i am a computer engineer, just want to add up the issue of RFID, before we graduated, we have to invent a machine, our own invention, one of my classmate they are using an RFID chip for their project. For the few months that they used it, it functions well, but months past that we have to submit already the complete machine or device. The RFID get lost, it did’nt work, and then we suddenly realized that everytime an RFID is always in used, it will damage..or shall we say the hardware or chip will be destroyed.

Check out this new friendly website I came across. You can find it here:

http://www.merchanthotline.com

Thanks for reading.

I saw another comment told how to deactivate with a hammer – good idea I’m going to do that on my own stupid Blue card.

We use the card to generate cash back, and at the time, it was the best deal going. After an initial amount of spending each year, they paid 4% on groceries, prescriptions, and gas; and 1.5% on everything else. We use the card for literally everything, except we can’t figure out a way to pay our mortgage with it yet (they pay no cash back on cash advances, and there is no grace period on them). We pay the card off in full each month. Last year they paid us something like $1,800. Revenge is sweet.

Anyway, about a month ago, I got a letter from AMEX, also describing an automatic “upgrade” to my blue cash card. The upgrade offered some trivial additional features (track your points online, etc.), and the most excellent feature upgrade of lowering our cash back percentages across the board. I’d have to go back and look at the letter, but it was now something like 1.5% on the groceries/gas/prescriptions, and 0.5% on everything else. Come to think of it, they might have even eliminated gas from the higher category, given the cost of gas lately.

Needless to say, we are shopping for a new card. There is always someone willing to extend crazy bonus terms because most people don’t use the card like we do, and the card company makes out. And some of them now charge a “no balance carried fee” if you pay it off for too many months in a row. Gotta love it. Do the usury laws of the 1800s no longer exist?

As a side note, I live on an island with no natural gas, so we all have propane tanks. Ferrell Gas is the absolute king of bogus fees and fleecing their lease customers. Two of my neighbors lease their tanks from Ferrell, and recently got $100 “low usage” fees. Great way to promote energy conservation, don’t you think? Makes me glad I own my tank…

We really are in a heap o’ trouble.

bmc

Thank you for the feedback, btw. Very much appreciated.

I think the hammer idea sounds like a good idea. In Missouri, I’ve had probably had 6 opportunities in the last 3 years to use the RFID express pay, and because it requires them to hit an extra button somewhere to actually work, 4 of those times the merchants just made me swipe because they couldn’t figure out how to get it to work, one other time the manager came up and said that it had worked and was done, even though there wasn’t a receipt (and later i was never charged) and one of those times the person actually knew how to handle it on the register and it worked as advertised. All of those place are ones that i would not spend more than $25 and so they wouldn’t require a signature anyway, so it’s never been a time saver for me.

I would be careful about drilling though, make sure that it’s small and non obvious and possibly not drilled all the way through, if your card looks modified in some way some merchants may think there is some kind of fraud going on and thus not accept your card. They tend to be a little bit more discriminating on American Express cards, I think maybe Amex is more aggressive on issuing chargebacks to the merchants.