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

[flat five]

Hey, I don't care if you want to put your credit card information into your phone, or some website, or however you want to do it.

The immature uproar over some company not endorsing your chosen payment alternative is ridiculous though.

Cart stuffing, trying to convince everyone that you're idea is the only way, etc... that's ridiculous.

You'll have to eventually accept that some places will accept Apple Pay, and some won't. Just like people accept that some places accept American Express / Discover Card, and some don't.

Slamming an option based on a model that saves people money and is proven to leave more cash in the consumers pocket, while relentlessly trying to convince everyone that they should partake of ridiculous immature behavior in protest of stores which never intended to support Apple Pay is ridiculous.

In essence, your incessant need to convince the world to follow Apple, become angry, resort to childish actions, and so on..... You know what... take it easy, don't get so wound up... Use your phone where you can if you wish, and use whatever payment options are otherwise available when you're somewhere else.

This thread has shown that the fanboys are on a clear mission. It's not really about security. It's not really about saving time. It's about the longstanding tradition of taking on "The Man" and supporting "The Underdog" and fighting the good fight. The problem, is that somewhere along the way, people failed to notice that "The Underdog" became "The Man" that they were fighting against.

In the end, Apple Pay will be an "Also ran", another option that became available. It will not become the way of the world. Sorry.

There are not enough Apple Fanboys to make it a dominant player.

Apple's strategy relies on one thing, the success of the iPhone. But, the reality is that most iPhones are sold to people who already had iPhones. Just like most Macs were sold to people who already had Macs and felt they needed the latest and greatest.

iPhones aren't on a path of taking over the entire market. And, any store that places all it's eggs in Apple's cart will do more to hurt their sales than anything else.

Adopting a more universal payment option that is crossplatform is more sensible if someone is going to adopt an electronic payment system.

I personally have owned phones from every company. And, I will likely own other phones from other companies in the future. I have no strong ties to Apple's iPhone. Consumers are fickle. I've seen more people move away from the iPhone in the last year than buy a new one. And, the few who didn't move away, didn't upgrade to anything at all, some still use their iPhone 4.

I don't know anyone that is going to buy an iPhone 6. My cellular company offered a free iPhone 6 and 6+ update to all of their subscribers a couple of weeks ago, because they wanted to push them. Guess what, that was the quietest day I had ever seen in their history. Nobody showed up. I went in and paid my phone bill, and that was the first time I had never seen another person in the store besides myself. Usually they have about 60 customers backed up at any given moment. This time, major iPhone 6 give away, heavily promoted, signs everywhere, email campaign, text message campaign, and nobody showed up for a free iPhone 6.

I considered it while I was there to pay my bill, but ultimately preferred to stay with my iPhone 5. And, I'm glad I did.

You know what's really funny, a week later, they gave away Motorolla's, and the place was packed, and spilling out the door.

breathe

 

[flyinmac]

Dude, you have got to be the single biggest Troll I have ever seen in a forum, go outside and play ball or something.

good job, you've managed to spew the lamest and oldest scripted fanboy rhetoric in the fanboy training script.

 

[Mukist]

Clearly not. The user you replied to has been corrected over and over again, not only in this thread but others related to Apple Pay as well. That user keeps making the same claims that Apple Pay is inconvenient, insecure, and just plain bad. And now s/he is resorting to personal attacks, lobbing out fanboy accusations, etc.

He is just Trolling for the sake of being a Troll. He knows good and well what he is doing whether it makes him seem less intelligent than others or not.

He's been proven wrong time and time again and is just doing this for fun, ignore him.

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good job, you've managed to spew the lamest and oldest scripted fanboy rhetoric in the fanboy training script.

There was nothing even relatively fanboy about that comment what so ever, but feel free to come up with something else..

 

[Dolby]

They are disabling NFC all together because to them they cant tell if its apple pay or google wallet or a chip card. To the merchant all they see is NFC. The credit card companies NFC chip cards aren't working and the customer will have to use the old swipe portion of the card. So really this doesn't just affect apple pay users, it affects every one that wants to use NFC. Apple pay is just what the credit card companies and iphone users deal with, the merchants don't deal with it, they just see the standard NFC transaction.

No one is suggesting merchants support apple pay, they don't have to. Like I said the merchant can't even see if its apple pay, google wallet, windows purse(? hehe). Just support the NFC payment standard and thats all they need to do to get every ones money that wants to use the phone of their choice. To the merchant its the same as a credit card.

I think the fix for this would be that VISA/Master Card/etc require that merchants have NFC enabled for their customers if its available on their POS (Point of Sales) system or they pull their credit card processing contract. Another would be to reduce the percentage they take from the merchant if they use NFC transactions. It saves the credit card companies money when people use NFC with less fraud loss.

The downside is they might only be able to do this as contracts expire with merchants unless maybe there is some legal wording they can force it for security reasons.

I don't think this is the last you'll hear of this. The credit card companies don't like CurrentC and will try and squash it. CurrentC bypasses the credit card companies and gives the buyer almost no protection from a fraudulent merchant. The merchants like this because they see very little processing fees, consumers won't like this because there are almost no protections or rewards. Now you could argue merchants that use CurrentC can provide their customers with lower prices but I have a hard time believing that.

 

[terraphantm]

And you don't think that the credit card companies will pass that cost along to card holders?

They may pass on the cost savings since Apple Pay saves them money even taking the .15% into account. This is due to reduced fraud

 

[iLLUMI]

Okay, after checking their website I can see that they have their own app, plus what appears to be an integration to their merchants own apps.

Easy Merchant App integration
Increase the marketability and appeal of your own app by integrating CurrentC Secure Payments, offers and merchant loyalty functionality.

- Sneaky! I wonder if Apple will start banning apps, say for example Target, should they start integrating MCX?


Meet CurrentC™.
CurrentC mobile wallet is a free downloadable app that lets customers securely save, earn participating merchant loyalty rewards and pay across our growing network of merchants.

- no one will be able to download your app from Apple and Google stores. lol

 

[tmiw]

So flyinmac, you never told us what town you live in where everyone's cash-only.

Anyway, it is possible to be successful as a cash-only business. My parents only accepted debit cards (not credit) and cash while they owned their store. This was back in the 1990s though when credit card use still wasn't all that common. There's a local 24 hour taco chain here that was cash-only until recently; they now accept cards but with a $5 minimum.

That said, not every place is like flyinmac's town. If CurrentC is all that awesome, it should be able to stand on its own. Or at the very least, don't enable NFC when you're upgrading your equipment to support EMV only to disable it after people start using it--it'll be less of a PR nightmare for you.

 

[Bubba Satori]

Nobody should compete with Apple Pay.
Apple should just buy all the drugstores.

 

[mentaluproar]

I see this as a privacy issue. Merchants can keep track of consumers like they can with loyalty cards. A simple payment is out of the question. MCX is bad for consumers.

 

[powertoold]

Apple and Google need to ban CurrentC from their App Stores, muhahaha

 

[Oppressed]

I hate this service so much and it isn't even out! The company behind it wants to completely disable their competitors services from their stores even though their own service isn't out yet! How can these stores stand behind CurrentC? How did CurrentC suddenly have such a powerful say in such big name brand companies that they can dictate their POS systems and customer experience? What is really going on here because this sounds crazy?

 

[mentaluproar]

How is this legal? Wouldn't denying payment that you used to support before, at no cost difference, be considered anticompetitive?

 

[ptb42]

I wonder if Apple will start banning apps, say for example Target, should they start integrating MCX?

That's an interesting question. Apple requires in-app purchases to go through their system (and they get a large cut). Amazon had to rework the Kindle app to disable purchases, for that reason. If Target were to add MCX support to their app, does it become non-compliant? For matter, is the MCX app non-compliant with Apple guidelines?

It will be interesting to see if Apple and/or Google tells MCX: you had better redefine "mobile payment solution" to exclude Google Wallet and Apple Pay, or your app will be rejected. One could make the case that either one isn't really a "payment solution": it's simply an emulation of a contactless card.

Of course, MCX could always do it with HTML5, and not require an app at all. But, I'm not sure that can be secured.

 

[h4ck]

"we'll have own own mobile wallet" why? why not use what works, what people trust and EXISTS NOW?

cool, you'll have your own "mobile wallet" -- and i won't be using it, nor will i be shopping there.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Which is more irrational- Apple fans disliking other companies, or people that dislike Apple posting in Apple forums day in and day out?

I see so many people on MacRumors that only participate in negative discussions about Apple. And if the discussion is positive, they do what they can to bring it down. It's as if it pains these people to see others liking Apple and their products on an Apple forum.

They're both irrational.

 

[Keirasplace]

Of course this would happen. There's all kinds of competition from two sides, other mobile-pay companies (and systems) on the one hand, and the established credit-card companies on the other. And this kind of competition involves all kinds of pressure, subtle as well as blunt, to "encourage" retailers to do it their way. It's a no-holds-barred free-for-all right now, and, while there might never be a clear winner, some will lose out, and go the way of the Edsel. I hope it's not Apple, but it could be.

An uncomfortable truth for Apple: is it really all that hard to swipe a credit card, an established, globally well-known system which we already have, incrementally updated to increase security - and thus, would entail no additional system revamp or hardware investment for most retailers in the world? What, for the average consumer, makes ApplePay more attractive than that - beyond the "cool" factor?

You seem to have NO CLUE. I'm not swiping anything (In Canada). The US is a retard in payment tech, that's a fact and its not even moving towards chip and pin, a total disgrace.

Apple is using a tech that's on the way up WORLDWIDE, simply integrating the various components that already exist in one easy to use solution. Touch ID and the fact there are no CC numbers in possession of Apple is the extra that Apple brings to this existing NFC solution.

NFC payments have nothing to do with apple. I can right now do NFC debit payments in Canada (Interact) in several tens of thousands of POS. The only issue here is that I need to actually carry the card I want to pay with, but otherwise its basically the same.

The US has 50% of all CC frauds and I'm pretty sure that they don't have 50% of the world economy or credit cards.

The "alternative" offered by those retailers is basically just about worse than the status quo, instead of trusting your CC cards to them, you trust your god damn bank account!! WTH!! To companies that have let release more than 100M CC cards numbers in less than two years!!

 

[AppleScruff1]

Your post shows a complete lack of understanding the issue. Read this.

"If I’m reading this right, and I think I am, these retailers who are shutting down their NFC payment systems are validating that Apple Pay is actually working, that people are actually using it. And remember, it only works with the month-old iPhones 6. Think about what happens a year or two from now when a majority of iPhones in use are Apple Pay enabled.

Think about what they’re doing. They’re turning off NFC payment systems — the whole thing — only because people were actually using them with Apple Pay. Apple Pay works so well that it even works with non-partner systems. These things have been installed for years and so few people used them, apparently, that these retailers would rather block everyone than allow Apple Pay to continue working. I can’t imagine a better validation of Apple Pay’s appeal.

And the reason they don’t want to allow Apple Pay is because Apple Pay doesn’t give them any personal information about the customer. It’s not about security — Apple Pay is far more secure than any credit/debit card system in the U.S. It’s not about money — Apple’s tiny slice of the transaction comes from the banks, not the merchants. It’s about data.

They’re doing this so they can pursue a system that is less secure (third-party apps don’t have access to the secure element where Apple Pay stores your credit card data, for one thing), less convenient (QR codes?), and not private.

I don’t know that CVS and Rite Aid disabling Apple Pay out of spite is going to drive customers to switch pharmacies (Walgreens is an Apple Pay partner), but I do know that CurrentC is unlikely to ever gain any traction whatsoever."

Oh I think I understand it quite clearly.

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I know the outpouring here is just crazy, I'm sure you can still pay by credit card and cash, but nobody wants to anymore.
Just like people used to like Bose, but now they hate them.
Me, I'm im just chilling out listening to U2, oops.

U2? You mean that group that violated my rights and gave me a free album and forced me to listen to it non stop? That U2?

 

[Keirasplace]

They're both irrational.

Someone disliking a company that impacts the use of their Apple product in an APPLE forum is not irrational at all unless you can produce some new surrealist definition of irrational.

Irrational is someone HATING Apple but compulsively spending a whole day in an APPLE forum bitching about people there being annoyed that they can't use one of their purchased product's function because of a company's specific action. This takes a special level of OCD.

BTW, reinventing english and reality to suit your POV is slightly irrational too ;-).

 

[Renzatic]

U2? You mean that group that violated my rights and gave me a free album and forced me to listen to it non stop? That U2?

This would've never happened if The Edge were still around.

 

[AppleScruff1]

This is not about today, or tomorrow, or next week.

This is about who owns the future of cashless payments. Whether it's a company who understands that the problem needed to be addressed from a standpoint of convenience, privacy and security, or a series of companies who want to prevent that from happening, and continue to use your transactions against you.

But you knew that already...

If Microsoft or Google came up with the exact same system and Apple wasn't involved in cashless payments in any way, there wouldn't be an uproar if a merchant refused to implement it and people here would be saying who needs it, I'll just use my credit cards or cash.

 

[Mak47]

For everybody whining already, perhaps it would be nice to think about why they might do this? It's not like this is a service Apple is providing for free. Just because you don't have to pay for it doesn't mean somebody isn't. I don't know what Apple takes from these transactions and it is certainly not unheard of to have higher rates for those that are not affiliated with a certain program, so it could very well be that paying through Apple Pay costs them all or most of their margin.

Now I don't know about you guys, but if I had a company and customer convenience like Apple Pay cost me my margins I'd cut it off faster than you can say Apple Pay. None of you guys work for free, and neither should shops.

If you had a company with that mindset you wouldn't have it for long. I do own a company. It's a small one, and most of our customers pay invoices with checks, but we take credit cards. The minute I can get my hands on a way to take Apple Pay I will.

Why? Because it's in my interest to make it as easy as possible for my customers to give me their money. It's also in my interest to not ever touch their credit cards--I don't want that liability.

Do you know how hard retailers work to get customers in the door in the first place? How much that costs? Even if the merchants paid Apple's fees (which they don't) it would't even be noticeable. Apple's fee is a fraction of the merchant credit card fee--which is a fraction of the transaction--which is still less expensive than handling cash or risking personal checks.

On top of that, Apple Pay is incredibly secure. How much business have companies like Target lost after their high profile security breaches? They should be on their knees for Apple Pay after that.

This isn't a minor convenience. It's the difference between going to a store in a nice part of town and one on a street where you're likely to get your wallet stolen. Which one would you go to?

Once I upgrade to an iPhone 6 and can use Apple Pay, I won't use my cards without it. It's not about convenience, it's about security. If a retailer doesn't respect my choice to protect myself in that way then they don't want me as a customer.

If these retailers have another plan down the road I will happily give them the opportunity to convince me that it's better, but until then, why force consumers to put their data at risk? Why volunteer for that kind of bad press or liability?
There's no legitimate business case for it. It's short sighted and foolish.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Someone disliking a company that impacts the use of their Apple product in an APPLE forum is not irrational at all unless you can produce some new surrealist definition of irrational.

Irrational is someone HATING Apple but compulsively spending a whole day in an APPLE forum bitching about people there being annoyed that they can't use one of their purchased product's function because of a company's specific action. This takes a special level of OCD.

BTW, reinventing english and reality to suit your POV is slightly irrational too ;-).

Like I said, both are irrational.

----------

It kinda does.

I know that some think it does.

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This would've never happened if The Edge were still around.

Where did the Edge go, over the top?

 

[simon48]

This would've never happened if The Edge were still around.

Am I missing something? The Edge was standing right there when they announced the deal.

 

[scottsjack]

Hey, I don't care if you want to put your credit card information into your phone, or some website, or however you want to do it.

The immature uproar over some company not endorsing your chosen payment alternative is ridiculous though.

Cart stuffing, trying to convince everyone that you're idea is the only way, etc... that's ridiculous.

You'll have to eventually accept that some places will accept Apple Pay, and some won't. Just like people accept that some places accept American Express / Discover Card, and some don't.

Slamming an option based on a model that saves people money and is proven to leave more cash in the consumers pocket, while relentlessly trying to convince everyone that they should partake of ridiculous immature behavior in protest of stores which never intended to support Apple Pay is ridiculous.

In essence, your incessant need to convince the world to follow Apple, become angry, resort to childish actions, and so on..... You know what... take it easy, don't get so wound up... Use your phone where you can if you wish, and use whatever payment options are otherwise available when you're somewhere else.

This thread has shown that the fanboys are on a clear mission. It's not really about security. It's not really about saving time. It's about the longstanding tradition of taking on "The Man" and supporting "The Underdog" and fighting the good fight. The problem, is that somewhere along the way, people failed to notice that "The Underdog" became "The Man" that they were fighting against.

In the end, Apple Pay will be an "Also ran", another option that became available. It will not become the way of the world. Sorry.

There are not enough Apple Fanboys to make it a dominant player.

Apple's strategy relies on one thing, the success of the iPhone. But, the reality is that most iPhones are sold to people who already had iPhones. Just like most Macs were sold to people who already had Macs and felt they needed the latest and greatest.

iPhones aren't on a path of taking over the entire market. And, any store that places all it's eggs in Apple's cart will do more to hurt their sales than anything else.

Adopting a more universal payment option that is crossplatform is more sensible if someone is going to adopt an electronic payment system.

I personally have owned phones from every company. And, I will likely own other phones from other companies in the future. I have no strong ties to Apple's iPhone. Consumers are fickle. I've seen more people move away from the iPhone in the last year than buy a new one. And, the few who didn't move away, didn't upgrade to anything at all, some still use their iPhone 4.

I don't know anyone that is going to buy an iPhone 6. My cellular company offered a free iPhone 6 and 6+ update to all of their subscribers a couple of weeks ago, because they wanted to push them. Guess what, that was the quietest day I had ever seen in their history. Nobody showed up. I went in and paid my phone bill, and that was the first time I had never seen another person in the store besides myself. Usually they have about 60 customers backed up at any given moment. This time, major iPhone 6 give away, heavily promoted, signs everywhere, email campaign, text message campaign, and nobody showed up for a free iPhone 6.

I considered it while I was there to pay my bill, but ultimately preferred to stay with my iPhone 5. And, I'm glad I did.

You know what's really funny, a week later, they gave away Motorolla's, and the place was packed, and spilling out the door.

Your observations are spot on. Based on their posts here I've concluded that a huge number of this thread's posters are immature, brainless lemmings who erroneously think that mindlessly endorsing and worshiping Apple somehow makes them less immature and brainless. Not so.

 

[Renzatic]

Where did the Edge go, over the top?

I dunno. Last I heard of him, he said he felt numb or something.