Motorpay--ERP credit card payment in your IU
Nov 5, 2008 11:01Years ago, I wrote that the guy who made the decision to use a prepaid Cashcard system for vehicle IUs to pay for Electronic Road Pricing would have blood on his hands. Because once you get near an ERP gantry, the slightest doubt in some idiot's brain will cause that moron to brake hard and you'd have an accident. On a 90kmh highway, you'd have a BIG accident, provided you're moving on those highways that are congested inspite of sky-high ERP charges. When in a jam, the slightest braking will probably cause a jam. Well, you see this every dayanyway, so you shouldn't be surprised.
You can still read that blogpost here.
Since then, they have taken another step into a weird area. Now you can insert your credit card into the IU. You can register for that service at https://www.motorpay.com.sg/--just that if you want to see the terms and conditions or almost anything, you gotta use Firefox--Internet Explorer and Chrome both show me that my browser has insufficient encryption to display the content.
To get this service online, they've sorta hacked the credit card system. They'll reduce your normal credit limit by S$100, god knows why, probably to create a virtual Cashcard for you at the bank. My guess is that the ERP payment system is so inflexible that this credit card payment service is just a Cashcard Virtualization system, with auto refills on the bank's side.
I haven't used this service yet, so the following is speculation based on reading the FAQs.
Get this straight: You don't actually put any credit card into your IU. You leave it empty, or leave your Cashcard in. The service is based on your vehicle ERP in-car unit number. You can register for all the cars you want on one Motorpay account, but weirdly, you gotta have several credit cards since registration is limited to one vehicle per card. DUH!
Now let's see what could go wrong with this system:
1) You sell the car, you forget to cancel the car's registration with Motorpay, you pay somebody's ERP for a couple of months before you remember.
2) You take a trip while your significant other maxes out on your card. Your earmarked amount runs out and you incur a fine everytime you pass a gantry.
3) You let your friend take your car for a couple of months, he racks up a thousand bucks of ERP, and you pay.
4) Suddenly, your credit card issuer blocks your card as you forgot to pay the credit card bill. You start getting a fine for every ERP gantry you pass through. Double whammy.
5) Cancellation of the service takes a week. You pass your car to your friend for a week. You pay the ERP.
All speculation, but valid ones. Welcome to post comments to correct my speculations.
From what I see, the Motorpay Web site sucks. The content is stupidly uninformative, with lousy crap content that nobody with my level of intelligence (pretty low, it seems) understands. Like, what if you insert a Cashcard into a Motorpay-registered IU ? Which takes precedence in payment: The Cashcard or your Motorpay? This has huge implications.
The Motorpay Web site was made by a moron. I'm so frustrated! If a Web site is meant for internal use, fine. But this one was made for public use. You gotta spice it up, make the language better. Hell, a kid could do it better!!!! My god, this is such a good example of lousy content for a crucial service.
The way I see it, the Motorpay service is good only if you do insert a Cashcard into the IU all the time. Depending on priority:
1) If Cashcard takes priority, the Motorpay service should be a backup
2) If Motorpay takes priority, the Cashcard should be a backup.
It would be better for the Cashcard to take priority, so that when you loan your car to your friend for a week, his Cashcard pays, not you (that's if the guy is diligent and honest).
STILL, THE BEST WAY IS FOR LTA TO BILL YOU MONTHLY! I get multiple LTA bills per month, on a bad month, for insufficient balance in my Cashcard. If they're afraid of too much work, they would decrease the billing frequency immediately once they get rid of the Cashcard or credit card system, and just take note of my ERP gantry passes and bill me at the end of the month.
What's the LTA agenda? I don't know. I do know that overall, it should be to improve the transport services. I just hope they keep it simple instead of introducing such complications to patch a crappy system.
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Launched in 2001 the Innovation Excellence Award (I-Award) is the highest accolade given to innovative organisations in Singapore and is based on the business excellence niche standard for innovation. It is conferred upon the best of the best in recognition of their attainment as models of innovation excellence for others to emulate. The Award recognises and celebrates organisations whose outstanding innovation capability development approach has contributed significantly to business excellence.
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Nov 13, 2008 09:20
About Michael Tan
Michael Tan is lucky enough not to have to choose between his job and his passion. He is the responsible for all aspects of developing new businesses and sourcing new productlines for a regional IT distribution company. He also oversees the company's legal affairs as General Counsel. In real life, he is a technology enthusiast, from both the fun and business viewpoint. The only choices he has to make are whether to play with his astro telescopes, his PC games, his Wii console, hit the track, tweak his car, or refine his biofilters, post his blogs, research for a new digicam, scour every forum to feed his habit further, play with his son…
You can reach Michael at michaeltanyk@gmail.com
ALL BLOGPOSTS ONLY REFLECT MICHAEL'S OPINIONS AND NOBODY ELSES'.
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