“Earlier this week, pharmacy chain Rite Aid shut down unofficial support for the Apple Pay and Google Wallet mobile payments systems, resulting in an outcry from users who have been testing out Apple’s new system since its launch on Monday,” Eric Slivka reports for MacRumors.
“Rite Aid was not an official Apple Pay partner, but the payments system generally works with existing near field communications (NFC) payment terminals anyway, and many users had had success using Apple Pay at Rite Aid stores early in the week,” Slivka reports. “It now appears that fellow major pharmacy chain CVS is following suit and as of today is shutting down the NFC functionality of its payment terminals entirely, a move presumably intended to thwart Apple Pay.”
Slivka reports, “The reason behind Rite Aid’s and CVS’s moves to disable unofficial Apple Pay support in their stores is presumably related to their participation in Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a retailer group developing its own mobile payments system known as CurrentC.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: CVS redefines futility in laughable fashion.
Related articles:
Barron’s takes Apple Pay for a spin: ‘The system worked flawlessly’ – October 25, 2014
New ‘MasterCard Nearby’ app lets Apple Pay users easily locate merchants – October 24, 2014
Mossberg reviews Apple Pay: ‘Worked smoothly and quickly’ – October 24, 2014
Apple Pay today and tomorrow – October 24, 2014
List of banks slated to support Apple Pay soon – October 23, 2014
Cashiers don’t understand Apple Pay and it’s totally adorable – October 23, 2014
American Express and Visa love Apple Pay – October 23, 2014
Apple Pay: Yet another game-changing revolution from Apple as the digital wallet pays up – October 23, 2014
Shopping with Apple Pay: Convenient, problem-free and even fun – October 21, 2014
McDonald’s: Decision to support Apple Pay was easy – October 20, 2014
Apple Pay launches today and retail will never be the same – October 20, 2014
Tell CVS what you think:
http://www.cvs.com/help/email-customer-relations.jsp?callType=store&topicid=200018
It’s hitting their Facebook page now also. Give ’em hell!
Just sent them a message to support their decision and reminded them that 60% of American smartphone users could not care less about the yet untested Apple Pay!
Hey, Jimmy, please FOAD already and go back from your AWOL to suck on your Mommy’s (Scamscum) teat in your basement.
As fate would have it, went to Walgreens this AM to try out my first apple pay….worked flawlessly! Surprised the cashier who hadn’t seen it in action. Used to go to rite aide which is closer…they are making a big mistake…
#1 rule of commerce: The customer is King & is always right. Provide paying customers quality & convenient customer service. EPIC FAIL CVS & RITE AIDE!
Here’s what I sent to CVS Customer “[Dis]Service”:
I’m not sure why your company wants to offend its customers, but the choice to disallow NFC payments such as Google Wallet and Apple Pay is probably something that MBA and marketing students will be using as case examples of stupidity for decades to come. Business 101: When a customer wants to buy what you have, sell it to them. Make them want to come back and it again from YOU, not a competitor.
You have customers are smart, have higher incomes and the willingness to spend it, and are also technologically knowledgeable. Sounds like the kind of customers you want to attract rather than annoy and disenfranchise.
Perhaps you should also remind yourself about what customer “service” means, but not to worry as I’m sure you’ll have fewer customers to worry about offending if your company keeps this policy in place for long. The customers you have left will turn you into another Kmart.
I’ll be taking my money and rewarding other merchants from now on so they can prosper, not you.
Very nice message!
I agree with that logic…. but:
they do NOT want to pay the credit card fees (2-3%) and they DO want the customer’s purchase information. THOSE are what drives this decision for Walmart, CVS, etc.
NFC is all over Asia – I use it daily in Singapore for shopping (groceries, petrol, etc), public transport, parking..you name it. Apple Pay could be everywhere once they get the banks onboard…
The reason they shut it down is because it’s working, probably for the first time since they installed the equipment. And that’s just one week after it launched using devices that are only about a month old.
What will they do while Apple keeps selling every phone they can make?
Too bad I was first Passbook customer at my local CVS Friday morning. This afternoon I was the second customer at 3 PM. That is 29 hours. I am in heart of Apple land, Silicon valley. So no pain for CVS here. What would it be in redneck android country? Not much.
1. Punishing the people that work at CVS/RiteAid retail stores for what the corporate weiners do won’t help, all it does is punish people that are trying to earn a living.
2. Walgreens does not accept TriCare which is an enormous slap to to the face of retired/active duty mlitany and their families.
Just my .02
I logged on to both CVS and RiteAid’s website and sent this complaint. I edited it based on who I was sending it to.
“I was very dissatisfied to find out that not only is CVS not officially supporting Apple Pay but they are actively disabling their NFC payment options because Apple Pay might compete with some useless mobile payment option that CVS plans to come out with next year.
CVS would do well to note that iPhone users tend to be among the most well heeled customers around, with a proven track record of being willing and able to spend money.
There is a Walgreens only a few blocks further from my home then CVS. They fully support Apple Pay and obviously don’t hate money like CVS. They’ll be getting all my business until this huge CVS mistake is reversed and Apple Pay is supported or at least not actively thwarted.”
Good letter, I’ll have to steal it if you don’t mind.
My guess is that Rite Aid and CVS are shutting down Apple Pay in favor of an insecure, hackable NFC technology that should be banned from retail. But we’ll see.
If there really is a competing technology with Apple Pay that is just as safe and just as much a leap beyond crap NFC tech of the past, bring it on!
Meanwhile:
CurrentC Is The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt To Kill Apple Pay And Credit Card Fees
Rather than NFC, CurrentC uses QR codes displayed on a cashier’s screen and scanned by the consumer’s phone or vice versa to initiate and verify the transaction. The system is also designed to automatically apply discounts, use loyalty programs, and charge purchases to a variety of payment methods without passing sensitive financial data to the merchant….
Thanks to research shared with TechCrunch by Stanford student and developer sleuth Andrew Aude, we have more details on MCX’s plan and a closer look at the CurrentC app…
IOW: Nope. No NFC involved! It’s different, I’ll say that.
I’ve got an idea. Everybody go to Rite-Aid and CVS stores and fill up a cart with stuff. Then go to the register and let the cashier check out all the full cart of items. Then try to pay with Apple Pay. When it doesn’t work and the cashier says they don’t support it, tell them in that case you’ll have to forget about it and go to Walgreens, then walk out of the store with none of the items you had in your cart.
Doesn’t that sound like a good way to protest this insane behavior on the part of ass hole businesses?
Piss on CVS. I’m headed to Walgreens from now on. I read another story that said that CVS is also doing this so that they can collect information on customers. That’s likely their real reason. They can’t find other ways to make profits, so they want to exploit customer information in order to do so.
It reminds me of when Radio Shack cashiers used to demand your info before they would ring you up. Weasels, i stopped going there because of it & would drive 40 miles for a specialty cable instead.
NEWS FLASH — Evidence surfaces that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer buys controlling interest in CVS.
CVS flip book at 11.
Lol!
Come on people, have you done the math? Do you know what the fees for Apple Pay are? Do you know how many iPhone 6/6+ owners there are? Less than 20 million possible Apple Pay customers in a nation of over 360 million.
I regularly encounter businesses who refuse to accept American Express due to its ludicrous merchant fees. Why would we expect a system that does NOTHING to reduce credit card fees to the merchant to be popular? I the competing system to Apple Pay can be used today by the 100+ million people toting Android NFC-equipped phones AND it costs the merchant less than Apple Pay, then you know very well why the war of payment systems is playing out like this. Apple will have to reduce its fees if it wants to maintain a competitive position.
No. Apple Pay doesn’t cost the merchant any more than the default credit card rate AND the merchant can negotiate a lower rate than the default credit card rate because of the significantly lower risk of fraud by customers using Apple Pay.
Who fed you this misinformation?
According to Macrumors, Apple charges a .15% fee. Until the merchant finds a way to pass this increased cost to consumers, they have to eat the fee. Since approximately 0% of Apple Pay fanatics have stopped carrying their physical credit cards, it’s probably not a bad bet for these megachains to cater to the loudmouths who want to dictate that merchants support whatever Apple offers, regardless of financial impact.
Mike, Apple is charging the banks this 0.15% fee, not the merchant. And not only are the banks NOT just charging this fee through to the merchant, they actually say they will REDUCE the % fee charged to the merchant [so the merchant saves money accepting Apple Pay vs a credit card swipe] because the Apple Pay system is so fraud-resistant.
I’m switching. The Walgreens is right across the street from Rite Aid. Piece o’ cake.
In Oregon we say, “What’s CVS.”
This two “smart companies” loosing one big thing Innovation and afraid of good great ideas…bad real mistake before Christmas ….cvs pls no more cigarettes ,,,,,lol
Once this is disabled, everybody should go in to CVS and fill 2 carts full of shit, let the clerk ring up and bag everything, then when it comes tome to pay, whoops? You don’t support apple pay? Have fun restocking that shit, laugh and walk out.
I will not inflict such pain on a store clerk who is a powerless and hapless employee with little or no influence over a policy made by greedy bastards in three-piece suits in some far away, and doubtless cushy, corporate office.
I have already notified CVS and Rite-Aid that I will no longer be doing business with either of them.
Lots of posters who don’t know what Apple’s fee is or who it’s being charged to.