Online shopping, PSD2 regulations in the EU...

[exogenesis]

...require a mobile phone for text message verification, to authenticate online payments.

Wondering how much of problem for me this is going to be (& many others),
somewhat annoyed, since I don't have a mobile*, & certainly won't be forced into having one by 'regulations'.

Thinking of PayPal & Amazon particularly.

I think the original introduction date was September this year,
but there's been a recent extended roll-out period announced, to smooth the un-preparedness (/potential havoc)

Obviously there's Zillions of links online about this,
but I thought if I 'complained' on Egosoft's site that they could do something about it

Was hoping the banks could offer some sensible alternative before it goes live :
I believe TSB & Lloyds will give security codes by landline,
and there's the 'card reader' gizmo which e.g. Barclays can send the authentication code to.

But generally I think if you're asked for 'strong customer authentication' when buying something online,
you knackered if you haven't got a mobile registered (or don't have signal in your current area / at that moment).

Anyone else here likely to become an 'online second class citizen' because they don't own a mobile (or have no signal) ?


* because...

[Alan Phipps]

Yes me too (for the NatWest Bank). My mobile always stays in the car and is only switched on when I want to phone home or need to contact somebody else while out of the house.

I know the banks supposedly have your security and best interests at heart, but recently when a rather common and minor debit card purchase (in a shop in my hometown) was queried by the bank for no other reason than as a random security measure, I had to use the store phone to contact the bank to answer security questions and I could feel the store staff observing me as if I had been told to go and sit on the naughty step.

[felter]

Right now I do have an active mobile as I added money onto a pay as you go phone at the start of lockdown, this was to allow me to be kept informed on what was happening from the Scottish government or I wouldn't have one. Apart from sending the initial text to register for those messages, I have never used the phone and that is nearly 5 months. There is only a few people who have the number for it, to be honest I have no idea what the number is so when people ask for the number I have no idea what it is and can't give them the number, not that I would. The good thing is, as no one has the number I don't get spam and scam calls on it. Having to rely on a mobile phone is wrong, as plenty of people do not have or use them, myself included. OH and I don't have a landline phone either.

[brucewarren]

<Raises hand>

I too do not own a mobile 'phone.

[Alan Phipps]

@ felter: "I have never used the phone and that is nearly 5 months."

Be very careful, some pay-as-you-go service providers disconnect numbers that do not make any calls for a 3-6 months period and, if they do, you can lose both the number and any pay-as-you-go credit you may still have for it. It is worth making a cheap short call on it every 3 months just to avoid this.

[RegisterMe]

..... and is only switched on when I want to phone home or need to contact somebody else while out of the house.

My mum used to do that. Until I tore a strip off her because I couldn't get hold of her to let her know that my father had died.

[Alan Phipps]

You tore a strip off your mum after telling her that news? I'm sure it wasn't right away though.

Anyway, I cannot envisage any news so important to us that it might need us to be immediately contactable in the typically few hours that we are away from home. (That includes bank service checks.) We do have an answerphone and recorded messages on the house phone. We are just not of the instant and constant contact generation. (The dinosaurs are not all dead.)

[exogenesis]

While personally I can't believe how strongly most people are attached to their 'smartphones' (even can't live without it),
the below link implies that 'only' 60% of the world population has a mobile (which I find quite incredible & tbh fairly scary)
https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-man ... -the-world

It's interesting to see people 'owning up' to the henious crime of not having a mobile phone on you at all times,
however, my aggrevation is with (banks) forcing the issue, because of regulations,
such that you have a reduced online capability if you don't have one (registered with multiple vendors).

Where does society go from here,
- can't access your financial details 'cos you ain't got a mobile?
- retinal scan not recognised - rejected purchase,
- finger print scan not correct - can't buy this food

[pjknibbs]

I *do* have a mobile. What I don't have is an iPhone or something like that--have an old Nokia e63 with an actual keyboard and which I plug in to charge myabe once a week because the battery does actually last that long. I use the thing for making calls and sending texts, why would I need more than that?

[CBJ]

Right up until a few days before lockdown, I had a phone that was 7 years old, second-hand, and although technically a smartphone and running Android, in practice too out of date to actually be capable of installing most useful apps. I was in no hurry to upgrade as I was in the same situation as pjknibbs, only really using it for calls and texts. The looming lockdown made me realise that I might finally have to drag myself kicking and screaming into the smartphone era. So far I've ended up needing it less than I expected, and indeed haven't really installed anything on it that I couldn't already use on my old phone, but I'm still more comfortable in the knowledge that I'm better prepared for when that happens, which I'm pretty sure it inevitably will.

While I fully empathise with my fellow dinosaurs who don't want a (smart)phone or see why they should be forced to have one, I can see that we're reaching a turning-point where the need for online security (be it for banking, health, general data use, or whatever) means that we may have to accept that what was previously essentially just an entertainment gadget is rapidly becoming something more essential. There are definitely some people, particularly the elderly (not you, Alan, you're not that old ) and those with disabilities, who will need alternative solutions to avoid being excluded, but those of us who just preferred not buying into the technology will probably have to suck it up and get with the times if we want to avoid too much inconvenience from having to use those alternatives too.

[red assassin]

SMS two factor authentication isn't even very good - between SIM hijacking, SS7 issues and good old fashioned phishing, there's a lot of documented cases of SMS 2FA being bypassed. A lot of banks send out some form of hardware 2FA token anyway for logins (generally ones which are somewhat vulnerable to phishing even), so why not just standardise on U2F tokens which don't have these issues, if you're going to mandate people using a specific device for auth? Hell, stick the U2F token in your bank card.

I know why, of course - it's a "good enough" solution to prevent some casual low level fraud while not being particularly expensive to implement or that inconvenient for that many people, but I wish it at least provided the option.

[Mightysword]

I have been using a pre-paid mobile phone for over 10 years now, spend like ... $100 a year or even less on it (usually $50 unless it's a year where I had to deal with lots of emergency). I went with it after deciding any sort of contract phone would be criminally overprice for the kind of use I need. It's a basic flip-phone, and I guess my usage for it is like the day it was invented. It's mainly used when my family need to contact me outside of the house, and vice versa together with some other necessary contact. But it's not something I use for frivolous use (like chatting about weather with acquaintances). It can receive and send text, although I don't send text 'cause it's a pain to type on a flip-phone. It also works as a 2 way authentication for the few places I deal with and require it.

If it's an option for where you live, I highly recommend this approach. Mine is T-mobile.

[exogenesis]

After being confused a tad by (significantly) different answers from their message centre people,
it seems that PayPal will allow verification on a landline :

I confirmed your landline number ending in 64. You will have an option to use this if you do not have a phone number. All you need to do is to choose "have us call you" instead of Received a text for Quick security check.

This will only occur if the system will need to verify your identity and so you don't need to worry about it anymore so long as you have a confirmed landline or home phone on file.

[Stars_InTheirEyes]

A mobile/smart phone is a necessity these days. Give in already you old fogeys

Multi-factor authentication is a very good thing and smartphones are one of the best ways to provide it.

[X2-Illuminatus]

A mobile/smart phone is a necessity these days. Give in already you old fogeys

Still, there are certain things a smartphone cannot do.

[exogenesis]

A mobile/smart phone is a necessity these days.

Well apart from
GPS/sat-nav, web browsing, news reading, emailing, gaming, emergency calling, music playing, photo/video taking, video & TV viewing, downloading, watch & alarm clock, notepad, smart & bar code reading, SMS notification, PDA, online-shopping, gambling,
what have the Romans smart phones ever done for us ?


oh forgot a few things:
making a phone call, being your only friend, taking over your life, being a sheeple, street cred, bragging rights, bed warmer, back scratcher, paper-weight, walking into lamp posts.


These are slightly worrying statistics :

Amazon shoppers also access their app a lot, with around 74 sessions per day each lasting around 25 seconds, however, do note that a “session” is counted as an individual product page, so really they look at about 74 items per day.

Smartphones are checked on average once every 12 minutes.

64% of people claim that their mobile distracts them at work.

20% of people couldn’t go more than two hours without checking their phones.

A third of adults report checking their phones in the middle of the night.

https://www.tigermobiles.com/blog/mobil ... statistics


They're controlling your mind I tells youz

[jlehtone]

Do you have those shopping centres, where you can leave your cat/kid/husband and go to "look at something"?
I bet that if the left party opens a mobile to read something while waiting, some magic force will pull you back to them.
This is of course pure speculation with no statistical facts to back it up.

Online shopping, PSD2 regulations in the EU...
...require a mobile phone for text message verification, to authenticate online payments.

"Smart phone" and "device that can receive text messages" are two different things.
I've seen things so "smart" that they don't receive calls nor messages (unless rebooted frequently).

[Alan Phipps]

When you get old and forgetful enough, leaving someone behind at a shopping centre even without such facilities becomes highly possible. (Thinking about it, that's probably an example of when all parties having active mobile phones could indeed be useful.)

(I could get mine from the car I suppose, well just as soon as I remember where I parked it.)

[euclid]

Seems I'm one of the rare species who do not need a mobile phone. Well, at least not anymore. I had one (my kids called it a brick) which was rarely used when the need arose (and then there was no signal .. dohh). Now regulations like the one mentioned in the OP are just a tool to make you need a mobile phone. In fact, some online features require a mobile phone number for the registration setup and it seems that those requirements have increased amonst the web services
from voluntary to compulsory.

Cheers Euclid

[brucewarren]

When I was little I was impressed by the communicators used on the Enterprise.

Compared to smartphones they seem limited. They have a tuning dial which suggests analogue operation, have no computer functions
and cannot do video.

However they do one thing much better than modern cellphones. You don't need a complete network of transmission towers to operate
one and they have a considerable range able to reach a starship in orbit. Even thought that ship is probably doing the heavy lifting that's
still quite impressive to me.