I was and still kind of am skeptical about it. I use it and I've gotten some of the same responses as others have posted, but while it says NFC isn't needed and shows how to use it if NFC isn't available I've found a few places that it still won't work. A local movie theater for one. I bought tickets online and the confirmation says to bring the card with you to claim your tickets. Being the tech savvy guy I'm trying to be, I skipped the ticket counter and opted for a kiosk. The kiosk has one of those stick out swipe type readers and I held my phone up to it every conceivable way and it just would not recognize my device. It didn't even act like I had used the wrong card, like if there's some encryption so that it isn't actually putting your card information out over the air, it just looked at me and continued to ask me to swipe the card. I'm really glad there was no one behind us because by the end it really looked like I was trying to break into the machine. There have been other times as well, most notably one where they were using a tablet type register with the little card reader off to the side. That time I was a bit cocky when they said they couldn't take it and I was like "Oh yeah, watch this..." rubbing, holding, sliding the phone up down front back face down face up the edge all over the reader area. *sigh* me reaching into my wallet to pull out an actual card. Feeling really small. Since then I may try once or twice but if it doesn't see it then I just reach for my card. And I've never been as smug as I was about it if they say they don't take it.