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

John.B said:
So we'll all get cents-off coupons to a drugstore and the lawyers will get new estates in the Hamptons... SMH
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Right. Anyone here that thinks the law firm gives a crap about them are crazy and stupid. Actually the whole idea is stupid. How in the world can a store be forced to take certain kinds of payments? It's up to them. That's like telling them they MUST carry certain products or they MUST be open certain hours.

What a joke. Are cell phone users that obnoxious that they are going to freak out if they can't swipe their phones to pay for stuff now. Calm down. :rolleyes:
 
WTF? Greedy apple doesn't get there way and now want to force these businesses to accept apples BS payment system? What's next. I get sewed for not using my iphone to pay for stuff so apple can get there percentage of the payment. These businesses can accept or deny what every they want. No different than businesses only take visa and not american express. Up to them. Pure friggin greed! I don't plan on using any phone to pay for anything. Cash or credit cards only. FU apple!
 
Merchants can choose what platform or form of payment with which to transmit and accept currency. Paper, plastic, PayPal, check, wire transfer, or a combo. They can say 'we accept this brand of plastic card but not that brand of plastic card.' They can say 'we won't accept certain denominations of cash.' They could say 'we only accept newer issues of the $100 bill that have authentication features and not older $100 bills.' Nothing wrong with that.

What IS wrong is for merchants to collude together and create their OWN, novel platform of payment transmission, and in direct coordination with the creation of that platform, purposefully drop and/or block other, similar, competing platforms that they had previously accepted.

To shop at Costco you have to get an AmEx card because that's the only form of payment they accept (other than cash.) AmEx and Costco have a partnership. Costco didn't create their OWN card or make you open a banking account or a line of credit with THEM. They made you do it with AmEx.

OK - Not a perfect analogy but here goes:

Studios can release movies on the formats of their choice. Big screen, Netflix, DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS, LaserDisc. Theoretically a studio could release their film with only specific preferred theater chains, or they could decide that they are only going to release Blu-Rays and not DVDs. They could partner with Netflix and make it available there exclusively. Nothing wrong with that.

What WOULD be wrong is if Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros colluded together and created their own 'Red-Ray' disc and 'Red-Ray' player, that would only be able to play Fox, Disney, and WB discs, while simultaneously somehow bricking their previously released BluRay and DVD discs. If Disney, Fox, and WB opened their own nation-wide theater chain, and announced they would not be releasing their films in any other theaters, no one would be balking when theater chain owners filed an anti-trust lawsuit against them.

But WAIT! APPLE IS A MERCHANT! And while they didn't collude with other merchants to create it, they DID create their OWN platform (which of course they accept), and they DON'T accept the competing CurrentC platform in their stores! HAH!

But wait... CurrentC doesn't exist yet, and NFC has existed and been in use for years. Ok, so what if Apple did what MCX is doing? Let's say QR payments came out years ago, and was in use lots of places, including Apple. Then all of a sudden when MCX comes out with CurrentC and lots of people adopt it, Apple blocks/drops QR payments from their stores because 'Hey guys, we created our OWN thing called NFC and Apple Pay, it's not ready yet, but hey we won't have to pay fees to MCX! Sorry but if you want to buy an Apple product with a mobile device, you're going to have to use OUR platform (when it comes out.) What would everyone be saying in reaction to that? maybe...hmm... APPLE TAX!
 
bearcatrp said:
WTF? Greedy apple doesn't get there way and now want to force these businesses to accept apples BS payment system? What's next. I get sewed for not using my iphone to pay for stuff so apple can get there percentage of the payment. These businesses can accept or deny what every they want. No different than businesses only take visa and not american express. Up to them. Pure friggin greed! I don't plan on using any phone to pay for anything. Cash or credit cards only. FU apple!
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I don't think you understand what has happened here. Greedy apple is not filing suit against the greedy merchants.

But you are playing right into the hands of the greedy merchants.
 
wxman2003 said:
This is just silly. Last I recall, the only thing stores are required to accept for payment is cash. They don't have to accept credit cards, NFC, checks, etc. It's their right to refuse those forms of payments, and their right to fail if they do or don't. Blood sucking lawyers have ruined this country, just look at Congress.
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They may have a case because you CAN use credit cards by swipe, but not by NFC, so they are forcing you to share information that you wouldn't have to use if you used cash (your card #) while being unable to guarantee security of that data.
 
rjohnstone said:

Merchants can and regularly do, refuse payment types and/or methods that they are not contractually obligated to accept.

As for consumer harm, there is none.

Consumers can still pay using the card(s) tied to their Apple Pay account.
They just can't use Apple Pay method.
They're inconvenienced at best.
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I agree there is no harm, at least not to me.

On the other hand, I CAN use Apple Pay to pay for my purchases. I just can't do it at CVS. The only inconvenience is that I have to go across the street to the Walgreens to do it.
 
iceperson said:
How would the market decide if retailers collude to prevent competition? When businesses collude to restrict choice the consumer loses which is why most governments don't allow it...
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These retailers are in all different industries and each has competitors that will be using Apple Pay. Furthermore, some MCX members are extremely weak minded and will panic and leave MCX quickly. Best buy, for example.
 
Lennholm said:
Don't see how this could warrant a lawsuit, how could they be obligated to accept a certain payment method? If they're not allowed to refuse the payment methods they wish, why would Apple be allowed to do so in their app store?
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They take credit cards but not credit cards via NFC. It's like accepting cash, but not coins, or accepting debit from some bank branches but not others when it's the very same bank.
 
RF9 said:
In that case I think it depends if it's a monopoly or they have significant dominant market share. But, no, exclusivity alone isn't illegal. Conspiring to cut someone else out that is already there might be.

In this case they agreed to be exclusive for a period of time long before Apple Pay was ever announced. Also they aren't a monopoly. People can (and are) shop at competing stores. I'm no lawyer but it doesn't sound illegal.
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Walmart's in the group. That along gives significant dominant market share. 7-11 is too, which in the convenience store market, is huge.

Can the lawyers win? I'm not a lawyer, I can't say, I don't know the details. But it's a group of merchants who got together to create one form of mobile payments and explicitly excluded all others. "We'll get together and only do this and we'll block everyone else" is generally a very risky thing to do.
 
this is going to go no where. Besides it is not like Apple solution does not have its own issue of being standard Apple propriety BS. You can bet that they will target that part on the defense and ask how Apple pay is not any worse.
 
loanhighknight said:
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.
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Another example: You're alone late at night buying something at CVS. You can't do a mobile payment and you are forced to use your credit card or cash instead. Someone else in the store notices and follows you out, mugs you, takes your cash and/or forces you to tell them your pin# or just takes you to an ATM and forces you to withdraw cash. (Yes I know iPhones 6s could be targeted by a thief as well, but iPhones don't spit out cold hard cash. You have to sell them on the black market. Taking cash or even a credit card is a much easier and more tempting crime of opportunity.)
 
Apple can fix this easily. They just have to add a rule to the App Store that all payment facilitation apps cannot be used for systems that block ApplePay as an alternative (worded carefully to not affect situations that are merely technically incompatible, such as stores without NFC).

MCX would have a stark choice: either not be available on iOS, or stop blocking ApplePay at retailers that have NFC capabilities otherwise.
 
Kaibelf said:
They take credit cards but not credit cards via NFC. It's like accepting cash, but not coins, or accepting debit from some bank branches but not others when it's the very same bank.
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When exactly did it become a case for a lawsuit to accept dollar bills but not coins?
 
Kaibelf said:
They may have a case because you CAN use credit cards by swipe, but not by NFC, so they are forcing you to share information that you wouldn't have to use if you used cash (your card #) while being unable to guarantee security of that data.
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Can Apple guarantee with 100% certainty that NFC is secure?
 
Kaibelf said:
They take credit cards but not credit cards via NFC. It's like accepting cash, but not coins, or accepting debit from some bank branches but not others when it's the very same bank.
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Big difference between cash vs credit cards, nfc, etc. Cash is backed by the full faith of the US government. Credits cards, NFC, etc are not. They are backed by the lending institutions. So if fraud occurs with those forms of payment, the US government does not back it. You have to rely on the lending institutions to make it right.
 
ellsworth said:
This is ridiculous and will never fly. Err... I'm sure I'm wrong. A retail shop has the right to NOT use whatever technology they please. Heck, just use cash. Silly!

I wonder if these lawyers would create a class action lawsuit if Nabisco stopped making Oreo cookies or if Baskin Robbins ditched their Jamoca Almond Fudge flavor?
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Of course they have the right to not offer NFC payment options. What they don't have is the right to collude with competitors over the question of whether to offer NFC payment options.
 
avanpelt said:
Someone would be foolish to guarantee 100% security on *anything*. That said, we know definitively that the swipe method is not secure.
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The most secure form of payment is cash. Anything else is use at your own risk. No one forces you to use Credit cards. No one forces you to use Apple Pay, google wallet, checks, etc. You dont provide any info to merchants, or enter anything into your phone when you use cash. You choose to take that risk when you choose not to use cash.
 
hudson1 said:
Of course they have the right to not offer NFC payment options. What they don't have is the right to collude with competitors over the question of whether to offer NFC payment options.
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Will you feel the same way if Apple and Google were to pull the CurrentC app from their stores effectively colluding to force NFC?
 
wxman2003 said:
This is just silly. Last I recall, the only thing stores are required to accept for payment is cash. They don't have to accept credit cards, NFC, checks, etc. It's their right to refuse those forms of payments, and their right to fail if they do or don't. Blood sucking lawyers have ruined this country, just look at Congress.
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for the 900 billionth time...stores are not required to accept cash!

Or Apple Pay/Credit Cards/etc.

That thing on the front of money means, that it's money, not what to do with a private business. A private business can require you to pay in chickens and an iPad if you want. Reminder: Amazon, eBay, etc do not take cash. And if anything it's illegal to mail cash per the USPS. So there goes you paying your bills in pennies.
 
wxman2003 said:
The most secure form of payment is cash. Anything else is use at your own risk.
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What???

Cash is the LEAST secure form of payment. If you lose it or it's stolen, it's gone. It can be easily physically destroyed by a flood or fire or by your washing machine.

If cash was the most secure form of payment checks wouldn't have been invented.

If you don't specifically make sure to get a receipt you have no record of your transaction.

Hell, the cashier could miscount your money, you could accidentally give the cashier a $20 when you meant to give a $1 and that cashier could pocket it.

All physical forms of payment are susceptible to forgery, counterfeiting, theft, and are especially vulnerable during transit or being held in large quantities. Just look at the ridiculous infrastructure of security cameras, alarms, vaults, armored trucks, etc., just required to house it.

Not to mention it facilitates black markets, money laundering, and tax evasion.
 
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