Publix Rolling Out Apple Pay at Checkout

[CarlJ]

I wish Home Depot would get on board with contactless...

IIRC, they had it for a brief period after Apple Pay came out, because their terminals supported NFC by default, and they turned it off.
[automerge]1585672582[/automerge]

Fantastic! Now come on Wal-mart and at the pump at Shell stations and I will be good.

Walmart still wants you to use their app instead, so they can get all the money. I mean, it's only a dozen or so taps, plus waiting for the app to load and such, instead of just unlocking TouchID/FaceID and holding the phone near the terminal.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Just make sure to use Apple Pay with a credit card, since if you have a card that can be used as a debit card, you’re going to end up having to touch the card reader that everybody else has been touching.

It depends on the store. Usually I can use Apple Pay (with a debit card) and it goes through without touching the reader.

It's much better than using a physical debit card... where you must push a ton of buttons:

Is this a debit card? YES/NO
Is the amount correct? YES/NO
Type PIN... 1,2,3,4,Enter

That's SEVEN button presses. And you have to use both your hands to retrieve your debit card from your wallet.

Apple Pay is SO much quicker... even if you do have to touch a button or two (but I usually don't depending on the store)

 

[Mr Retina]

Yesssssss. Finally can get 2% on my groceries there with my Apple CC.

 

[Ry L]

I wish Home Depot would get on board with contactless...

Home Depot used to work early on, then after they realized what was happening they blocked it...

 

[Blackstick]

Their new/remodeled stores have it, they’ve been rolling it out to the existing ones... now is a good time to do so. I’m friends with one of their IT people in South Florida. He’s been going around to all the stores replacing POS terminals. About time.

 

[ghostface147]

Come on HEB and Krogers.

 

[cub850G2]

Here is a Publix social media person who also confirmed contactless is being enabled or already is.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1245017766031233024

 

[kylew1212]

Come on HEB and Krogers.

Kroger would be a game changer for me. The Kroger near me just upgraded their gas pumps in the last few months to accept chip cards. NFC no where in sight .

 

[Michael Scrip]

The Kroger near me just upgraded their gas pumps in the last few months to accept chip cards. NFC no where in sight .

Damn... the last few months... for chips?

At that rate... you'll get NFC in 2031

 

[tbayrgs]

That doesn't make any sense... I thought they couldn't be separated (maybe I'm wrong?)
Every card issued in the last 10ish years has contactless, why would a shop disable it?

They were part of that initial group (included Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot and others) that was trying to develop their own payment system to circumvent traditional merchant processing fees. Consequently, they turned off the contactless readers on their terminals. Ultimately it fell apart (Target and Best Buy left early and have had contactless for a while now) but Walmart and Publix existing QR code options were they own attempts to do this. Both were terrible and gave each merchant access to your purchasing/usage data.

The latter. The terminals at my local Publix all were update for chips and it’s the same ones in use elsewhere that support Apple Pay/contactless payments, but they disabled them from the start.

This ^.

I totally hate to burst your bubble but I think the story is all WRONG. Publix just rolled out the "Publix Mobile App" which uses their app to read the QR code at the register, this is NOT ApplePay. The app works the same way that Walmart uses their own app.

Publix Super Markets

ww4.publix.com

I wish/hope that I am wrong but I don't think so.

As many others have already stated, this option has been out for a while, and is a terrible solution, IMO.

I can confirm that AP is in fact an option at Publix. I was literally dumbfounded to see it available yesterday...one of the last regular merchants I visit that doesn’t use it.

Now if both Home Depot and Lowes would get on board...
[automerge]1585673953[/automerge]
Its lack of availability on gas pumps is what boggles my mind. They are literally the most frequently leveraged terminals for fraud and in the greatest need of the additional security contactless payments afford yet around here, only Wawa have them.

 

[Airforcekid]

Fantastic! Now come on Wal-mart and at the pump at Shell stations and I will be good.

Shell's mobile app supports Apple pay it works pretty well plus the extra discount for using the app. I only use Shell Vpower 93 in my car.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Now hopefully Harris Teeter follows suit. They used to support Apple Pay for a short time, but discontinued the option. They're the only grocery store in my immediate surrounding area that doesn't support Apple Pay.

 

[Böhme417]

Damn... the last few months... for chips?

At that rate... you'll get NFC in 2031

I can't think of any gas station that actually reads a chip at the pump. There are none near me.

Plenty of stations are starting to have nfc readers as well, but none of them work. 🤷‍♂

 

[ufgatorvet]

How are they just getting Apple Pay now? Shouldn't they already have it, as it comes "packaged" with normal contactless.

At all the Publix's I go to, none of them currently have contactless checkout credit card machines. It's not turned off, it's not even "baked in" to their device.

 

[MisterSavage]

Finally. FINALLY!

I can't believe they were still pushing their in-house version with scanning QR codes to pay. So many other grocery chains accept Apple Pay already. Publix was one of my last pain points where I couldn't use it.

 

[BlendedFrog]

Got an official response from their twitter account...it's real

 

[lartola]

How are they just getting Apple Pay now? Shouldn't they already have it, as it comes "packaged" with normal contactless.

They didn’t have contactless at all, that’s why. Publix has been holding out of it for years just as walmart or home depot do.

 

[DribbleCastle]

It reminds me of why I hate QFC (Kroger). I've been complaining to them for years. Only major store I shop at that doesn't use Apple Pay.

 

[lartola]

Every card issued in the last 10ish years has contactless, why would a shop disable it?

That maybe true for Canada and Europe, but it’s definitely not the case in the US. In the US 99% of the cards are still chip only. Besides, a number of retailers in the US including Walmart, Kroger and, until now, Publix, have kept their contactless readers shut off for years because they refuse to accept apple pay. They’re blocking a ton of other forms of payment in the process because, as you correctly said, apple pay can’t be blocked individually (or at least it’s really hard to do), but they clearly couldn’t care less.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I can't think of any gas station that actually reads a chip at the pump. There are none near me.

Oops... you're right.

The pumps near me let you insert your card... but then it says "Remove card quickly" which means it's a mag-stripe reader.

I can't recall seeing an actual chip reader at the pump either.

So if the earlier poster does have chip readers at his pumps... they're more advanced than the rest of us!

 

[lartola]

There are two possibilities: 1. Their card terminals were ancient (by European standards) and didn't have contactless support at all. 2. They went out their way and intentionally detected Apple Pay and stopped it from working. That has happened.

It’s none of the two. Those stores have modern enough terminals and simply turned off all their contactless readers leaving them as chip/magstripe only readers, not caring if other forms of payment such as contactless cards were also being left out of use at their stores.

 

[MauiPa]

I love Apple Pay more than ever lately. I bought some medicine at Walgreens yesterday and only ever had to touch the meds - all exposure was limited to just that one hand. I used the other hand to pull out my iPhone and pay. I walked home, dumped out the bottle out of the little box, tossed the box and washed my hands. Super safe.

Just make sure to use Apple Pay with a credit card, since if you have a card that can be used as a debit card, you’re going to end up having to touch the card reader that everybody else has been touching.

Luke, use the Apple Watch, it’s even easier! DV

 

[lartola]

Most stores have disabled it. Years ago Home Depot supported it before Apple Pay became a big thing. Back then just a few bank cards supported it so I doubt they even thought about it. Once Apple Pay was out for a few months they disabled it on all their terminals.

What they disabled was nfc, not just apple pay. By doing that, they stopped accepting not only apple pay, but also every single other form of payment that uses nfc such as google pay, fitbit pay or even contactless cards.

 

[jaytv111]

That doesn't make any sense... I thought they couldn't be separated (maybe I'm wrong?)
Every card issued in the last 10ish years has contactless, why would a shop disable it?

Contactless can definitely be disabled in the reader. So it can be "separated". The networks (Mastercard, Visa, Discover, Amex) don't require merchants to accept contactless, just that they accept chip/EMV (if they don't have EMV nowadays the retailer is liable for fraud from breaches).

Many retailers decided they wanted to push their own payment apps (and before Apple Pay came out, there was a consortium called CurrentC which was a retailer-friendly mobile payment platform which completely collapsed as there was nothing but confusion and near zero adoption of the service). Like how Walmart has Walmart Pay, they can use this to try to promote their own store cards and such (Walmart benefits if you use the Walmart card for instance, but if you use a non-Walmart card there isn't too much benefit for them, it's just a platform to get you onto their other platform).

Oops... you're right.

The pumps near me let you insert your card... but then it says "Remove card quickly" which means it's a mag-stripe reader.

I can't recall seeing an actual chip reader at the pump either.

So if the earlier poster does have chip readers at his pumps... they're more advanced than the rest of us!

The gas station pumps have to start accepting chip payments soon. There will be a switchover on fraud liability in October, this year. Retailers had the same switchover in 2015, gas station pumps were exempted but this year it's going to push them to chip readers. It may push some to accept contactless too, but like retailers they won't be required to take contactless.

 

[zinacef]

Fantastic! Now come on Wal-mart and at the pump at Shell stations and I will be good.

I was at a Shell gas station over the weekend (here in AZ) and they had the NFC attached to the pump. Never saw it there before so maybe it’s coming later on. Plus, don’t know if it was functional or not as I use their Shell app along with Apple Pay to pay for gas, and as @Airforcekid mentioned above, it works out really well by giving me discounts on the gas.