10 ms·

T-Mobile's 'Mobile Money' blends prepaid Visa cards and no-fee checking features

48 points by swamp40 13y ago

tadfisher 13y ago
Why does anyone involved in payments not bother to QA their Android offerings? I can point out about 20 UI issues just in the screenshots on Google Play. Installed the app; hitting menu items in the drawer stacks Activity upon Activity, breaking the interaction. Everything is non-standard or ported from iOS, when it takes all of half an hour to pop in the support library and use the official Action Bar and Navigation Drawer components. Even worse, the entire app is locked in portrait orientation. It's shit like this that degrades the Android experience, and it needs to stop. Stop treating Android like the "second platform". Hire people who can push back against shitty design. Use the tools that the platform provides.
- untog 13y ago
  To counter that: what difference does it make? Are users going to abandon this service because the Android app does not conform to UI norms? T-Mobile are going to start caring about this when they have an incentive to spend the time and money on it. So far that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm the last person to defend Apple but their App Store review process will often reject an app like the one you describe. Google won't. So people develop better apps for iOS because they have to.
  - tadfisher 13y ago
    My objections come from supporting the platform as a whole, not T-Mobile's bottom line. As more popular apps abandon official design guidelines in favor of custom UI that doesn't work, it makes using the platform an inconsistent and jarring experience, and that hurts the platform as a whole. Really, I'm surprised that T-Mobile doesn't get this, as their business relies in part on selling this platform to customers. Google could do more, yes, but doing so would erode the relative openness of Play Store app submissions. They provide the tools and the guidelines, and that should be good enough. I can't think of any other platform where a straight port of another platform's UI is a standard or acceptable practice.
    - MBCook 13y ago
      > My objections come from supporting the platform as a whole T-Mobile doesn't care. The same thing is common in the Apple world. I use an app all the time that faked their own drop-downs to the point that the 'labels' are actually editable text fields. They don't care. Been there for months and a few updates.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Minimum Viable Product. Don't waste time iterating until there's traction. Isn't that what we preach around here?
  - tadfisher 13y ago
    In this case, they put in extra work to port the UI from their iOS app. Doesn't exactly scream "MVP" to me.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      If the purposely dragged the iOS design into the Android app, instead of designing the Android app around its native UX support, that's a bit of a cockup.
      - wmf 13y ago
        In some cases this is a case of branding over consistency. In other cases people would rather spend the effort of cloning the iOS UI rather than learning Holo.
    - fpgeek 13y ago
      In fact, given the target users (e.g. prepaid customers) why would an MVP for this service include an iOS app at all?
- Zigurd 13y ago
  There is a very big difference between an app that can be limited to newer Android versions and one like this that must run on buggy, old, un-capable of using newer UI widgets versions. While inclusion of ActionBar compatibility is a big improvement in the usefulness of the Support Library, it's still not a zero-cost, zero-risk decision. Some of what you are complaining about is valid, but an up-to-date UI can reasonably NOT be the top priority for an app of this nature.
  - tadfisher 13y ago
    In what world does dropping in a Google-supported library, tested on multitudes of hardware and OS combinations and used widely by developers, cost more than rolling your own UI components and testing them yourself?
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      In a world where they are not building their software from the ground up, themselves, which they almost certainly did not do.
ahomescu1 13y ago
I'm surprised they didn't call it "T-Money".
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Their domain, t-mobilemoneyservices.com, drives me nuts. Why not use money.t-mobile.com? Also, t-money.com looks to be taken by someone in South Korea since about 2004.
  - thirdsun 13y ago
    Yes, if it wasn't for the t- I could easily see that domain belonging to some fraudulent/dubious ponzi scheme business.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    It's amazing what things have come to. They have disclaimer footnotes for 3 of their 4 headline claims and the remaining one is conditional on being a T-Mobile customer. And there are so many fees, especially for people that don't have a T-Mobile phone. I guess when/if interest rates go up these things won't be very popular.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      I think it'll still be popular among the unbanked, who are getting raped on fees at check cashing facilities and whom are unable to get a traditional bank account. As a Simple (https://simple.com https://simple.com) banking customer, I don't see what T-Mobile offers that Simple doesn't besides someplace to load cash in person. Fun fact: Simple and T-Mobile are using the same "real" bank (The Bancorp Bank) to provide their services. Google also uses The Bancorp Bank for their Wallet card.
      - maxerickson 13y ago
        Many of the people paying the most cumulative fees should be able to maintain a no fee checking account (because regular direct deposits). I do wonder what the breakdown is on access/credit problems/awareness/willingness to deal with banks. Around here the credit unions are inexpensive and about as close as anything else.
benologist 13y ago
Actual source: http://multimediacapsule.thomsonone.com/t-mobileusa/mobile-money-by-t-mobile http://multimediacapsule.thomsonone.com/t-mobileusa/mobile-m...
mikestew 13y ago
What I don't get is the intersection between "take a picture of a check with smartphone" and "for people who can't get a checking account". I'm going to assume that T-Mobile believes there is a sizable market of people with $600 phones who can't get a checking account, but really?
- cwyers 13y ago
  They're letting people pay for the phones in installments, and you can get a Nokia Lumia 521 on T-Mobile for under $100 up-front these days.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  > I'm going to assume that T-Mobile believes there is a sizable market of people with $600 phones who can't get a checking account, but really? Really. You'd be surprised what you can buy with financing (hello "Buy Here Pay Here" loan shark car dealers). T-Mobile isn't doing it out of the goodness of their heart, but they're definitely going to cannabilize check cashing businesses. https://www.google.com/search?q=unbanked+statistics https://www.google.com/search?q=unbanked+statistics
  - MartinCron 13y ago
    Hey, if it hurts the predatory check cashing/payday loan industry, that's OK with me.
- a3n 13y ago
  My gsm android cost $200 unlocked. And my bank won't let me take a picture and cash a check, so this would be interesting to me even if my phone cost $600.
- cbr 13y ago
  $600 phones Smartphones get cheaper and cheaper. Last year it was the $300 Nexus 4, now it's the $180 Moto G. And that's for mid-tier phones; the low end of Android goes very low.
- Guvante 13y ago
BrandonRead 13y ago
It looks like a lot of unsuspecting participants blinded by effective marketing are about to get ripped off hard. "Retail Purchase Fee: $4.00" From https://www.t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/Fees https://www.t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/Fees Let's just hope folks using the service have a T-Mobile number! With the average debit card holder making about 18.3 purchases per month (and likely more for the targeted demographic because many in this starvation-wage tier have to make more purchases due to lack of sufficient storage or time), it looks like a nice $75/mo unannounced subscription fee.
- kemayo 13y ago
  The phrasing of "No charge at participating T-Mobile stores; if purchased elsewhere, the fee will be refunded to card account within 30 days" makes me suspect that fee is actually just the cost of getting the initial card.
  - BrandonRead 13y ago
    Thanks for that clarification, I got pretty worked up thinking they were being that scummy.
- hartard 13y ago
  From https://t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/FAQs https://t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/FAQs > What are the fees for my T-Mobile Card Account? TRANSACTION FEES: POS PIN Transaction No charge POS Signature Transaction No charge
  - BrandonRead 13y ago
    Thanks, I was clearly out to be angry at T-Mobile for no good reason. Maybe it was the 6 fine-print items on one of their pages that set me off...
gambiting 13y ago
Checks? Visa card without chip-and-pin? Is this the nineties again?
- kemayo 13y ago
  It's American banking.
- Guvante 13y ago
  It is aimed at people how have difficulty getting a checking account, making direct deposit complicated. If you don't do direct deposit you get a physical check. Also chip-and-pin is worthless in the US until they do a big push for it, since merchants wouldn't accept it at the moment.
  - gambiting 13y ago
    And outside of US, cards which are magnetic only are refused in more and more places, because of either company policy due to a large number of fraud,or just straight up lack of terminals to process them. Also, I think I've only had a single check in my entire life - I don't even know what I would need to do to issue one, and I run my own company. So it also must be an American thing.
    - aestra 13y ago
      How old are you? Checks were fairly common when I was growing up in the US but no more. Probably different elsewhere tho. I pay my rent with a check, but that's it. Oh and I pay my car tax every year with a check. Old people stuck in the past (my mom) pay all their bills with checks. Bills you get in the mail that dont accept credit card are paid in checks. I could pay my rent in cash but I want to have a copy of the canceled check as further evidence I paid my rent in case any issues come up and I have to prove I paid rent.
    - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
      This is a service targeted at the US so it has to target the US's (antiquated) banking system. Checks are on the way out, but most Americans still need to write or cash them fairly regularly. Chip-and-pin cards are still not widely supported in the US, but support for magnetic stripe cards is almost ubiquitous. It does seem outdated by international standards, but for the US, this is actually a step forward compared to the check cashing services that many poor people use.

48 points by swamp40 13y ago

Why does anyone involved in payments not bother to QA their Android offerings? I can point out about 20 UI issues just in the screenshots on Google Play. Installed the app; hitting menu items in the drawer stacks Activity upon Activity, breaking the interaction. Everything is non-standard or ported from iOS, when it takes all of half an hour to pop in the support library and use the official Action Bar and Navigation Drawer components. Even worse, the entire app is locked in portrait orientation. It's shit like this that degrades the Android experience, and it needs to stop. Stop treating Android like the "second platform". Hire people who can push back against shitty design. Use the tools that the platform provides.

untog 13y ago
To counter that: what difference does it make? Are users going to abandon this service because the Android app does not conform to UI norms? T-Mobile are going to start caring about this when they have an incentive to spend the time and money on it. So far that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm the last person to defend Apple but their App Store review process will often reject an app like the one you describe. Google won't. So people develop better apps for iOS because they have to.
- tadfisher 13y ago
  My objections come from supporting the platform as a whole, not T-Mobile's bottom line. As more popular apps abandon official design guidelines in favor of custom UI that doesn't work, it makes using the platform an inconsistent and jarring experience, and that hurts the platform as a whole. Really, I'm surprised that T-Mobile doesn't get this, as their business relies in part on selling this platform to customers. Google could do more, yes, but doing so would erode the relative openness of Play Store app submissions. They provide the tools and the guidelines, and that should be good enough. I can't think of any other platform where a straight port of another platform's UI is a standard or acceptable practice.
  - MBCook 13y ago
    > My objections come from supporting the platform as a whole T-Mobile doesn't care. The same thing is common in the Apple world. I use an app all the time that faked their own drop-downs to the point that the 'labels' are actually editable text fields. They don't care. Been there for months and a few updates.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
Minimum Viable Product. Don't waste time iterating until there's traction. Isn't that what we preach around here?
- tadfisher 13y ago
  In this case, they put in extra work to port the UI from their iOS app. Doesn't exactly scream "MVP" to me.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    If the purposely dragged the iOS design into the Android app, instead of designing the Android app around its native UX support, that's a bit of a cockup.
    - wmf 13y ago
      In some cases this is a case of branding over consistency. In other cases people would rather spend the effort of cloning the iOS UI rather than learning Holo.
  - fpgeek 13y ago
    In fact, given the target users (e.g. prepaid customers) why would an MVP for this service include an iOS app at all?
Zigurd 13y ago
There is a very big difference between an app that can be limited to newer Android versions and one like this that must run on buggy, old, un-capable of using newer UI widgets versions. While inclusion of ActionBar compatibility is a big improvement in the usefulness of the Support Library, it's still not a zero-cost, zero-risk decision. Some of what you are complaining about is valid, but an up-to-date UI can reasonably NOT be the top priority for an app of this nature.
- tadfisher 13y ago
  In what world does dropping in a Google-supported library, tested on multitudes of hardware and OS combinations and used widely by developers, cost more than rolling your own UI components and testing them yourself?
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    In a world where they are not building their software from the ground up, themselves, which they almost certainly did not do.

ahomescu1 13y ago

I'm surprised they didn't call it "T-Money".

toomuchtodo 13y ago
Their domain, t-mobilemoneyservices.com, drives me nuts. Why not use money.t-mobile.com? Also, t-money.com looks to be taken by someone in South Korea since about 2004.
- thirdsun 13y ago
  Yes, if it wasn't for the t- I could easily see that domain belonging to some fraudulent/dubious ponzi scheme business.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  It's amazing what things have come to. They have disclaimer footnotes for 3 of their 4 headline claims and the remaining one is conditional on being a T-Mobile customer. And there are so many fees, especially for people that don't have a T-Mobile phone. I guess when/if interest rates go up these things won't be very popular.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    I think it'll still be popular among the unbanked, who are getting raped on fees at check cashing facilities and whom are unable to get a traditional bank account. As a Simple (https://simple.com https://simple.com) banking customer, I don't see what T-Mobile offers that Simple doesn't besides someplace to load cash in person. Fun fact: Simple and T-Mobile are using the same "real" bank (The Bancorp Bank) to provide their services. Google also uses The Bancorp Bank for their Wallet card.
    - maxerickson 13y ago
      Many of the people paying the most cumulative fees should be able to maintain a no fee checking account (because regular direct deposits). I do wonder what the breakdown is on access/credit problems/awareness/willingness to deal with banks. Around here the credit unions are inexpensive and about as close as anything else.

benologist 13y ago

Actual source: http://multimediacapsule.thomsonone.com/t-mobileusa/mobile-money-by-t-mobile http://multimediacapsule.thomsonone.com/t-mobileusa/mobile-m...

mikestew 13y ago

What I don't get is the intersection between "take a picture of a check with smartphone" and "for people who can't get a checking account". I'm going to assume that T-Mobile believes there is a sizable market of people with $600 phones who can't get a checking account, but really?

cwyers 13y ago
They're letting people pay for the phones in installments, and you can get a Nokia Lumia 521 on T-Mobile for under $100 up-front these days.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
> I'm going to assume that T-Mobile believes there is a sizable market of people with $600 phones who can't get a checking account, but really? Really. You'd be surprised what you can buy with financing (hello "Buy Here Pay Here" loan shark car dealers). T-Mobile isn't doing it out of the goodness of their heart, but they're definitely going to cannabilize check cashing businesses. https://www.google.com/search?q=unbanked+statistics https://www.google.com/search?q=unbanked+statistics
- MartinCron 13y ago
  Hey, if it hurts the predatory check cashing/payday loan industry, that's OK with me.
a3n 13y ago
My gsm android cost $200 unlocked. And my bank won't let me take a picture and cash a check, so this would be interesting to me even if my phone cost $600.
cbr 13y ago
$600 phones Smartphones get cheaper and cheaper. Last year it was the $300 Nexus 4, now it's the $180 Moto G. And that's for mid-tier phones; the low end of Android goes very low.
Guvante 13y ago

BrandonRead 13y ago

It looks like a lot of unsuspecting participants blinded by effective marketing are about to get ripped off hard. "Retail Purchase Fee: $4.00" From https://www.t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/Fees https://www.t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/Fees Let's just hope folks using the service have a T-Mobile number! With the average debit card holder making about 18.3 purchases per month (and likely more for the targeted demographic because many in this starvation-wage tier have to make more purchases due to lack of sufficient storage or time), it looks like a nice $75/mo unannounced subscription fee.

kemayo 13y ago
The phrasing of "No charge at participating T-Mobile stores; if purchased elsewhere, the fee will be refunded to card account within 30 days" makes me suspect that fee is actually just the cost of getting the initial card.
- BrandonRead 13y ago
  Thanks for that clarification, I got pretty worked up thinking they were being that scummy.
hartard 13y ago
From https://t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/FAQs https://t-mobilemoneyservices.com/NeedHelp/FAQs > What are the fees for my T-Mobile Card Account? TRANSACTION FEES: POS PIN Transaction No charge POS Signature Transaction No charge
- BrandonRead 13y ago
  Thanks, I was clearly out to be angry at T-Mobile for no good reason. Maybe it was the 6 fine-print items on one of their pages that set me off...

gambiting 13y ago

Checks? Visa card without chip-and-pin? Is this the nineties again?

kemayo 13y ago
It's American banking.
Guvante 13y ago
It is aimed at people how have difficulty getting a checking account, making direct deposit complicated. If you don't do direct deposit you get a physical check. Also chip-and-pin is worthless in the US until they do a big push for it, since merchants wouldn't accept it at the moment.
- gambiting 13y ago
  And outside of US, cards which are magnetic only are refused in more and more places, because of either company policy due to a large number of fraud,or just straight up lack of terminals to process them. Also, I think I've only had a single check in my entire life - I don't even know what I would need to do to issue one, and I run my own company. So it also must be an American thing.
  - aestra 13y ago
    How old are you? Checks were fairly common when I was growing up in the US but no more. Probably different elsewhere tho. I pay my rent with a check, but that's it. Oh and I pay my car tax every year with a check. Old people stuck in the past (my mom) pay all their bills with checks. Bills you get in the mail that dont accept credit card are paid in checks. I could pay my rent in cash but I want to have a copy of the canceled check as further evidence I paid my rent in case any issues come up and I have to prove I paid rent.
  - TheCoelacanth 13y ago
    This is a service targeted at the US so it has to target the US's (antiquated) banking system. Checks are on the way out, but most Americans still need to write or cash them fairly regularly. Chip-and-pin cards are still not widely supported in the US, but support for magnetic stripe cards is almost ubiquitous. It does seem outdated by international standards, but for the US, this is actually a step forward compared to the check cashing services that many poor people use.