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lchiu7

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#136275 21-Nov-2013 16:29
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Google has announced a Google Wallet Debit Card, to be funded from your Google Wallet account. You can top it up from a bank account or another credit card account.

This is one of many links describing it.

http://www.techhive.com/article/2065471/google-makes-end-run-around-isis-with-new-google-wallet-debit-card.html

I have signed up for the card and it will arrive in about 10-14 days they say.

But it got me thinking. This is purely from a tech point of view but when Google Wallet first came out on a phone, it was funded from your GW balance. And for early adopters they threw in a $10 credit.  I signed up by sideloading the app and with a rooted phone, using Market Enabler to set my phone to be T-Mobile.

I successfully used the app a couple of times to buy a meal at Leuven's in Wellington and at a sushi bar.

They then stopped the debit card process and instead, allowed you to use any credit card. But since then I have never been able to do a transaction, using either the Mastercard or Visa NFC terminals with either my local Visa PayWave card or my US credit card. The error I usually get is, international transactions not supported.

But since this new GW Debit card actually relies on a balance in your GW, it might not necessarily traverse the entire MC network but just enough to get the transaction to Google to approve.

If it works it's really an academic exercise and worth some geek value in a store but from a practicality point of view, it's not that useful. This is because you have to fund the Wallet from a presumably NZ credit card and so incur one exchange rate and then when you actually purchase something in NZ, there will be another exchange rate conversion.  Of course it might not work so it's really academic.

I am going to try. Wonder if anybody else is going to?






Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD.  https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd  PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.


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bradstewart
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  #938595 21-Nov-2013 19:08
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Will be interested in seeing how you get on with this. How are you getting it sent to NZ?

They have essentially blocked all Wallet NFC payments outside the US by requiring you to enter a social security number before it will enable your card for tap and pay.



ajobbins
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  #938596 21-Nov-2013 19:12
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When I went to sign up it says you have to verify your address and Social Security number.

How did you get past that?




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lchiu7

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  #938607 21-Nov-2013 19:58
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ajobbins: When I went to sign up it says you have to verify your address and Social Security number.

How did you get past that?


Not sure. It didn't ask me for that. But my address is verifiable since it's the address of the credit (US) I use as the prime card on my Wallet account. And while I do have a valid SSNR I don't recall ever providing that to Google! One guards one's SSNR very carefully since it is a proxy for a national ID number and easy to perform identify theft if you can get somebody's.

As for how I am going to get it - well I will either pick it up when I am in the US in December or have somebody mail it out.

But the point of the exercise is not if I can use the physical card but if I can use the app instead of the physical card.




Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD.  https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd  PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.




davedev12
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  #951342 13-Dec-2013 00:15
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Hi how did you get the google wallet application to work in NZ so far i've got it running but when i try to pay it declines 

lchiu7

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  #951578 13-Dec-2013 13:02
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davedev12: Hi how did you get the google wallet application to work in NZ so far i've got it running but when i try to pay it declines 


The only time I have ever got Google Wallet to work here was when it first came out and it was a prepaid debit card.

Signing up and you got a $10 credit and I then added another $20. So when I used it around Wellington at a couple of places, the transation did not need to go through the credit card networks per se apart from the comms side. Google validated the transaction against my balance.

When Google moved to being able to use credit cards, it no longer worked since they don't support international transactions, And I have tried a US issued credit card and that didn't work so it must be the source of the transaction, not the card itself.




Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD.  https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd  PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.


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