Bit confused with the difference between this versus something like an Amex pre-paid card. Why would someone use True Link over one of the existing pre-paid card options? A web interface?
A key difference is that the True Link card has built in protections against specific cases of elder fraud, not just the general cases of fraud that something like Amex targets.
Just to give a concrete example: there are bunch of charities that sound like legitimate ones but aren't. An example is the Cancer Fund of America, which spends less than 1% of their income on charitable activities (see [1][2]). These charities specifically target the elderly, sometimes calling them over and over again to take advantage of cognitive decline (cf. [2][3]).
It mentions fairly extensive fraud protection, which other pre-paid solutions don't offer. I've used a few pre-paid cards while travelling and companies pretty much treat them as cash. If you lose it or get scammed, you've just plain lost it.
From what I can see, this acts as a bit of a buffer between scammers and your "real" account.
"All this goes through a pre-paid True Link Visa card, filled through the person’s checking account, which is free for the first year and costs $20 annually after that. True Link acts as the preauthorizer, giving it the power to see incoming charges and approve or deny them accordingly."
What does really interest me is this part...
"True Link is currently working on building its list of fraudulent and potentially fraudulent organizations..."
There are blacklist organizations for merchants like Bad Customers et al. which I'm very skeptical about since they charge you to be taken out of that list. Of course they don't claim to be "blacklists" since that's too negative, but they essentially are since any company using their services can deny your purchase. I hope these guys have a better vetting and arbitration process or this will end up being another Bad Customers except as a blacklist of merchants.
Yeah, I've heard rumors that lot of those blacklists are shakedown operations. We're following our customers' lead on which transactions are unwanted -- if we're getting phone calls where people are saying (e.g.) that they signed up for a free sample and got billed 40 dollars of shipping and handling... well, I don't much care about what the company says, the point is, our customer feels deceived and our customer is who we work for.
Since it's designed for the specific needs of vulnerable seniors, The True Link card has features that are currently not available on other prepaid cards, namely the ability to preset spending limits for individual purchases, to proactively block purchases at individual merchants and categories of merchants (e.g., sweepstakes, unscrupulous charities, gambling institutions),and to send instant alerts about any suspicious transaction to family members. And yes it's all managed through an easy-to-use web interface.
They aren't just stopping identity theft but allowing care givers to control spending habits. Or being taken advantage of by (legitimate) organizations taking advantage of the elderly.
This sounds like the case. Google is getting aggressive with its Panda updates, and as a previous commenter noted, the HN homepage is just links. Since that triggers Panda, it's a good bet that Google went a little overboard (not unprecedented).
It's an acknowledgement that the early days of a startup don't need to look like the later days. At 42Floors, we met with every landlord in person and then manually typed in every listing. Obviously, we can't do that at scale, but it was an important step to getting our startup off the ground when no one had yet heard about us. Later on, when we had built up credibility, we built web scrapers and integrated data feeds
I completely hear what you're saying and I'm glad you said it. There's a certain level of understanding your customer that can only come from meeting in person. I'm glad to hear that I'm following the same footsteps that you guys did. We're working to solve the issue of API integration, and there's only so much you can understand about a customers pain point through email or over the phone.
The classic YC example is AirBNB. Brian & Joe flew to NYC every week to personally recruit hosts, take pictures of their apartments, etc.
Clearly recruiting hosts in person, one by one, doesn't scale. But it's okay to do these kinds of things at first because they help you understand your users & help create super-users who will go out an evangelize your product.
I believe that this important mantra is illustrated by the use of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) technique. This is described in detail by Eric Ries in The Lean Startup (pgs. 99-102), wherein he explains the tremendous amount of learning and customer discovery that a startup founder/team can experience first-hand by making the effort to personally provide initial customers with customized one-on-one "concierge treatment"...
I like to view it as in the beginning do as much as you can get to get open-ended discussion with prospective customers. Later on use that learning to build a more scalable/product-focused approach optimized for acquisition/growth.
