Roger Fingas
In "coming months," Facebook is rolling out person-to-person money transfers in its Messenger apps for iOS, Android, and the Web, the social network announced on Tuesday.
Initiating a payment through Facebook Messenger involves tapping a new dollar sign button, entering the amount, and then selecting Pay. To send or receive cash, a person must add a Visa or MasterCard debit card issued by a U.S. bank to their Facebook account.
From there a person can add a custom PIN, and Facebook suggests two-factor account authentication as another layer of security. On iOS devices users can replace a PIN with fingerprints data stored in Touch ID.
Facebook states that the new payment systems are in a "secured environment that is separate from other parts of the Facebook network," and subject to extra monitoring. This includes an anti-fraud team tasked with looking for suspicious transfers.
Although money is technically transferred right away, it may take one to three days for cash to become available.
Messenger is not the first major chat service to allow payments between users. One alternative is Snapchat, which offers a similar function called Snapcash.
Stephen Silver
Christine McKee
Charles Martin
Amber Neely
19 Comments
Is this a some sort of joke or early April Fools prank? I'd be surprised if there's anyone on God's green Earth that would trust Facebook with a money transfer!
Something else I'm sure to NEVER use!!! I have just some Basic Info on Facebook to help people get in contact of me. Friends for 20 years ago. For that's it's fine, but I'm rarely ever on Facebook. I'm sure not going to Voluntary hand over everything about me to Facebook or anyone else for that matter. I'm sure not going to have anything to do with Money from them.
No way in hell would I ever trust Facebook to handle financial transfers. I can already sense scammers salivating at the thought of hijacking one's Facebook account and going bonkers on the victim's credit card. No way.
I'm curious what is Facebook official policy with identity theft, reimbursement of funds, etc... when an account is hijacked. Blame the user for using a weak 30-character password?
The sad part is that millions of nitwits will sign up for this.
Originally Posted by sflocal
I'm curious what is Facebook official policy with identity theft, reimbursement of funds, etc... when an account is hijacked. Blame the user for using a weak 30-character password?
"for using Facebook".