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Rite Aid Disables Apple Pay Support After Initially Accepting Payments

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Apr 12, 2001
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A growing number of Apple Pay users are angry with retailer Rite Aid following the reported disabling of the mobile payment service within the past 24 hours. Apple Pay should technically be compatible with any point-of-sale systems supporting NFC technology, but customers who made successful Apple Pay payments earlier this week have found their payments were being denied yesterday and today.

applepaysetup1.jpg
Among the disgruntled users was Josh Hudnall, who shared his experiences and his conclusions that Rite Aid is deliberately crippling its payment systems to prevent Apple Pay transactions.
Today, Allison asked me to pick up a few things on my way home from the office, and I'm a major nerd, so naturally I was all too happy to oblige. I was equally disappointed, then, when my transaction was declined with a message on the terminal informing me that Apple Pay was not supported. The terminal mentioned Apple Pay by name. So the system is smart enough to know about Apple Pay and to decide not to take it.
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Hudnall spoke to an associate who claims Rite Aid recently sent an email informing stores that the retailer is not accepting Apple Pay payments, and Hudnall speculates it is because Rite Aid is a supporter of the upcoming CurrentC payments system from Merchant Customer Exchange. Competitor Walgreens is also one of Apple's biggest launch partners for Apple Pay.

According to Twitter reports, the retailer also unexpectedly turned off support for Google Wallet at the same time. Rite Aid has not confirmed the shut down of these services, nor commented publicly on these reports.

@Futment @riteaid system IS compatible. @riteaid blocked it and Google Wallet today. Both worked yesterday. Bad business decision.

-- Yoshi (@YoshiTheShiba) October 22, 2014
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Apple Pay launched earlier this week in a debut that was relatively smooth for most customers. As demoed in a McDonald's transaction, payments are processed almost instantly at supported terminals with the press of the Touch ID sensor on the phone.

The most publicized hiccup occurred with Bank of America customers, who were accidentally charged twice for their purchases. Bank of America confirmed that the issue only affected a small number of users who will receive refunds.

Article Link: Rite Aid Disables Apple Pay Support After Initially Accepting Payments
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/23/rite-aid-disable-apple-pay/
Man Apple is messing up once again. Reminds me of Microsoft in their prime. yay yah I know it's the pay providers not Apple :rolleyes:


Save yourself the quotes. My point was that these inconsistencies should have been handled ahead of time. I have no confidence in Apple Pay right now. As I said before I tried to use is 3 times and it worked 1 time. My credit card has never let me down and until it gets to that point it's just easier for me to pull my card out.

And for the record I bought the iPhone 6 strictly for Apple Pay...
 
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What the hell is merchant customer exchange? That's fine, I'll just get my drugs from Target instead.
 
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MacRumors said:
A growing number of Apple Pay users are angry with retailer Rite Aid following the reported disabling of the mobile payment service within the past 24 hours.
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"How quickly the world owes us something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. Can Ya give it a second!" - Louis CK
 
this just seems like a poor choice. It is payment they are paying the same amount as if i swipe my amex.
 
gaximus said:
How is this Apples problem?
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iLoveiTunes said:
For F sake do read the articles once in a while before jumping the gun :rolleyes:
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These are all things that should have been worked out ahead of time. What good is a system that you never know will work. You need to build confidence in a system to get people on board. Right now I've tried to use my Apple Pay 3 times and it worked 1 time.
 
I've read and been told that a terminal doesn't need to have an Apple Pay sticker on it for Apple Pay to work. It just needs to have the contactless payments icon (below) to work. So...is that not actually the case?

contactless-lead-1355413251.jpg
 
EDIT: I get it
bpeeps said:
Merchants aren't being charged, the deals are with the banks. Merchants pay the banks a fee already for using their credit services, the banks then pay Apple a percentage whenever Apple Pay is used.
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Eitel said:
You do know that the the credit card companies pay this fee, right? The retailers pay the credit card companies like they always had before.
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Menel said:
That comes out of VISA's cut. Not the retailers'.
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ptb42 said:
The merchant doesn't pay the fee to Apple. The issuing bank pays it.

There is no difference in fees for the merchant.
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Shin3r said:
If I'm not mistaken, those payout deals were with the financing banks, not individual retailers to give Apple the money. I'm not aware of merchants having to shell out for this.I was under the impression that merchants supporting Apple pay was for advertising, and probably (and I'm speculating here) those merchants who do not use competing services like isis for instance.
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sohelpme said:
No. That is 100% wrong.
.
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MyopicPaideia said:
Seems Rite Aid actually turned off NFC completely. Retailers don't pay anything extra when acceptong Apple Pay, it is excruciating to continue to see people spreading that false information.

Apple's 0.15% comes directly out of the standard 1.5-2.5% transaction fee retailers pay to Visa, Mastercard, Amex or Discover.
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starbird said:
Apple isn't taking money from the store. That would require they know where we shop, which they do not.
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sycadog said:
The retailers don't care what apple gets paid because it has no impact on them. Apple is not paid by the retailers and no fees are passed to the retailers. Retailers see no difference between contact and contact-less payments.
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Popeye206 said:
Apple pay has nothing to do with the resellers cost. They pay their typical bank fees and processor fee's… Apple is getting their cut from that.

This is just stupid move by Rite Aid. I'm guessing they will reverse this decision within a week. They have no reason not to take other than CVS is Apple launch partner.
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coltman75 said:
The retailer doesn't pay the .15%. The retailer pays the same fee that they pay for every other credit/debit purchase. Visa/MasterCard/AmEx/et al is the one paying that fee.
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The country will be back to segregation in 10 years. This time, it will be Apple, Android, and everyone else, as the different ecosystems evolve and create alliances with different organizations.
 
tigres said:
Easy, no shopping at Rite Aid.

No big deal, see ya Rite Aid.
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Tru dat. I do a lot of business at Rite Aid but Walgreens are popping up close by. I will switch. I'm amazed that any store would find ways to chase out customers.
 
tobefirst said:
I've read and been told that a terminal doesn't need to have an Apple Pay sticker on it for Apple Pay to work. It just needs to have the contactless payments icon (below) to work. So...is that not actually the case?

contactless-lead-1355413251.jpg
Click to expand...

Apparently, some stores turn that feature off. At least that has been that case for me.
 
NachoGrande said:
These are all things that should have been worked out ahead of time. What good is a system that you never know will work. You need to build confidence in a system to get people on board. Right now I've tried to use my Apple Pay 3 times and it worked 1 time.
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What the..... did you not read the article? It worked yesterday, but Rite Aid blocked it....

please read carefully!
 
saving107 said:
The issue I don't believe is if it works but rather the deal they have to make with Apple because Apple wants a percentage of the transaction and not every retailer is going to be on board with that.
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Merchants aren't being charged, the deals are with the banks. Merchants pay the banks a fee already for using their credit services, the banks then pay Apple a percentage whenever Apple Pay is used.
 
So if both Apple Pay and Google Wallet aren't working, does that mean they are simply disabling the NFC reader? Or are they doing something on the backend?
 
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