Trying out ShopQwik

I posted a note about using ShopQwik yesterday and Alex responded with this comment:

Shopqwik looks a great idea, I was about to install it earlier but then
it asked for all my credit card details. Eh? I think not. I think I
know what they’d like it for, but at least let me try the thing out
first without trying to get me to part with details of my magic plastic.

I actually didn’t think about this when I signed up to try it out — I just whacked in my switch details and started playing.  However Alex makes a good point which I put to Mark Tynan of ShopQwik.  Mark responded thus:

Hi Alex,

I do agree with your reservations on parting with your credit card details to a new company.

We are more than happy for people to put in a dummy credit card number (i.e. 16 one’s or something) in order to test the software. You can then edit your account by using the sign -in option on the menu at a later date if you wish to do so.

All of our customer data is held on a secure server behind a firewall and is encrypted within our database so that even our staff can’t access it.

The reason why we ask for your details becomes clear when you use the software. The idea is to be able to pay for your goods quickly and securely. When you are about to pay for a flight you get the option to pick one of the credit cards you have set up by seeing the type of card it is (Visa, MasterCard etc) and the last 4 digits. That is all we ever send to the phone and it’s enough for us to know which card you wish to use.

Your payment is then made using a SSL to SSL link between our server and the airlines server. It’s about as secure as you can make it.

Later this week we are going to give people a choice in how the set up their account. You will be able to give the following details to test out the software if you do not wish to fill in all of the details at once.

• Email
• Phone number
• Phone type

You will then receive the software but will not be able to purchase anything using it. Your account can at anytime be edited to fill in the other details when you feel happier to do so.

Regards

Mark Tynan
ShopQwik

(ShopQwik are a sponsor of SMS Text News)