Law Firm Investigating Potential for Class Action Suit Against Rite Aid and CVS for Blocking Apple Pay

[i-John]

Apple Haters are so stupid, I think All payment options should be available for everyone, same way as visa or master card choices are now you decide how you want to pay for your goods, whats their plan? open Android pharmacies or Android only Walmart? This is getting ridiculous those haters don't want to be part of this FREEDOM

Is AMEX available everywhere? Is Google Wallet available via NFC on my iPhone? Is Apple Pay available on other NFC capable devices? Since all payment options should be available. I want to return to the barter system, where I can barter to pay for my gooods. Maybe livestock, gold, or maybe I could work for the stuff?

Since you want ALL payment options available, why not force all retailers (and Apple) make all these options available... or it is just the options YOU want

 

[deadshift]

... I went to Walgreens twice today. The store also uses a loyalty card in Passbook...
Why these stores can't support both NFC and CurrentC is confusing. Nothing would ever persuade me to use CurrentC.

Yet you use a loyalty card. What if CurrentC gave you 5% off, would you be willing so give up your privacy to currentC for 5% just like you do with your loyalty card? That's the choice that's coming.

 

[hudson1]

Is AMEX available everywhere? Is Google Wallet available via NFC on my iPhone? Is Apple Pay available on other NFC capable devices? Since all payment options should be available. I want to return to the barter system, where I can barter to pay for my gooods. Maybe livestock, gold, or maybe I could work for the stuff?

Since you want ALL payment options available, why not force all retailers (and Apple) make all these options available... or it is just the options YOU want

i-John, you should consider taking some antitrust training. If you are involved with business decisions, it may just help keep you out of jail.

As has been stated several times by several people, merchants are free to decide their own terms and conditions of sale. That point is not in question here. What they absolutely can't do is make an agreement with a competitor that places any kind of restriction on the consumer (unless it's something very specific around protecting consumers' safety or similar). Most important, RiteAid and CVS are direct competitors.

Lastly, participation in trade organizations is heavily scrutinized by the government because we all know they provide a potential vehicle for colluding activities. MCX appears to resemble a trade organization.

 

[BobVB]

Again, all merchants don’t accept all credit cards. Why is that?

This is different, the business does accept American Express they are refusing to accept it via NFC even though they have the ability because they want the customer's credit card information for their records.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

MCX could file against Apple and all the stores they list for collusion. Don't hear them allowing CurrentC at those stores in 2015. What about people who shop at Walgreens, Petco, McDonalds etc that will want to use CurrentC when it's available. Will they deny that right to use that form of payment?

Apple doesn't have an exclusivity agreement with those stores to prevent other forms of mobile payment, including Google Wallet, CurrentC, etc. Therefore, there's nothing to block and hence no antitrust.

 

[mtneer]

I don't know, but it is quite irrelevant. If they are doing something wrong, pointing the finger at someone else maybe doing something wrong doesn't help your case.

But you should realize that this lawfirm isn't doing it to support Apple, and they don't do it to help Rite Aid or CVS customers, the only reason they do it is to make money.

What Rite Aid and CVS are doing is annoying customers, but they have the right to annoy customers and drive them away to other stores.

Quite true. But my question was rhetorical and aimed at the crowd here loudly cheering and clapping at the news of the lawsuit..

 

[Amazing Iceman]

LOL, this only happens in America...

 

[G4er?]

The courts have already ruled that businesses can choose to not accept cash (the only real legal tender).
Can't see how not taking Apple Pay is any different.

 

[kmichalec]

While I disapprove of CVS and RiteAid turning off the NFC to avoid taking ApplePay and Google Wallet, the lawsuit is baseless.

The stores still accept the credit cards that the ApplePay is tied to, so it's just a different way of making the same type of payment. People can pull their credit card out of their pocket and swipe it if they really want to pay using the credit card of their choice if they want to shop at CVS or RiteAid. No detriment to the customer whatsoever. I hope our society has not become that lazy where we need to sue someone because it takes us ten seconds longer to pay with a swiped credit vs using the same credit card through ApplePay, as if it's some major inconvenience and we'd be doing something profound with those additional 10 seconds.

Really, it should be that we vote with our wallets and shop somewhere else if we don't like what decision CVS and RiteAid have made. I use ApplePay and like it, but it's not the end of the world if the store doesn't accept it. But they don't deserved to be sued over it.

We're starting to lose the plot, folks...

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

The stores still accept the credit cards that the ApplePay is tied to, so it's just a different way of making the same type of payment. People can pull their credit card out of their pocket and swipe it if they really want to pay using the credit card of their choice if they want to shop at CVS or RiteAid. No detriment to the customer whatsoever. I hope our society has not become that lazy where we need to sue someone because it takes us ten seconds longer to pay with a swiped credit vs using the same credit card through ApplePay, as if it's some major inconvenience and we'd be doing something profound with those additional 10 seconds.

MCX may still get in trouble for reducing competition specifically for mobile payment system despite still accepting other forms of payment and hence warranting antitrust concerns based on http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/fi...l-competition-fora/1210payment_systems_US.pdf

27. Joint ventures that are collaborations between competitors may warrant antitrust scrutiny. The Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors issued by the U.S. antitrust agencies in April 2000 describe the principles for evaluating agreements among competitors and the analytical framework for doing so.
23 Two broad categories of anticompetitive harm theories are (1) “exclusion” and (2) “overly inclusive joint venture.” For exclusion, harm may arise if a joint venture denies some key element to rival systems and thereby reduces competition.
24 Whether this is a viable theory would depend on factors such as the freedom that the joint venture’s members have to participate in multiple mobile payment systems (“multi-home”), the extent to which the members, individually or collectively, have market power with respect to the denied element, and the availability of adequate substitutes for that element. For the “overly inclusive joint venture” theory, harm may arise if a joint venture’s membership is so expansive, or its rules sufficiently restrictive, as to prevent the emergence or viability of a rival mobile payment system that might otherwise threaten the joint venture’s market power. Factors relevant to this analysis include the joint venture’s exclusivity, membership scope, whether current members would help form competing systems but for the overly inclusive nature of the joint venture, and if so, the impact of such participation on the timeliness, likelihood, and sufficiency of such entry.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Sooo, two things: 1) merchants aren't required to accept cash. Merchants aren't required to accept ANY forms of payment. You could have a business that sold things and didn't accept ANY form of payments, because freedom.

2) This is a civil lawsuit, not a criminal one. The businesses aren't being accused of breaking the law: if the case took off (which is not where it is in the process yet--the firm in question is just asking around to see whether there ARE any people being wronged), these merchants would be accused of wronging customers by colluding with competitors.

Ignoring everyone else in the thread saying this is an insane lawsuit, there ARE some examples of ways in which a customer could bring a decent lawsuit--and that's what the firms here are looking for.

An example: if CVS were to suffer a data breach in the coming months (which, let's face it, is not crazy), an impacted customer in a town where CVS is the only pharmacy around could demonstrate that they WOULD have used ApplePay to pay for her prescription drugs, which would have insulated her from the attack had CVS not capriciously disabled its own ability to accept that form of payment. An individual in such a situation could then be used by the courts to create a class of individuals ("people with capable devices who attempted to use ApplePay at a CVS between 10/24 and present") who could claim damages as well.

It's not crazy in the slightest.

Can you please stop introducing logic, reasoning, fact and reality into this thread? It's clearly not welcome...

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I hope our society has not become that lazy where we need to sue someone because it takes us ten seconds longer to pay with a swiped credit vs using the same credit card through ApplePay, as if it's some major inconvenience and we'd be doing something profound with those additional 10 seconds.

Yea, just like those crazy black people in the 60's, they only had to walk an extra 10 seconds to their segregated toilets, like it was some sort of major inconvenience!

See what I did there? (I totally missed the point).

 

[normwood]

Kill all the lawyers!

Ambulance chasing, anti-trust, slime-ball lawyers are the scourge of our society.

Don't like it? Shop elsewhere.

Problem solved.

Steve

 

[bawbac]

People here can google and now are law experts?
Antitrust... lol

So, what are we going to do about those places that do not accept checks in favor of cash or CC payment?

 

[BigInDallas]

Wah wah wah. Stores aren't taking apple pay. No fair. They suck

So let's sue em. Good lord.

 

[Zetaprime]

Apple Pay looks like the best payment method devised to date in terms of security and ease fo use. I really hope to see it become the norm. When I use it at McDonalds the employees always comment on the rarity of people paying with their phones but appreciate how easy it is from their end, especially after they've been dealing with customers fumbling for change.

 

[RF9]

Apple cut competition out in the front end that brings products to market.

No.

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People here can google and now are law experts?
Antitrust... lol

So, what are we going to do about those places that do not accept checks in favor of cash or CC payment?

Are they conspiring to force their own competing payment method instead of checks?
Because that's the issue, not "not accepting" something.

 

[flaw600]

Untrue. You're like the 900th person in this thread to say this. Sad to say but all 900 of you are wrong.

There is no law stating that my business has to accept cash please stop the misconception. All the stupid thing on the dollar bill means is that it's money. The only law is that I must accept "dollars" not "cash"- the dollars can be in any form, be it, credit cards, Apple Pay, etc.

I can also make you pay in Chickens If I wanted. Do. Your. Research. Please. http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

Also, try paying Amazon or eBay in cash. Thought so.

Stop posting this please!

Once again, there. Is. No. Law. !!!!

Do your research before you type and spread fake laws throughout the Internet.

I know I may be over reacting but I felt that I've typed this about fifty times in every thread involving Apple Pay.

You may be right. All I know is that merchants have gotten sued for not accepting cash as legal tender. Maybe the rule is that if you accept cash, you must accept all forms of cash?

 

[RF9]

Apple Pay looks like the best payment method devised to date in terms of security and ease fo use. I really hope to see it become the norm. When I use it at McDonalds the employees always comment on the rarity of people paying with their phones but appreciate how easy it is from their end, especially after they've been dealing with customers fumbling for change.

I agree on the one end.
But paying with the phone is no less fumbling than a card. Put another way it's as easy or easier to swipe a card in my experience. Maybe since many people might already have the phone at the ready?
I want it to succeed for the convenience paying if I don't have the card and for the added security. I would love to not have to worry about my card number getting out and fraudulently used. Or not have to bring the card and if I'm pickpocketed the thief doesn't have the card. If they got the phone knowing they can't use it to purchase things is great (though losing the phone sucks.)

Either way it's nothing but good for us as an option. I'd love to see nearly universal acceptance. Known now how it piggybacks on an existing credit card tokenization payment system and is not proprietary, anywhere that takes NFC credit cards are able to take Apple pay. So this should only improve as NFC terminal use grows.

 

[dontwalkhand]

You may be right. All I know is that merchants have gotten sued for not accepting cash as legal tender. Maybe the rule is that if you accept cash, you must accept all forms of cash?

I think if you say you take cash, and someone tries to pay in all coins, you're required to take it because you said you take cash, this same argument can also be used against CurrentC, because they said they take credit cards, and have the NFC readers in places, but refusing to take Apple Pay, when you're just using your regular credit cards.

But yes if you say you take cash, you take everyone's cash, unless you have a policy like "No bills over $20"

But don't forget that businesses can exercise the right to refuse service- unless it's not gender/race/sexual orientation/blah blah blah.

 

[Zetaprime]

I think if you say you take cash, and someone tries to pay in all coins, you're required to take it because you said you take cash, this same argument can also be used against CurrentC, because they said they take credit cards, and have the NFC readers in places, but refusing to take Apple Pay, when you're just using your regular credit cards.



But yes if you say you take cash, you take everyone's cash, unless you have a policy like "No bills over $20"



But don't forget that businesses can exercise the right to refuse service- unless it's not gender/race/sexual orientation/blah blah blah.

Where did the idea that a business has a right to refuse service at all come from anyhow? A business is not a sentient being. It's just an artificial construct that should have no inherent rights.

 

[snorkelman]

Forced to turn on NFC and accept NFC payments?

Then they can just insist the customer presents their NFC enabled card at the terminal not some third party device that stores the card details

 

[ILikeAllOS]

which is (probably) legally no different than accepting Visa/MC but not AmEx or Diner's Club.

No, a more fitting analogy would be if CVS/Rite-aid always accepted Visa/MC.
Then a new CC comes out called Amex which is "created" by Apple.
CVS initially accepts this new Amex, along with the previously accepted Visa and MC cards, but then pulls support for Amex AND Visa/MC cards a day later in order to team up with other companies and create an MCX credit card that can only be used at businesses that are a part of the MCX consortium.

Whether you agree with this behavior or not is a different discussion, my point though is that it's not as simple as CVS/Rite-aid just "not accepting" a payment method.

 

[BobVB]

Whether you agree with this behavior or not is a different discussion, my point though is that it's not as simple as CVS/Rite-aid just "not accepting" a payment method.

True, if Apple asking book publishers to set their prices in a certain way is a illegal conspiracy colluding to not accept an entire style of payment because it is competition to the conspirators preferred payment method is no less so.

Yes an individual business can take the payment method they want but for competitors to conspire to exclude a payment method in favor of one they share and prefer after the fact is probably illegal. The crime is in the orchestrated conspiracy.

 

[OatmealRocks]

True, if Apple asking book publishers to set their prices in a certain way is a illegal conspiracy colluding to not accept an entire style of payment because it is competition to the conspirators preferred payment method is no less so.

Yes an individual business can take the payment method they want but for competitors to conspire to exclude a payment method in favor of one they share and prefer after the fact is probably illegal. The crime is in the orchestrated conspiracy.

Exactly, how is it MCX (CurrentC) is not being investigated? It is no different what has happened to Apple with the book publishing issue.

 

[Jeff Meredith]

If there terminals show NFC branding, but turned off It is False Advertising

There is an issue of False Advertising.

At my local Circle K stores, their terminals have the NFC, PayWave, PayPass branding with the NFC symbol. But yet they are turned off.

Yes it is mildly embarassing to try and fail at these places and I end up using cash.

With all of the data breach hacks (Michaels, Target, Home Depot, Neiman Marcus, Bebe, Jimmy Johns') etc it is important that all safe payment methods be enabled.

Them turning off NFC but having it is like buying a bunch of Fire Extinguishers and putting them in their cabinets. You have the Fire Extinguisher symbol and you have lots of fires around you, Data Breaches, and then you remove the Fire Extinguishers. And you expend effort to remove those fire extinguishers. This is False Advertising.

ApplePay and GoogleWallet are credit card payments from the same issuers they are using now so unless the stores decide to not take Credit Cards altogether, they are just inhibiting something that should not be any of their business. Their business should be whether they got paid by the credit cards not the mechanism.

The second thing in turning off NFC is that I believe they are exposing themselves to even greater liability in the event they get hacked. All of the users who used an insecure credit card because they couldn't use ApplePay and they get hacked will have a case that they were actively denied a secure method of payment that works with their payment infrastructure.

The only question is damages and how they are calculated.