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Ask HN: How does Upromise track my credit card use?

1 points by jasonabelli ↗ HN
I am trying to get a start up off the ground. I need to track my members credit card use similarly to Upromise to make business plan work. I have tried to contact Upromise, Visa, MasterCard, and a new start up Linkables that tracks CCs but everyone seems pretty closed lipped about it. Does anyone have any ideas how this is done. If you are not familiar with Upromise here is their “how it works” page. http://www.upromise.com/welcome/how-it-works

8 comments

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mthomas
Each retailer that "supports" Upromise sends them a sha256 hash of your creditcard along with the amount for each transaction.
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jasonabelli
So if made a large scale business that included small restaurants I would be relying on their "honor" to send in the sha256 to show a sale? That's not good.
mthomas
That's more or less correct. But, the customer who is tracking their percentages earned would know that their purchases were not accounted for.
jasonabelli
Unless they were unknowingly at a participating vendor. How long does it usually take to get this information back. Is it same day or is there a longer delay? Thanks for the information by the way.
mthomas
If I recall correctly, we sent a daily feed to Upromise. I don't know how often or when they updated their totals.
dhyasama
Maybe you could go further upstream? Consider integrating with POS systems, merchant account providers, or payment gateways.
jeffmould
Not 100% positive, but I would think a service like Yodlee can provide you with help. It is the same service that mint.com (although I don't believe they use it anymore) and others use to aggregate your financial data into their platforms.