CVS Stores Reportedly Disabling NFC to Shut Down Apple Pay and Google Wallet

[MasterRyu2011]

About 10% by the end of the year. And those are the ones that actually have disposable income and will actually use the technology. You forget that iphones equate to over half of the US smartphone market.

They will find out the hard way how dismissing us sel-entitled people who desire to be able to use whatever form of payment we want. Especially When it's far more secure than other options. When these companies are being hacked on a regular basis I choose not to give them my credit card info. Since their fees don't change and Apple gets their share from the credit card companies because of the extra security, so disabling a system that already works to make my life more difficult, means you don't want my business. It's like cash only companies. I will just go elsewhere.

I have never seen anybody in the wild ever using Apple Pay or Google Wallet. I don't think the general public will notice or care enough to affect CVS or rite aid. I think people will just go, "oh i can't use my phone...oh well i'll just slide my card"

 

[jmantn]

No, Moto G sounds like one of the very few adults here. When I read the mindless fanboy vomit that Apple-sheeple dare to pound out on their weenie little wireless keyboards it becomes obvious how Apple can offer such junk products such as the latest base iMac and the entire line of new minis and stay in business.

Sometimes after reading the MacRumors forums I'm so embarrassed to be an Apple product owner that I want to sell mine and go somewhere else. Unfortunately my latest Mac just arrived yesterday so I'll suck it up and remain among the apparently small numbers of Apple owners who are grownups.[/QUOTE

As a vet, a father, and a college graduate I find your remarks and insults to be very immature. If you truly feel that way then why visit a forum? Because you own a product from Apple doesn't mean you have to visit forums for that product much less belittle people who do visit a forum or make posts there because people's views and agendas are different from your own.

Do u make such complaints on the forums for your automobile or for your internet or even for your electricity? Well surprise for many utilities, products, and services there are forums that are littered with comments you will both like and hate as well.

Time for a reality check

 

[greytmom]

Then just take your business elsewhere BUT oh no, you want to tell us all how you lost your entitlement to shop at Rite Aid and CVS.

I'm betting the farm that you're a coupon cutter and flyer reader and you'll go wherever the price is right and pay with whatever means the store requires.

You'd lose that bet. I have neither the time nor the need to do so. My shopping at CVS is solely because they are right on the corner. Since Walgreens is only another 3 or 4 blocks away, I gladly switch my business to them.

You probably want to revise your trite and well rehearsed but sadly unoriginal comments. Most if what I have talked about in this thread has to do with security. And I never mentioned Rite Aid at all, since we don't have those around here.

And yep, folks, I realize there's about three or four people on this thread with an agenda and I am wasting my time responding to them. Time for the ignore option. Truly wish the moderators would do a better job banning those who only come here to harass and annoy.

 

[kdarling]

CVS has had NFC for years and has been one of the first major retailers to implement it. I've been using NFC there to pay with my American Express for almost 10 years. Apple Pay worked without them having to do anything, or pay anybody anything. Now they're disabling it simply to prevent people from using Apple Pay. This will also affect people using Google Wallet, and also me from using my American Express like I have been for the last decade.

So much for the common idea that Apple Pay will "help" Google Wallet or other NFC based payments.

So far, the effect has been to remove places where people used GW and NFC for years.

I'm sad about CVS, but we've used them for a long time now, and they've helped us many times. Plus Walgreen's is further away. So we're just swipe our credit card. No big deal.

I don't think anybody here has much against their upcoming MCX, as long as they offered the option to use either MCX or their existing NFC, which includes Apply Pay.

Yep. All this infighting hurts customers instead of helping.

 

[samcraig]

That's like saying people people shouldn't complain if internet gets prohibited, just because they managed to live before there ever was internet.

That's stupid. Once people have seen that life can be better, witholding that better life from them is commercial suicide. Regardless of how they lived before.

Furthermore, it's very customer unfriendly to enforce a less superior payment method on them for no good reason at all.

No - it's not the same. And the bigger "funny" about this isn't that people are disgruntled. It's the drama queen behavior of some as if this is the end of their world.

 

[tl01]

Wrote to them and let them know Walgreens will be my pharmacy if choice!

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

I have never seen anybody in the wild ever using Apple Pay or Google Wallet. I don't think the general public will notice or care enough to affect CVS or rite aid. I think people will just go, "oh i can't use my phone...oh well i'll just slide my card"

Well, considering Day #1 for Pay was 6 days ago, there's a fair shot of not seeing people using it. As for the Rite-Aid/CVS changeover, there was an article on Day 1 where a journalist bought a bunch of Diet Cokes (that's what I remember from the article) and had a 9/12 or 13... success rate with it.

One of those was CVS, and I was thinking, "hey, that's cool that they're using it too! They're not on the list!"

Pleasant surprise comes when you can do something you didn't expect.
Negative surprise comes when you can't do something you expected to do.

So, what we have here is a case of positive surprise turning negative by their overt act, and I don't think that will bode well for them in the short term. In the long term, it may be a wash, but for those that read the article (I suppose a very small population), there we go.

Oh yeah, the article was from Consumer Reports' test on Pay, FWIW.

 

[iBlazed]

They just built a Walgreens next to my house, how convenient! Give it some time, when their mobile payment system fails, those NFC terminals will be active once again. How is it even supposed to work? Do they think I'm going to open the cvs app to make a payment? Let the mobile payment turf wars begin, bastards. If it's war they want, it's war they'll receive.

 

[DemonMF777]

The worst part is, these companies have been accepting NFC payments for weeks, months, even years... and now, because of the large scale, high profile launch of Apple Pay, they have have disabled this option. I remember years ago my new AMEX blue card (with a chip) had accidentally activated the NFC payment option at a Best Buy store. I don't think the cashier or myself knew anything about how it actually worked. So I know for a fact that at some point in the past Best Buy had NFC available as a payment option... I haven't checked lately, but I'll bet they already have or soon will be disabling it there as well

 

[bobenhaus]

I cant wait until the federal Government gets involved because Apple is trying to create a monopoly with Apple Pay. Might not look like it for the people who don't question Apple's operations but a lot of us see it. Thats why you see companies not accepting Apple pay. We shalll see!

 

[iBlazed]

My dog just got a prescription for Prozac, guess where I'll be bringing it...

 

[z chamber]

If Apple doesn't want you on their phone, you're not getting on their phone. No side loading. Google is much less secure so, people could install apps right from the browser on their web site. But, Android users tend to be the least likely to use thier phones to the fullest and spend through it. So, cutting themselves from IOS would be a pretty big blow.

People already have tons of credit cards, their banks, they don't want to basically have to deal with someone new/trust someone new. So, MCX has a uphill battle just there. Not to mention all the other issue there is in their scheme.

So much for the common idea that Apple Pay will "help" Google Wallet or other NFC based payments.

So far, the effect has been to remove places where people used GW and NFC for years.

Maybe that was the plan all along. Hmmmm???

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

My dog just got a prescription for Prozac, guess where I'll be bringing it...

My house?

 

[gnasher729]

It's very funny indeed to see all those who worship at the Chuch of Apple. The behavior in this forum is seriously cult-like. I'm a LONG time Apple user (30+ years) and I find no reason to express (or feel) indignation whenever some non-Apple company does something that can be construed as anti-Apple. At the end of the day, there are better things we should devote our attention to.

The Chuch of Apple?

We have a report here of two companies who actively go out of their way to inconvenience some customers. Those customers that use Google Wallet, those customers that use Apple Pay, and it seems every customer using a card that you can just wave at an NFC terminal, without even taking it out of your wallet.

It is very understandable that all these customers are pissed off at these companies in a major way. People are not complaining about companies that never introduced NFC terminals to save money, people are complaining about two companies who already paid for these terminals and now _intentionally_ prevent customers from using them. And they do that because they have plans to introduce at some time in the next year their own, less convenient, less secure system. Being pissed off at that kind of behaviour is a very natural thing.

I really wonder what is going on in your brain that makes you call a very natural response to an absolute dick move of two companies "cult like behaviour" and claim that people are "worshipping at the Chuch of Apple".

 

[MarkyMarc43]

Another contrarian.

Fess up - you just want another reason to flash your 6 ... fanboys love doing that. I'll bet you carry that 6 in your hand all day without a case and were disappointed that the Apple logo, in the back, didn't light up.

No life, eh?

 

[illinirazorback]

This is exactly it, and exactly why I'm going to stop shopping at both Rite Aid and CVS, despite being a regular customer of the latter and occasional customer of the former.

If they weren't equipped for NFC payments, I might be mildly annoyed once such a thing is more common, but there's a legitimate reason--new PoS terminals cost money to buy and install. If they've chosen to not accept any fee-added payments (like, say, Winco or some gas stations), then there is a legitimate reason and the savings are theoretically being passed on to me (definitely in the case of gas stations, since you can compare the price to the more expensive place across the street that accepts credit cards).

But if you already have the hardware to accept NFC payments, and already accept credit cards, and the only reason you won't accept my method of payment that uses both of those technologies is that the value-added-for-the-retailer payment processor you've chosen doesn't like competition it is exactly the same as if a store accepted only MasterCards issued by Chase. That's your prerogative, but if I have a BofA MasterCard, I'm certainly not going to go get a new card, or spend the time to go to an ATM and get cash, just so I can shop at your store.

Or, looked at a different way, if CVS and Rite Aid have decided that the security of my personal financial information and privacy, as a customer, are less valuable to them than whatever processing fee and tracking benefits they will get from MCX, then I will take my business elsewhere. They made a calculated business decision, and I am doing the same.

It's not knee-jerk, or Apple fanboyism, or reactionary, it's just a logical business decision on my part, just like they made. The only question is whether there are enough people like me for the financial hit they're going to take of losing customers to Walgreens to outweigh the benefits they may at some point realize down the road from reduced fees and better tracking info from MCX.

One of the great things about the entire credit card system was that it "just worked". Now we're getting into payment wars for absolutely no logical reason other than improved margin and ability to track customers.

This is exactly right. They are completely shooting themselves in the foot. There are a lot of people in this thread that are jumping on Apple "fanboys" for making a big deal out of this. Well, maybe, but it's obvious that from the number of posts, this is a big deal with Apple users.

I think, by and large, anybody that uses Apple Pay will be a little ticked off that they are singled out by these businesses because they are going to, at some point, encourage you to use a far inferior system. If people wanted to pay with a separate app, Google Wallet would have taken off a long time ago. In the time it takes me to unlock, find the app, and open it, I can take out my wallet. With Apple Pay I'm already playing on my phone while waiting in line, so I literally don't have to do anything.

To me, the biggest factor in this whole thing is the personal info. I absolutely love that Apple Pay doesn't give the retailer any info. If I like a company, and I want them to have my info, I sign up for their loyalty program. Everybody has one now. Make it attractive for me to use (perks, whatever), and sure I'll give you my info. But if I don't want you to have my info for whatever reason, you aren't getting it. With CurrentC, it seems as though they get my info when I pay, no matter what.

What I hope (and think) will happen is that not only will customers be mad, but Apple, Google, Visa, MC, Amex, and banks all get mad at these retailers. I don't know what leverage they have, but you can be sure they will find some. CurrentC cuts out all these big hitters, so they won't go away quietly.

 

[Moto G]

Apple Pay didn't exist a few months ago. Mind you, that's irrelevant - whiners just like to whine, and it seems very evident that the actual subject matter is not the case... it's the illusion of "having a say", also known as self-righteous self-importance and "entitlement". Because they're on the internet, and because complaining to an empty void of people who influence the issues about which they whine, will do a lot... (honest).

May as well talk about the price of chocolate biscuits, the moral issues of sexual discrimination, the amount of sugar in sweets, the land owner's right to build on his land without permission... ANY arbitrary subject - pick one, and enraged, entitled whiners are game for it.

#pathetic.

 

[AllieNeko]

So much for the common idea that Apple Pay will "help" Google Wallet or other NFC based payments.

Nonsense, it hurt me at two drug stores, and helped me at Disney, Staples (soon), etc... I call that a net win.

 

[diazj3]

How dare they!!! I was planning on using Apple Pay to look really cool while paying for hemorrhoids medicine!

But seriously guys... why the big outcry? Apple Pay hasn't been around for even a month, and it hasn't been without its glitches. If you need something from the drugstore, just go wherever it's convenient for you. There are still other forms of payment. You know you don't have to give money to Apple all the time, right?

Cheers!

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

The Chuch of Apple?

We have a report here of two companies who actively go out of their way to inconvenience some customers. Those customers that use Google Wallet, those customers that use Apple Pay, and it seems every customer using a card that you can just wave at an NFC terminal, without even taking it out of your wallet.

It is very understandable that all these customers are pissed off at these companies in a major way. People are not complaining about companies that never introduced NFC terminals to save money, people are complaining about two companies who already paid for these terminals and now _intentionally_ prevent customers from using them. And they do that because they have plans to introduce at some time in the next year their own, less convenient, less secure system. Being pissed off at that kind of behaviour is a very natural thing.

I really wonder what is going on in your brain that makes you call a very natural response to an absolute dick move of two companies "cult like behaviour" and claim that people are "worshipping at the Chuch of Apple".

A classy move on their part would have been, "We had reports of Pay working at our terminals, and we have disabled it for a short time to ensure that all of the securities are in place. We are happy to accept our new secure wallet, due out in a little bit, and Pay when we are done reviewing the security measures. We expect it to be up within a week."

 

[gnasher729]

It's about that quarter percent Apple Pay adds to the credit card charge. Merchants have been squirming for years because the credit card companies Cost a LOT to take their cards. AmEx and Discover can charge the merchant almost twice what the others do...

Apple Pay adds _zero_ to the credit card charge. Actually, paying by Apple Pay is cheaper for the merchant than other methods because it is more secure _and the credit card company charges less for the more secure method_.

 

[JoeTomasone]

The total number of iPhone 6 owners, with Apple Pay, is an unseen blip in the total consuming public, these companies won't even notice.

Disgruntled, self-entitled iPhone 6 users only have a say on the MR forum. Think about it ... in a country of 350 million people how many of those own iPhone 6s?

Early next year, iPhone owners that buy Apple Watch will be amongst those numbers.

Late next year, those who upgrade to the next iPhone from an iPhone 5 or earlier will add to the numbers.

Whose to say that Apple Pay won't open up to Canada and other countries next year, and add those owners to the ranks?

Regardless, I'd say that to bet against Apple's ability to market to their enthusiastic customers is not an astute move. And when an MCX member merchant is breached next year, the first question I will have is: Was CurrentC participant bank account info breached?

Give my bank account info to the all-too-porous merchants? I think not. At least with a credit card it's not my money being stolen and with my debit card there's a maximum amount that can be taken before fraud protections kick in. With my bank account info there's the potential for a criminal to steal large chunks of money.

Lastly, consider this: MCX's members that disable NFC are not only affecting Apple Pay customers, but Google Wallet customers as well - so they are potentially alienating essentially every customer with a smartphone just as contactless payments are starting to get a lot of publicity and mindshare. Any way you slice it, this is a pretty stupid move.

 

[Tubamajuba]

How dare they!!! I was planning on using Apple Pay to look really cool while paying for hemorrhoids medicine!

But seriously guys... why the big outcry? Apple Pay hasn't been around for even a month, and it hasn't been without its glitches. If you need something from the drugstore, just go wherever it's convenient for you. There are still other forms of payment. You know you don't have to give money to Apple all the time, right?

Cheers!

Nobody is using Apple Pay to give money to Apple. Nobody.

I don't even know why you had to include that in an otherwise well-reasoned post.

 

[miamialley]

I will absolutely avoid these stores out of sheer principle.

 

[caliko]

CVS the company I boycotted after the manager harassed me and assumed I was stealing, kicked me out of the store, threatened to call the cops on me and had an employee chase me down the parking lot even after I told her to check the security cameras.

I called corporate and she still has her job.

Time to leave that Yelp review.