Ask Mr. Lee

Expresspay key fob R.I.P.

Well after 4 years of being an RFID card pioneer, tomorrow, we say good bye to the American Express ExpressPay keyfob. American Express said people preferred to tap their cards instead of they key tags. I beg to differ. What if you forget your wallet? I kept mine on my house keys. This allowed me to buy lunch at McDonalds and a snack at 7-Eleven when I forgot my wallet one day.

My experiences with the fob were pretty good, but rather mixed. Many times the card readers were not active or did not work. Last week at Tully's, one reader worked, but the other did not. Same as Jack in the Box. No problems to encounter if you use cards only, as you can either tap or swipe your purchases. Often at McDonald's drive thrus I had to train the managers how to tap this. In California, you often need to do this in espangles or Spanglish. When I said that you have to tap the card on the red panel, the cashier waved the fob over the red "cancel" button completely oblivious to the wave symbol on the terminal.

I also liked that you could link any American Express card to the key fob. Great for Platinum or Gold card members. Express Pay is now enabled only on Blue and Starwood cards (at least in the US). I have a Blue card, so this is now moot, but I guess Amex did not want to keep track of yet another linked account number. Also, I bet so few people used it that the cost to support it on a per person basis was rather unappealing. Amex did not do a good job of promoting this. I had to specifically call to request this.

Another great security feature was that this key fob had a different card number than the linked card. If it was stolen and someone attempted to use the number online, Amex's system would know it was a fradulent transaction. The number on the keyfob was for RFID purchases only.

Citibank's keyfob on the other hand appears to be the same as the linked card since the last four digits on my Paypass receipts are the same as my linked card. Again, I also had to specifically request the key fob. The next time I'm in NYC, the Citi keyfob can be used in place of a MetroCard on selected lines. http://www.mastercard.com/us/paypass/subway/

If you're interested and you're a Citi customer, log into your account and click on "Request Payment tag". Citi's tag looks cool compared to the simple, black flat ExpressPay key fob, but god is this thing big. It's bigger than many USB thumb drives.

Labels: American Express, Amex, Citi, Expresspay, NYC Subway, PayPass

posted by askmrlee @ 10:20 PM