Originally Posted by
lordsutch
From a consumer confidence perspective, though, isn't this sort of thing a loser? How do I know I'm paying Olive Garden instead of just giving my card info and PIN to some rogue app on the waiter's personal iDevice? Although the proprietary clunky devices can be hacked too, the barrier for entry to someone slapping a Square reader onto a jailbroken iPhone with some skimming software on it is a lot lower. As a paranoid consumer concerned about fraud, trusting anything any clown can pick up at Best Buy for $10 is a bug, not a feature.
Anytime you go to a smaller place, how do you trust them regarding your credit card when they swipe it? And any skimming fear is the same regardless of the terminal. I'd feel safer with an EMV-Square type of device connected to an iPad than I would with magnetic stripe at any large retailer