This could be an interesting development for this industry. Person to person payments via iMessage.
I would be interested to hear what providers think about it?No.
That's still going to leave an electronic trail, just as a credit card will. The only potential exception might be if it really is a phone-phone transastion, and based on the iMessage references, it's not.
Cash is still king.
Is because a provider told me once that she was busted in Bloomington (hotel reported her to the 5-0 who then let themselves into her room mid-session) and the main reason charges wouldn't stick was that she didn't have a significant amount of money on her. The guy still had it, so apparently cash can be evidence as well, depending on who has it, it seems.
Interesting. "let themselves into her room mid-session" rings all sorts of alarm bells with me. I'd expect either a warrant to be present, or "exigent circumstances," i.e. problems with minors, significant noise complaints, etc. That'd have to be done with hotel cooperation, I seriously doubt that LE would have their own permanent room access.
And while I don't necessarily have good feelings about the PCI industry, I trust mobile apps somewhat less, especially when more than 1 financial institution might be involved.
It was done with hotel cooperation and in fact she suspected it was at their request. I guess she had been using the same one for a couple of months and what she was doing probably stood out a mile.
It's an interesting question all round. If you have an encrypted device, they may try and apply for a search warrant to force you to unlock it, but would they bother? I'm thinking it's doubtful. There are very few precedents for that and they're for much more serious crimes than this. They could subpoena financial statements but that would be highly unlikely too. When you stand back and look at it, being found in a provider's company and she has a large amount of cash, is much more problematic, legally.
Just having an iPhone is proof of nothing.
... Zelle. MN-based US Bank will be one of the first in the country to offer it, free to customers. Supposedly all it requires is a mobile phone number or an email to "securely" and instantly send someone a payment.