You can now accept credit cards with the Blackberry! Airliner downed by flatulence? Social Security scam email.

Merchant Newsletter - December 9, 2006

Finally... Pocket Verifier for Blackberry!

Now BlackBerry users can have the power of Pocket Verifier!

The Social Security Agency has received several reports of an email message being circulated with the subject “Cost-of-Living for 2007 update” and purporting to be from the Social Security Administration. The message provides information about the 3.3 percent benefit increase for 2007 and contains the following “NOTE: We now need you to update your personal information. If this is not completed by November 11, 2006, we will be forced to suspend your account indefinitely.” The reader is then directed to a website designed to look like Social Security’s Internet website.

Once directed to the phony website, the individual is asked to register for a password and to confirm their identity by providing personal information such as the individual’s Social Security number, bank account information and credit card information.

You should never provide your Social Security number or other personal information over the Internet or by telephone unless you are extremely confident of the source to whom you are providing the information. YOU SHOULD NEVER, NEVER provide ANY personal information in response to an email. Call the company or organization, or go to the website yourself (do not use the links in the email)

To report receipt of this email message or other suspicious activity to Social Security’s Office of Inspector General, please call the OIG Hotline at 1-800-269-0271. (If you are deaf or hard of hearing, call the OIG TTY number at 1-866-501-2101). A Public Fraud Reporting form is also available online at OIG’s website www.socialsecurity.gov/oig.

An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing December 4th, Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence.

The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches. All 99 passengers and five crew members were taken off and screened while the plane was searched and luggage was screened.

The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane. The woman, who was not identified, was not charged in the incident.

Pocket Verifier Professional is now available for the Blackberry! Actually, we wrote this version of our software for one of our OEM's, and our development agreement with them allows us to offer it to our merchants too.

We had put the Blackberry on "hold" during their legal problems with NTP. NTP, an American company was claiming that Research In Motion (the makers of Blackberry) had violated their patents. For a while, there were even rumors that the Blackberry would no longer be allowed to be sold in the US, but a last minute settlement of $612 million dollars prevented an embargo of Blackberries back in March of this year.

After that, we had too many other projects to work on, but when were contacted by Primary Merchant Solutions of New York (one of our existing OEM's) called us and asked us to write a Blackberry solution for them, we just could not refuse. The software, while written by us, actually belongs to Primary Merchant Solutions Inc., but our development agreement allows us to sell the software to our merchants as well.

Due to the differences in the licensing of the run-time package, Pocket Verifier Professional for the Blackberry differs in deployment from our other versions: We have an evaluation version (which lasts 15 days), that can be downloaded freely. We have our operational version (which is purchased), and we have free upgrades that will only work with the operational version. Unlike our other software, if you change phones, you are required to re-purchase the software. It is sold on a "locked to the phone" basis. Unfortunately, this is a limitation caused by the development platform, not the procedure we prefer and use on all of our other packages.

Currently, our software is written for the standard format Blackberry with the 240 x 160 pixel screen (like in the large picture above). Currently we have tested on the Blackberry 7290 and will be testing other BlackBerry models as fast as we can.

Will it work on MY Blackberry?
The requirements for our software to operate properly are:

	240 Wide by 160 High screen
	Blackberry OS 4.02 or greater
	Bluetooth connectivity
	Blackberry Internet connectivity

If you have these features on your Blackberry, it should work fine. We have a downloadable 15 -day trial version you can use to make sure the software works properly on your device. For Cingular and T-Mobile users, A lowercase gprs indicator on your device shows you that your current service cannot work with a secure data connection. The gprs indicator must in all uppercase: GPRS. Contact your carrier if needed to upgrade your data service.

Pocket Verifier Professional for Blackberry uses our new Pocket Spectrum Plus combination card reader and receipt printer with Bluetooth.

For more information on the Blackberry software for credit cards click here. For more information on our popular Pocket Spectrum wireless card reader and printer, which works on Blackberries, Palms, Pocket PC's and more, just click here.

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