Mobile Payment Vendor Claims PCI Compliance, Then Admits That It Was Fiction
Written by Evan SchumanJune 23rd, 2011
It's not common to see a PCI security vendor issue a sales pitch E-mail blast and to then follow it up with an extensive correction to its retail IT prospects. But that happened on Wednesday (June 22), and for good reason: Not only did the company claim to be PCI compliant on mobile payment (when in fact no one can be), but it even created and posted on its site—and included in the E-mail—its own PCI Council seal of approval icon (when in fact none exists).
The actions of the vendor—TF Payments, a unit of ThoughtFocus Technologies, which is marketing the product as FocusPay—highlight some of the challenges involved when planning a retail mobile-payment strategy in an environment where the rules have yet to be established. And as a result, vendors are feeling pressured to promise capability with non-existent standards—and hoping no one notices. This time, however, someone did.
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Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
