All in One Credit Cards

[Adidas]

Anyone use Coin, Plastc, Swyp, Stratos or the lesser known Curve, Wocket, FLYE, One, etc? I'm curious what your experience has been so far.

To explain what they are:

Most of these are electronic cards that you pair with a phone using bluetooth. Then you add your credit cards to the app and they sync it to the electronic all-in-one card. What you're left with is a single card with up to 25 different credit cards stored inside. Right before you pay you select which card you want to use (from your app or from the card's display) and then pay with your electronic card but it gets processed as paying with your AmEx or Discover or whatever you selected.

Promo video from swype illustrates this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTW_gijQY_w

I should mention most of the names on the list above are currently in "pre-production" which means they aren't actually available yet but claim to ship soon. For example Plastc orignally tweeted they would start shipping summer of 2015 and it's looking more like summer 2017 now. Also none of them are compatible with chip and pin or EMV technology yet. They all claim they will provide a software update once the EMV option is available. At that point you can update the card from your phone to make it compatible with EMV chip readers.

There are also a lot of open questions about using these such as whether or not you still have the same consumer protections your card offers, what happens if someone steals it and manages to make some purchases before the security kicks in to deactivate the card, etc.

[grillandwinemaster]

Pretty cool! 😎

I'm looking forward to relies as well, from those that have used it. 

[Creditaddict]

I used Coin when it first came out... I had issues with it Syncing and at a restaurant they walk away to swipe and if it's not synced up it won't swipe... I also ran into issues that they didn't think they took it because of no visa or anything... I had to just convince some just to swipe and see what happens!

I found it to be more hassle in the end vs. just carrying the 2 cards i wanted the most.

Really I lost interest after I had to replace my phone and that wiped the data loaded to the app of all my cards and that had taken hours to do.

[grillandwinemaster]

Good points CA.  It sounds like it might not be worth the hassle. 

[Revelate]

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@Creditaddict wrote:

I used Coin when it first came out... I had issues with it Syncing and at a restaurant they walk away to swipe and if it's not synced up it won't swipe... I also ran into issues that they didn't think they took it because of no visa or anything... I had to just convince some just to swipe and see what happens!

I found it to be more hassle in the end vs. just carrying the 2 cards i wanted the most.

Really I lost interest after I had to replace my phone and that wiped the data loaded to the app of all my cards and that had taken hours to do.

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How did they expect to win with a user experience that bad even with your card counts?

[Anonymous]

I originally signed up for 2 Plastc cards because they said if you signed up before a certain date there would be no annual fee.

Seems like I paid $180 for each.

Then came delay after delay after delay of its release.

The good news is I got a full refund on both quickly.

The bad news is my tech buddy who has been the IT director in 4 large corporations wanted to know when and why he had not gotten his Plastc card I promised him.

[UncleB]

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@Creditaddict wrote:

I used Coin when it first came out... I had issues with it Syncing and at a restaurant they walk away to swipe and if it's not synced up it won't swipe... I also ran into issues that they didn't think they took it because of no visa or anything... I had to just convince some just to swipe and see what happens!

I found it to be more hassle in the end vs. just carrying the 2 cards i wanted the most.

Really I lost interest after I had to replace my phone and that wiped the data loaded to the app of all my cards and that had taken hours to do.

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+1

I'm all about things that make my life easier and more simple.  If they come out with a product that would be a viable replacement for the plastic we carry in our wallets (like ApplePay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay are trying to do) then I'll give it a look (and maybe even try it out).

When I was younger it might have been 'fun' to try something out just for the sake of being different, but now I really just want to make my purchase and move along... I'm not interested in educating cashiers on new technology (or convincing them to simply let me use my payment method).  It's all about the ease of getting through the line now... LOL.

[Adidas]

Thanks for the feedback. I was pretty excited when I first watched the video but now that I've read so many disappointing stories of people waiting for their pre-orders for over a year and still facing more delays I'm less excited. It seems by the time these come out the mag strips that are still pretty common in the US will be much less common and replaced 100% with the EMV chips these cards don't currently support. I also predict the EMV chip makers won't want to give these all-in-one cards support because it opens up the security on the EMV chips which could make them unsecure for everyone. Much like encryption on DVDs has been invalidated thanks to DVD players being hacked. So if they never support EMV these are useless for anything but tap and pay which your phone can do for no additional charge.