it available online.”

  Selling limited quantities of select beverages online seems to be increasing in popularity. First Coca-Cola sold out its short run of Surge that it sold through Amazon late last year, then Pepsi hinted this may be the way it will go for a re-release of the oft-derided Crystal Pepsi.

  In addition to some people preferring the taste of aspartame to other low-calorie sweeteners, there are some consumers who claim that sucralose can be a trigger for migraine headaches and other ailments — claims that are denied by the makers of the sweetener.

  While Pepsi was up front about its switch to sucralose, some in the beverage business have used the sweetener to lower calorie counts without making a big announcement.

  Perhaps Pepsi learned to be more transparent after the blowback from quietly adding Sucralose to Sierra Mist?

  And back in 2013 Seagrams began using sucralose in its ginger ale to reduce the calories from sugar. While the bottles did declare that they contained 25% less sugar than other ginger ales, one had to look at the ingredients list to figure out how they did it.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uShoplifting Suspect Bites Target Security Officer On The Armr

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  (JeepersMedia)

  Retail security officers, maybe you should consider a series of rabies shots. A few weeks ago, we shared the story of an alleged Macy’s shoplifter who chomped on a police officer who showed up to intervene. Now police in the Denver suburb of Aurora are looking for a woman who was suspected of shoplifting, and chomped on the forearm of a Target employee while making her escape.

  One evening back in June, officers stopped the woman on suspicion of shoplifting, but she resisted arrest. Police say that she bit a security officer on the forearm, ran out of the store with a set of handcuffs attached to one wrist, and drove off in a black vehicle that had its license plates removed. You can see a surveillance video picture of her on the KDVR website.

  The incident in Colorado happened at the end of June, the day before the similar incident at a California Macy’s. If we were TV writers, this is probably how we would begin the spread of a zombie virus.

  Police seek Target shoplifter who bit security officer [KDVR]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uCalifornia Tempts ID Thieves, Prints Full Social Security Numbers On Millions Of Mailed Documentsr

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• From ruining your credit to giving you a criminal record, a clever ID thief can do some significant damage with a stolen Social Security number, so why is one California state agency putting this information out there in the mail for these fraudsters to swipe?

  That’s the question California woman asked after she noticed that every piece of mail she received from the state’s Employment Development Department contained her full SSN.

  The woman, a former IRS employee, tells CBS San Francisco that she contacted the agency to complain about this sensitive personal information being printed on every form.

  She says the person she spoke to “laughed a bit, and said ‘A lot of people have complained.'”

  Given that ID thieves know to be on the lookout for official-looking mail because it may contain information that can be used to steal someone’s identity, why would the EDD include the unabridged SSN on every one of its documents?

  California law actually prohibits the printing of “an individual’s Social Security number on any materials that are mailed to the individual, unless state or federal law requires the Social Security number to be on the document to be mailed.”

  The EDD tells CBS that the agency is required to use SSNs for administering its programs, and that the “only way the Department can ensure it has information about the correct individual when contacting the claimant by correspondence is to have the full SSN on the document.”

  While we can understand the need for using SSNs for tracking and administration purposes, is there really a need for the full number to be printed on documents that could be easily swiped while in transit?

  A rep from the Federal Trade Commission tells CBS San Francisco that most government agencies only use partial SSNs on their mailings, if at all.

  “I’m not in a position to comment on whether they’re exempt from state law,” says the FTC rep, “but they’re not exempt from best practices.”

  The EDD says that it is now reviewing its available options for an alternative unique identifier, something other than the full SSN, that could be printed on documents mailed to consumers.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uNYSE: Four-Hour Blackout Caused By Software Upgrader

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  (JoelZimmer)

  After a few updates yesterday citing a technical issue as the reason behind an almost four-hour blackout on its trading floor, the New York Stock Exchange is adding new information about the incident, blaming it on a software upgrade.

  In a press release issued today, the exchange operator explained that it had been preparing to roll out a gradual upgrade to its consolidated trading tape ahead of a July 11 industry test. That function tracks buy-and-sell orders, notes MarketWatch. But the upgrade “caused additional communication issues between the gateways and trading units, which began to manifest themselves mid-morning.”

  The software upgrade was deployed on one trading unit, and the exchange opened at 9:30 a.m. with the correct software in place. But then at about 11:09 ET yesterday, the NYSE said it was investigating a technical issue and decided to halt trading at 11:32 a.m. as customers continued experiencing “unusual system behavior.”

  The NYSE eventually went back online about 50 minutes before the regular close of trading, and the stoppage didn’t affect options trading on either the NYSE or other exchanges like NASDAQ (which continued operating normally).

  You can read the statement in full below:

  “On Tuesday evening, the NYSE began the rollout of a software release in preparation for the July 11 industry test of the upcoming SIP timestamp requirement. As is standard NYSE practice, the initial release was deployed on one trading unit. As customers began connecting after 7am on Wednesday morning, there were communication issues between customer gateways and the trading unit with the new release. It was determined that the NYSE and NYSE MKT customer gateways were not loaded with the proper configuration compatible with the new release.

  Prior to the market open, gateways were updated with the correct version of software and stocks opened at 9:30am. However, the update to the gateways caused additional communication issues between the gateways and trading units, which began to manifest themselves mid-morning. At 11:09am, NYSE issued a Market Status message that a technical issue was being investigated. At 11:32am, because NYSE and NYSE MKT were actively trading but customers were still reporting unusual system behavior, the decision was made to suspend trading on NYSE and NYSE MKT. NYSE ARCA, Arca Options and NYSE AMEX Options were not impacted by this event and continued to trade normally.”

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist