The Coin (Finally) Arrives

My Coin finally arrived in the mail! I’ve been excited to get this guy for… some time now. Before I get into that though, let me explain what it is.

Coin is an electronic card that lets you “store” all your other cards (debit, credit, loyalty, etc). It swipes like any regular card, and I also believe it works in ATMs as well.

You use the scanner (which plugs into your phone) to scan your physical cards. And through the app… you sync them to your card. Each card gets a four character nickname, which appears in the display window. You can cycle through up to eight cards by clicking the round button on the card.

There’s a new video that features the updated card, and showcases a fancy shmancy lifestyle. But I still prefer the original one that I saw when the product launched:

Which is a good segue into my complaint: the long wait.

I placed my order for Coin back in August of 2014. At the time, I was told that they were shipping Coins in “Summer of 2014.” Here are the dates I’ve been told:

August 4, 2014: Coin starts shipping Summer 2014!
March 14, 2015: We are still on track for delivery this Spring 2015.
May 21, 2015: Based on your Pre-order date you should be expecting your Coin by the end of September.
October 1, 2015: Based on where shipping is now, you will definitely receive it early this month…

Note: The first message came via my confirmation email, but the others came after I wrote in to Support asking for an ETA.

After getting a tracking number and watching my package sit for 3 days in Chicago’s “Metro Hub,” it finally showed up at my doorstep today.

Now – I get that there was a massive surge of people interested at the beginning. And I know that there was a lot of work that happened, since the crowdfunded campaign started. This video explains a great deal about what’s been going on at the company:

I am sympathetic to their challenges, I truly am. But at the same time, I’m someone who paid $55 for a product that ended up taking 15 months to show up in my hands. That’s a really long time to ask customers to be patient.

While I’ve become incredibly agitated since September, I still am excited about the product. The long wait has definitely eroded some of my good will, but I am still looking forward to using this device.

A few other notes: on swiping and entering new cards for the first time, I got a few “timeout” errors. In some cases, I had to re-enter info for cards two or three times. Call it a slight glitch, maybe it was something with my WiFi… but this happened on my end.

Also something I didn’t expect: for each debit or credit card, there is a small “temporary” charge of $1 – $2 that happens. Presumably to verify that everything checks out. But seeing this was news to me. Not a huge deal and a necessary step, but I suddenly found myself thinking I was paying $2/card for something I had already purchased.

I logged in to my bank and saw a few “pending” charges… so I’ll have to keep an eye out to ensure those don’t actually go through.

Beyond this – I’m excited to have transferred over eight cards that I used to carry, replacing them with just one. Though I’m far from one of the first to receive my Coin card, I do still feel like one of the early adopters.

The long wait really has rubbed me the wrong way. But it’s slowly starting to fade. And I’m guessing it will fade, the more I go about using my device. If you’re interested in getting one, you can use this referral link (or any of the other Coin links above) and it’ll get me a $5 discount.

I didn’t check to see what their current delivery times are, but maybe give that a glance if you’re interested in ordering one. Whatever the wait is, I’m going to guess it’s got to be faster than mine was.

Related:
Coin: A Single, Electronic Card to Hold All Your Credit Cards
Making Money by Visiting the Bank
Image as Currency: Using A Photo of Jonathan Stark’s Starbucks Card to Buy Food
Methuselah Trusts, Compound Interest, and the Silent Legacy of Jonathan Holdeen