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Crime Iphone Power Technology

Her iPhone Died. It Led To Her Being Charged As a Criminal (zdnet.com) 211

Posted by BeauHD from the digital-downsides dept.
Chris Matyszczyk from ZDNet retells the draconian story of a Financial Times writer who wasn't able to prove she purchased a ticket for the London buses because her phone died (she used Apple Pay), which led to her being charged a criminal. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: Today's witness is Jemima Kelly. She's a writer for The Financial Times. Please don't let any personal thoughts about that get in the way of her story. You see, she just experienced a little technological nightmare. A cheery digital convert, she admits she often leaves the house without her wallet. But surely not without her iPhone. Apple Pay is, after all, a contemporary joy. It's right up there with Tinder in its ability to make your life easier.

Kelly, indeed, hops on London buses and uses Apple Pay to tap her payment instead of buying a ticket the old-fashioned way. Which, as she cheerily described, is easy unless a ticket inspector wanders by. Just after your iPhone's battery has died. She couldn't prove that she'd paid, but gave her personal details and assumed there'd be a record of her probity on the transportation company's computers. But then she was charged with, well, not providing proof of payment. Charged as in would be forced to go to court and to plead guilty or not guilty within 21 days. Here's where things got (more) awkward. Kelly produced a bank statement that proved she'd paid. The transportation company -- Transport For London -- insisted this wasn't enough.

It seems she'd failed another digital task -- registering her Apple Pay with Transport For London. She was edging ever closer to criminal status. But did her Apple Pay details need to be registered? Kelly revealed: "They told me, 'there is no requirement for cards to be registered, the same as paying for any goods and services in a shop'. But it's not the same, actually; in a shop, you are given a breakdown in the form of a receipt." So, here she was, contactless and receiptless. Next, she heard that her court case had happened and she'd been found guilty. Oh, and she also owed a fine of around $592. In the end, Kelly managed to get back to court and persuade the judge to void her conviction, but the process took months.

"Her story, however, aptly describes how the digital world demands our complete and unyielding participation," writes Matyszczyk. "Digital systems are designed by those who strive for complete perfection and consistency. Which doesn't describe the human condition at all." Do you think digitizing everything is a good thing?
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Her iPhone Died. It Led To Her Being Charged As a Criminal More

Her iPhone Died. It Led To Her Being Charged As a Criminal

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  • Tinder (Score:5, Funny)

    by cygnusvis ( 6168614 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:05PM (#59298088)

    It's right up there with Tinder in its ability to make your life easier.

    wow, sums up society nicely.

    • Re:Tinder (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:08PM (#59298092)

      Apple Pay is just a secure form of using your credit or debit card. Your proof of payment is in your bank account's transaction register, exactly as if you had swiped a card. If Transport For London wishes to be an asshole and not accept standard bank payment records, it is not the fault of either the customer or Apple Pay.

      • Isn't that expressly NOT the case?

        The merchant can't tell what's what from the bank statement alone. They can see the time and amount and figure it's probably a match. But Apple Pay makes it so you can't do a direct match from end to end without going through Apple or giving your Apple Pay info to the merchant. (Doing so after the fact, or presenting a bill of the same time and amount, doesn't mean squat to the merchant in this case. Public transport tickets aren't unique enough of a purchase for a reco

        • That should fall under innocence until proven guilty.
          A bank statement for a few dollar charge should be enough to show that she had indeed paid.

          • Re:Tinder (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Tuidjy ( 321055 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @10:53PM (#59298410)

            And it would have, if she had shown up for her court date, especially if she had brought her paperwork.

            But she ignored her court date. I have lived in seven countries, and it was a constant, in all of them, that not showing up for a court date is a very, very bad idea.

            • That's what I was looking at too.....I don't know much about England's legal system, but if it were America, she very much screwed herself by not showing up in court.

            • Unless it's an asylum hearing date in the US, right? Right? The whole point of those is for you to NOT show up, so your boss can keep paying you $5/hr under the table.

            • Re:Tinder (Score:4, Interesting)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @05:22AM (#59298986) Homepage Journal

              According to TFA she wasn't notified of the court date. That's not uncommon in the UK, the courts don't even bother using registered post.

              I took someone to court once and the day after the hearing a letter arrives, soaked and torn in half with a 2nd class stamp on it informing me of the date. I wrote to the court and got the case re-opened and re-scheduled. The defendant (a company) asked the court to pay their costs for having to attend the first hearing.

        • Isn't that expressly NOT the case?

          The merchant can't tell what's what from the bank statement alone.

          That's expressly NOT NOT the case. My bank statements show the name of the merchant for every Apple Pay transaction. This includes deposits and withdrawals on both my personal and business checking, because my bank's ATMs can identify with Apple Pay.

      • Re:Tinder (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:57PM (#59298198) Homepage

        I would sue London Buses or specifically the company behind them for misrepresentation at point of sale. Legally in terms of application of contract, they should fully inform the passenger of the nature of the contract. In failing to put signage up at the entry point of the bus sufficient to make customers aware of the penalty for losing the ticket. It should be large and in capital letters at the point of entry.

        WARNING WARNING WARNING
        Losing your ticket will result in a $592 penalty.
        No proof of purchase will result in a $592 penalty.
        WARNING WARNING WARNING
        To avoid risk do not board transport.

        By law it would be required considering the risk, failure to buy a $1 ticket or have proof of that purchase will result in a penalty 592 times the price of a ticket (which is pretty fucking criminal in and of itself, sure maybe ten times but five hundred and ninety two times, that is fucking robbery and without a clearly displayed warning, I mean really clearly displayed considering the risk, FRAUD, it is still fraud when the government does it.

        SUE THE FUCKERS, for psychological damages and civil court costs, insufficient warning at point of initiating a 'COMMERCIAL CONTRACT', they are pretty fucked if no warning or the warning was insufficient in ensuring the person took proper legal safeguards to protect themselves.

        • I would sue London Buses or specifically the company behind them for misrepresentation at point of sale.

          Or, you could like....... keep the phone charged?

          If a person is so foolish to allow their Phone to die, it is damaging to the battery.

          Thing number two is are iPhones the only phones that run out of battery? I know people who use Android Pay, and they have batteries that fail.

          Yeah - That seems like a pretty harsh thing for the legal system to do. But if you are going to put your finances on a phone, you might consider what happens when you are irresponsible with your finances. Jemima might give some

          • What would happen if I used the tap feature on my credit card? It uses the same protocol. Would I get a paper receipt?
            There is a flaw in building an infrastructure around consumer electronics.

            • What would happen if I used the tap feature on my credit card? It uses the same protocol. Would I get a paper receipt? There is a flaw in building an infrastructure around consumer electronics.

              We can barter - I'll give you 5 jars of sauerkraut as trade for a chicken.

              Any flaw is not in the consumer electronics - it's in the implementation of whatever system they are using. My iPay keeps perfect track of my expenditures on it. And for someone els to use it, they'd have to steal the phone, and know my PIN, although for a few days, they might get away with cutting both my hands off, because they wouldn't know what phlanges I use to unlock the phone. It's more secure than if someone stole the card

            • What would happen if I used the tap feature on my credit card? It uses the same protocol. Would I get a paper receipt?
              There is a flaw in building an infrastructure around consumer electronics.

              The credit card keeps some sort of token on it that they check with a NFC machine - which works obviously never needing power. Remember that this system is used by millions of commuters every day, it's not something that you are going to pick holes in that easily. If you use your phone, then you have to keep it working, which is fairly obviously something you should take on your own shoulders if you can't be bothered to use you actual card.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

            Or the phone could die for other reasons. Or she could drop it. Or a pickpocket could steal it. Or there could be a network outage.

            Her real mistake is thinking public transportation companies are going to treat her like a customer, when in reality, she's basically cattle to them. They have no competition and the government will always be there to bail them out.

            No other business out there could pull this kind of BS, and then also have the courts back them up. If I walk into a Nike store and I happen to be we

            • The TV license police in the UK would beg to differ! You are guilty first and have to prove to them you have no devices capable of receiving TV signals.

            • Or the phone could die for other reasons. Or she could drop it. Or a pickpocket could steal it. Or there could be a network outage.

              Her real mistake is thinking public transportation companies are going to treat her like a customer, when in reality, she's basically cattle to them. They have no competition and the government will always be there to bail them out.

              No other business out there could pull this kind of BS, and then also have the courts back them up. If I walk into a Nike store and I happen to be wearing Nike shoes, they can't fine me hundreds of dollars for not having a receipt for those shoes. They need to prove that I stole the shoes.

              Every business could pull this, because she has to keep her phone charged if she's going to use it as a valid ticket. If it breaks, well then she doesnt' have a ticket anymore. There has to be some rules... some consequence for skipping a ticket.

              There are a bunch of other options like pay by Oyster card or credit or debit card that don't need electricity, but she used a phone that was on the end of its power. And then managed to fail to turn up for court. The article she writes comes across as really entitl

          • If a person is so foolish to allow their Phone to die...

            A bank card payment is a transaction in the IT sense, meaning that either it takes place in its entirety or not at all, totally separate from anything that happens to the phone an instant afterward. If you swiped your card, it registered, and then you threw your card on the tracks in front of the train a second afterward, it would be legally the same thing. The only difference with Apple Pay/Android Pay is that you "swiped" with your phone.

        • I would sue London Buses or specifically the company behind them for misrepresentation at point of sale.

          You would sue someone for something you don't understand? There are signs everywhere saying that you risk the fine if you can't produce either the ticket or the card used to purchase your fair to the inspector.

          The fact that your "credit card" had a flat battery is your fault, not the very clearly written signs.

          SUE THE FUCKERS

          You're talking about a person who was found "guilty" because they didn't show up for their court date. I have a better idea. Why don't you give me all the money you'd spend for your frivolous uninform

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          On the face of it she has an excellent case here. Not just against TfL for unreasonably reporting her to the police and refusing to accept her evidence which presumably did stand up in court, but also against the police for wrongful prosecution. This should never have gone to court, the CPS should never have taken it up.

          If she happens to be reading I know a really good lawyer who specialises in suing the government and the police.

      • Indeed - and had she actually bothered to turn up for her first court date and shown the statement she would likely never have been convicted.

        • Re:Tinder (Score:5, Interesting)

          by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @06:49AM (#59299082) Journal

          You're assuming she had any idea there was a court date.

          I missed prosecution by two days for unpaid council tax once. I posted in my direct debit form, it never got processed, none of the reminders arrived (or were sent), and the summons to court arrived a scant two days before the appearance date, too late for me to get the hearing cancelled. I didn't have to go though, but I can easily see missing the court date.

      • Not quite, your "proof of payment" should be a receipt from the merchant, not your bank statement. If the subject in the story could have presented their receipt this would have been a non-story.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        Okay but what does that have to do with the commentary of the mention of the casual sex hookup app Tinder example making a statement about our society?

      • If Transport For London wishes to be an asshole and not accept standard bank payment records

        Except they DO. The problem you're missing is that you can use any credit card to swipe in and out of public transport. However when a ticket inspector comes you need to be able to produce that credit card the details of which they use to validate you actually have purchased a ticket.

        That doesn't work if your "credit card" has a flat battery.

  • Just for this exact possibility.

    • So, you can change your iPhone battery in the middle of the bus? Doubtful you could do this before the ticket inspector did the same to you.

    • Or you could, you know, carry an Oyster card, or even a bank card, none of which require batteries to be useful.

      • Except that the MBTA uses Charlie Tickets which must be bought that day, or preordered 1.5 months in advance, every month, to get the combined rail+T pass. The Charlie Cards that are used for the T don't work on the commuter rail. So, I have the mTicket app for a commuter rail pass, a spare battery to keep my phone charged, and a Charlie Card for the T.

        I really wish they'd get their shit together and make both the Charlie Card and the mTicket app work everywhere.

  • Nothing to do with "the difgital world" (Score:3)

    by Carrot007 ( 37198 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:10PM (#59298102)

    Just the usual twats being jobsworths becuase they probably get a bonus for convictions.

    Yes I think "digitising" everything is a good idea. But only with competant programers and systems designers that are paid more than the bare minimuim. So no chance there them. If Boeing do not care what hope has anyone else.

    • Just the usual twats being jobsworths becuase they probably get a bonus for convictions.

      Yes I think "digitising" everything is a good idea. But only with competant programers and systems designers that are paid more than the bare minimuim. So no chance there them. If Boeing do not care what hope has anyone else.

      pssst -keep yer phone charged. The phone batteries like that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      I think you're foolishly ... optimistic?

      There's a very good reason that programmers should not be the people to user-test their code. And even with competent QA there will be edge cases that aren't noticed.

  • Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:15PM (#59298110)

    Maybe function as a responsible adult, and not as a vapid, over-aged child obsessed with pointless iThings?

    Your iDevice will have the equivalent of your receipt. If you can't produce it, you're fucked.
    If you end up in court and try to show a bank statement that's not quite enough. Half of the point of Apple Pay is that you can't tie a transaction on one end to a transaction on the other end without going through Apple or otherwise establishing some link (such as registering her Apple Pay details, which she had the option of doing).

    And "she heard that her court case had happened"? WTF? Was she not involved? She just expected to submit inconclusive documentation and have it taken care of automagically?

    When she finally does her due diligence and explains the situation everything turned out alright? She couldn't just ask Siri to handle it for her? Boo-fickity-hoo!

    • Re:Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @09:39PM (#59298272)

      Maybe function as a responsible adult, and not as a vapid, over-aged child obsessed with pointless iThings?

      Your iDevice will have the equivalent of your receipt. If you can't produce it, you're fucked.

      I use ApplePay and it works great.. It isn't the problem. I have every receipt on my phone. But I also keep my battery charged.

      Now I agree with you that this woman was pretty stupid. No ID because she didn't see fit to take her wallet, and running around with a ready to go dead phone. When a PM is done, she had several chances to avoid her problems. She has no valid reason to bitch.

      So either ApplePay or Android Pay is a nice way to use one's card. It doesn't mean you can ignore common sense by leaving your ID at home or abuse your iPhone or Android.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        I'm just thinking that if her phone died while she was on the bus, and she had no wallet etc. with her - what if her phone had died just a little bit earlier BEFORE getting on the bus, so she couldn't pay with ApplePay in the first place?

      • Re:Maybe (Score:4, Interesting)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @05:24AM (#59298990) Homepage Journal

        It would have been the same if she had used her credit card. Credit cards don't have a display, she would have had to do the same thing: go to her bank account statement.

        The fault lies entire with TfL for being morons and not understanding this. If you can pay by card then you can't produce proof there and then. Maybe if you paid by phone you can, but it's not guaranteed and a dead battery is not proof of anything.

    • If you end up in court and try to show a bank statement that's not quite enough.

      Actually that is enough and ultimately the only proof she had that overtuned her conviction. It would really have helped if she showed up for her first court case in the first place.

  • Not a failure of technology (Score:5, Informative)

    by vanyel ( 28049 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:21PM (#59298130) Journal

    This is not a failure of technology, it's a failure of rational thinking in people...

    • This is not a failure of technology, it's a failure of rational thinking in people...

      It's both. How did they not know she'd paid? Yeah, failure of technology.

  • 'she heard that her court case had happened' (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:24PM (#59298134) Homepage
    How do you miss that? I guess she never bothered to recharge her phone and missed the memo. Do they not notify you of court dates or something over there? She failed in real life tasks in addition to her digital snafus. This is not the phone's fault, it didn't let the battery die, and it didn't miss court dates.

    -Insist on a paper trail.

    • Do they not notify you of court dates or something over there?

      They don't necessarily notify you over here. Someone bought a car using my name and social security number, which they had written in pen on a check cashing card, then didn't make the payments. A court in Nevada City, CA accepted their check cashing card as evidence of identity and granted a judgement against me for several thousand dollars. I never received any notice of court action, I just started getting letters from a collection agency.

        • What did you do?

          So far I've just ignored it, my credit rating was already crap. I'm supposed to show them proof of my identity and get it cleared up, and maybe someday I will. Since it's in California it's not that big a deal. I don't want to mail it to them, so I'm going to have to go in person, and I haven't got around to driving way the shit up there yet. I may be moving closer in a couple months though, and then I'll make time for it.

          • Re: 'she heard that her court case had happened' (Score:4, Informative)

            by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @12:07AM (#59298570) Journal
            Note that in California, if you write to them and deny that the debt is yours, they have to prove that it is actually yours. That happened to me several years back and the debt collector disappeared forever.

            • Re: 'she heard that her court case had happened' (Score:4, Informative)

              by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @04:08AM (#59298884)

              That is the case in most places, if you deny the debt when debt collectors come, it is sent back to their customer as uncollectable. Debt collectors are usually used before court action, to save the expense and hassle of going to court. But the GP claimed there is already a court judgement against them. If you ignore debt collectors in these circumstances, the next step will be for court bailiffs to be brought in. They are not normal debt collectors, and are authorized to seize property to cover the debt. Letting it get to that stage is not a good idea - the GP needs to treat this identity theft as a priority before it fucks up his life.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        See that is a more newsworthy story than this one. I've got my own horror stories as does everyone else. I can't see how this would even beat out a lost dog for local news let alone cross the pond to a US based tech news site?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      From the second link:

      "I didn't hear back from the woman at TfL; though it later said it had sent a letter, I never received one. But a few days later, I received a letter telling me that my case had been heard in a magistrates' court, that I had been found guilty, and I owed £476.50."

      So apparently the summons got lost in the mail.

      • What's more likely? A court summons lost in the mail, or someone disorganized enough to not charge her phone and not bring a wallet also being disorganized enough to misplace mail?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      It wasn't the one who couldn't anticipate the impossible scenario of somewhere not taking apple pay or something happening to her phone at some point in her life...

      Seriously, digital payment might get you out of pulling out your wallet. It doesn't mean you don't still need to carry it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )

      Either she wasn't served properly (which could be why she later got it overturned), or she is lying. Either way, there are details missing from the story to exaggerate the issue as much worse than it really is for clicks.

  • I don't like Apple Pay either, but it's pretty silly that the bus system still relies on ticket inspectors. First off, there should be a better digital record of her passenger status if it is possible to pay electronically; but secondly, isn't there any better way to monitor passenger payment that ticket inspectors?

    • More to the point: if they required a proof-of-purchase receipt why didn't she get one?

    • secondly, isn't there any better way to monitor passenger payment that ticket inspectors?

      Such as?

      The driver's responsibility is to drive, not enforce fare payment. So you need other people to do it (usually in teams to deal with belligerent passengers), need facial identification and AI to detect whether someone actually paid their fare (and that would go over like a lead balloon with privacy advocates), or you build busses with impassable barriers unless you pay (that would very likely dramatically slow d

    • What’s crummy about it? Ticket inspectors on British public transport are only common on trains - on busses you pretty much see an inspector rarely. I have only had my ticket inspected on a London bus once in my life - they are random checks, not regular occurrences.

    • It is more convenient to use inspectors because it makes for faster loading.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )

      Ticket inspectors are random checks to ensure that the primary monitoring method (the driver watching people as they get on) is working. When they catch someone, it can lead to disciplinary action against the driver as well as a fine for the passenger (depending on circumstances).

  • Mt. Molehill (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Cynical Critic ( 1294574 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:35PM (#59298158)
    Can't say I've seen a worse example of someone trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill than this in some time. To try to claim that you're being made into a criminal when all that happened is that you ended up in court over something as trivial as a speeding ticket. It's not made any better by her insistence that she was somehow expected to pay an unreasonable amount of attention when her court summons literally came in the mail. Does she just throw out her mail because you have to be pretty careless to miss that you got one the clearly marked envelopes they send court summons in.

    Her fumbling and her over-reaction over something about as big as a traffic ticket makes me ashamed over being roughly of the same generation as her. Baby boomers sure did a number on all too many of us millennials raising us so sheltered those who did think getting a court summons over being caught on public transport without a ticket is practically the end of the world.

    • Can't say I've seen a better example of just-worlding in a while. She did pay, she attempted to show Transport London her bank statement. She was convicted, in abstentia, of a crime -- a crime of greater valence than a speeding ticket, since it resulted in her being unable to obtain a US visa, which speeding tickets don't get you. All for the offense of... not keeping her iPhone charged. Franz Kafka would recognize the situation, certainly. Probably Joseph Heller as well.

  • Glaring issue here (Score:3)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:41PM (#59298164)

    "A cheery digital convert, she admits she often leaves the house without her wallet." ...And that is stupid. The digital age is not a firm replacement for old means. Even when I was of massively lesser means I always tried to have at least a $20 on me and nowadays I always keep $200. These precautions have come in handy many times as digital systems can thoroughly suck some times.

    I would truly love watching idiots waving their smart watches around at grocery store checkout lines if they weren't holding me up.

    • if they weren't holding me up.

      Sorry but WTF are they doing to hold you up? Payment via watch is literally the fastest form of payment there is (except for Amazon's grab and we'll send you the bill after based on video evidence system).

      My watch and phone both are as fast as my debit card. The phone needs to be unlocked. The debit card extracted manually from my wallet. Both are at least an order of magnitude faster than handling cash.

  • Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Friday October 11, 2019 @08:48PM (#59298182)

    Next, she heard that her court case had happened and she'd been found guilty.

    That's what usually happens when you don't show up to court and are tried "in absentia". Had she gone to court in the first place and explained her problem the judge might have just thrown the case out. I remember going to traffic court once because an employee of mine got a parking ticket with the company car and didn't pay it. For this and many other reasons said employee got fired, but I ended up going to court. The judge asked me what had happened and what I was doing there. All I said was that I was the owner of the vehicle and thus I was responsible. He just tossed the case out no fine and I didn't even have to pay the ticket. It cost me a shower, wearing decent clothes and a couple hours to get to the court and wait for my trial.

    A judge is likely the most powerful person anyone will ever meet. It's always wise to show your face.

  • Somebody wanted to buy things online without anyone knowing who they were.

    Someone should introduce these people. Would be funny.

  • The drift continues.

    • Yeah, prosecuting a fare dodger makes this a police state... riiiiiight....

      • Except that she was not a fare dodger. RTFA.

        • If you cannot show a valid ticket for travel or a validated Oyster, credit or debit card or Apple Pay or a Google Pay receipt upon request, then TfL have every right to treat you as a fare dodger - the requirements for proof are prominently displayed at every stop and on every TfL vehicle. Even I know this and I travel in London once or twice a year.

          She could not present the proof when required to, and then failed to both pay the fine and turn up for the court hearing, resulting in the conviction - she cou

  • Old Fashioned (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CanEHdian ( 1098955 )
    Nothing better than an old fashioned paper ticket, paid with cash. Which means the Powers That Be want to get rid of those as soon as they can, with whatever silly excuse they can.

  • I paid for a taxi today by CC. For a receipt, had to provide email or cellphone. Gave email. Receipt emailed to me, fine, but joy of joys I am am told in the email:

    Now when you shop at sellers who use Square, your receipts will be delivered automatically.
    Square Just Got More Rewarding
    Your favorite businesses may send you news and rewards via Square. Learn more and update preferences.

    So to just get a receipt I am signed up for stuff I wasn't asked about, and had to go onto a website to disable the unwanted s

  • What a ridiculous collection of terrible posts here for a change. I'm normally onboard with my fellow slashdotters.

    Sorry to say, it's sadly obvious, which ones the American commenters are here, intelligent or not, your heads are in the sand in regards to how the rest of the world works with electronic payments and cell phones.

    It's 2019 chaps. In the UK (and here in Australia) and in Japan you can do *a lot of shit* with your damn phone.
    I was a cash guy my whole life, I'm not getting tracked and I'm faster

    • No, she's provided the proof, plain as day, DONE

      No, she provided proof of some payment. But there was no proof that the payment was for her ticket.

  • Digital systems are designed by those who strive for complete perfection and consistency.

    Absolutely not. So-called "digital systems" are designed by slovenly neck beards who think they are perfect, but, in actuality, are quite far from it. Most notably they are notorious for designing rubbish systems, full of security holes, that lead to situations as described in the article.

  • On the other hand this is no more dramatic than dozens of scenarios I've faced in my life, how is this happening news let alone international news? Chicks phone died and she was too dim/disorganized to realize phone payments absolves needing to pull out your wallet not carry it. News at 11?

  • Okay, if digital is so great ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rambo Tribble ( 1273454 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @09:03AM (#59299264) Homepage
    ... why is the Universe built in analog?

  • Bad idea.

    Phone is convenience and easy backup. It is not "crisis safe" as we say in Germany. I have my digital tickets on two devices on me minimum, I very often I also print them out.

    This is one of the reasons I'm also highly sceptical of Apple pay and such. There is no benefit to a mode of payment that dissapears when your phones battery is empty.

    I'm sticking with my cards, thank you.

  • They make these things.... (Score:3)

    by DewDude ( 537374 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @11:33AM (#59299620) Homepage
    they're called battery banks. You carry one with you...and when your phone goes dead...YOU CAN CHARGE IT.

    If you're going to rely on a device in a "digital world"; you better have a plan for keeping that device powered. It's sad when people are sheepish enough to blindly follow a new trend without learning anything about how it actually works.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday October 12, 2019 @05:06PM (#59300694)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

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