
Clinkle - urs2102
https://www.clinkle.com/#
======
pan69
I'm looking at the home page but I have no idea what this is. Is this a
payment thing? I see a credit card under "Upgrade your card". No sure what
that means though, upgrading my card. Then some more stuff that looks like I
can pay with this. Then it talks about "treats" and treating friends. So, is
this a payment thing were I collect "rewards" by paying for stuff and instead
of rewarding myself I have to reward my friends?

From just the home page, I find this very confusing.

~~~
21echoes
Hey! Engineer from Clinkle here.

"Upgrade your card" is about how there are next to no debit cards with rewards
programs, free p2p, and budgeting/payments alerts.

Treats are indeed effectively rewards, and yes they are meant to be a little
more than the altruistic than traditional rewards.

Sorry for the confusion; we're tightening up the copy as we go forward. Hoped
to fly under the radar for another few weeks, but someone tipped off the press
:(

~~~
misterinteger
All debit cards have free p2p with Square Cash.

~~~
dkuntz2
Most have it with Venmo too.

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txttran
What a disappointing product after such hype. Seems like a desperation pivot.
I'd guess that the business partnerships didn't pan out and Apple supplants
their proprietary technology with Apple's ecosystem. Given how crowded the
rewards marketplace is, this seems like they're just throwing good money after
bad.

~~~
21echoes
Mmm, we haven't pivoted at all! Prepaid card with rewards program has been in
the works since 2012 and was part of the pitch to investors. Rumors in the
press really lead the public astray tho :(

~~~
foobarqux
"part of the pitch"? Does that mean there was some other product or feature
that was more central to the pitch presented to investors?

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arenaninja
So I was reading about clinkle last night and I was thinking "What a joke!",
but as they now have a product I decided to try and check it out.

Obviously, I'm curious of what I have to pay. Encouragingly, there's text that
says:

> Clinkle has no minimums, no monthly fees, and no fee to get your card.
> There’s no fee to load funds from your bank account, and no fee to use
> Treats. That’s the way we like it.

But then, in smaller letters with font color that almost matches the
background, it says:

> Read more about the few fees we do charge in our Cardholder Agreement.

Does this seem disingenuous to anyone other than me? The first impression is
no fees, and then I realize that I know nothing about what fees they'll
charge. No thanks.

~~~
hadoukenio
I've never heard of them, and don't understand how two posts got on to the
front page within minutes about Clinkle. Voting ring perhaps?

~~~
onewaystreet
Clinkle had become a bit infamous in startup circles over the young age of its
founder, the large amount he raised from top-tier VCs, and his failure to
launch anything. That they have actually launched something is big news to
anyone that had been paying attention.

~~~
hadoukenio
So it's another Color then? Got it.

And I just noticed there's another post about Clinkle on the front page.

------
debt
I just realized recently the major distinction between the San Francisco tech
scene and the South Bay/Silicon Valley tech scene: substance.

The South Bay has all these established players like Google, Facebook, Apple,
Yahoo, etc(to name the larger names). San Francisco has the revenue-earners
and shit like Clinkle(I guess we have Uber and Airbnb but that story hasn't
fully played out yet). Like Square and Dropbox are toast and both SF
companies.

I guess it's a small distinction but an important one. The SF tech scene is
much, much younger than it's South Bay counterpart.

Clinkle will definitely fail(that is it will never become an established
player on it's own like South Bay companies like Apple/Google/Yahoo/etc.).
It'll likely be acquired or maybe even crash and burn, regardless I sincerely
question it's long-term potential as I do most SF-based tech companies.

~~~
makeramen
FWIW, Clinkle was housed in Mountain View for quite a while. While I
_generally_ agree with you on the distinction between established players vs
startups, I don't think the geographic classification is clear cut as you make
it.

~~~
debt
It's more of a hypothesis than a matter of fact. I do find it interesting that
they moved to SF. Perhaps it was because companies like Clinkle can't hack it
in the South Bay because engineers in the South Bay don't want to work for
that crap(no long-term potential).

I'm based in SF so I have no preference for the South Bay, it's just something
I've noticed.

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kolev
No, it is not! And it's buggy. It says I've received 3 verifications already
to my phone, when I've never got any, and it's now asking me to send them an
email, which they never reply to (I've been thru this a few months ago)! The
most annoying onboarding process I've seen! Annoying and irrelevant at that
stage low-res videos. Forces you to slide up things when it's not necessary.
All that fanfare for nothing!

Google Wallet and PayPal Debit Card (with its 1.5% cashback on everything and
the short-term $1,000 credit when your balance is not enough to cover a
charge) already work great for me!

------
7Figures2Commas
This is great news. I have been looking for a compelling pre-paid debit card
ever since my Kardashian Kard was abruptly removed from my life[1] and this
looks like it fits the bill.

I hope Dogecoin integration is coming soon. If I could load my Clinkle with
Dogecoin, I would finally be able to ditch my Amex Centurion.

[1]
[http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/29/pf/kardashian_kard_terminate...](http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/29/pf/kardashian_kard_terminate/)

~~~
smoyer
I also loved my Kardashian Kard ... even if you could only purchase pedicures
with it. Now all I'm left with is Kim's wisdom (in combination with Soren
Kierkegaard's philosophy):
[https://twitter.com/KimKierkegaard](https://twitter.com/KimKierkegaard)

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prostoalex
It's a debit card with rewards program.

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kawliga
"Swipe like your normal debit card to buy everyday stuff, like an espresso"

like... I still have absolutely no idea what's going on here.

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redorb
so I said "Ya know what - I'm going to give them a chance." then downloaded
the app, filled out the form on my phone and since I didn't go to college I'm
146,333 on the public waiting list. Awesome.

I haven't used a prepaid card before - But I figured I'd play around with it
and get my friends to join as currently we're transferring funds for rent/food
etc.. (use case?) but now apparently they need a different kind of feedback.

Good luck Clinkle

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cookrn
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8358737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8358737)

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kungfooguru
Was prepaid debit card their pitch to investors?

~~~
jn1234
No, it was a payment system that used high frequencies.

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maceo
Is this the idea that they raised $30 million with? It's essentially Venmo
with an opaque "Treats" feature.

~~~
onewaystreet
Their original idea was basically Apple Pay.

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Shad0w59
I had never heard of this until today, suspect I will never hear about it ever
again.

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ww520
How is this different from all the reward cards out there?

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jscheel
Sometimes I feel like a negative nancy, but seriously, what the crap. A
rewards program? Really?

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ende
What does this have over Simple?

