Apple Pay Problems Continue to Annoy iPhone Users

Apple Pay officially launched earlier this week alongside the release of iOS 8.1. However, initial use of the new payment platform has hit a few roadblocks so far.

Some users have been getting double-charged when using Apple Pay at stores, with one user claiming he was charged twice while shopping at Whole Foods using his Bank of America debit card through Apple Pay. Bank of America notes that this particular problem is on their end and have been working on a fix.

Overall, it still seems that while Apple Pay is a good idea, it’s seeing a shaky start. Some users are saying that they still have to enter in their PIN number on the keypad even after authorizing the payment on their iPhone.

Furthermore, some stores aren’t even training their employees properly on how to accept Apple Pay. One Reddit user said he went to Subway and the cashier had no idea how to get an Apple Pay transaction going, saying that the cashier couldn’t figure out how to use it, and “then a QR code appeared on the terminal, but there was no option on my phone to scan it.”

Another thing that has users scratching their heads is how returns are handled if you paid for the product using Apple Pay. One user says that returning an item at CVS required swiping the credit card that the item was purchased with, but since you can’t exactly do that with Apple Pay, this forced the cashier to essentially override the system in order to return the money.

Other people have been having zero problems in-store, but using it in apps that support Apple Pay has been a different story, with multiple charges showing up for a single transaction for some users.

No one is quite sure if this problem is on Apple’s end or the bank’s end, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see both sides blaming the other, although Apple confirmed that these glitches were a formatting problem in the data and are looking to fix it.

Other issues include requiring to sign-in to shopping apps that support Apple Pay, even though the new payment platform doesn’t require it. For example, the Target app allows individual items to be purchased one at a time using Apple Pay, but adding multiple items to your shopping cart and then checking out prompts users to sign in or create a Target account before checking out.

Of course, that’s definitely on Target’s end, and we’re sure that many stores will need some extra time to tweak its support for Apple Pay in order to get it to work flawlessly, but it’s something that’s still rather annoying to early adopters of the new payment system.

Perhaps the biggest annoyance to Apple Pay users is that many big retail stores simply refuse to accept Apple Pay as a payment method, including Best Buy, Walmart, and now Rite Aid, which quit accepting Apple Pay entirely due to a contract it set up with another competing payment platform.

Apple Pay allows you to store your credit card information on your iPhone and use it to buy stuff at any store that supports Apple Pay. The iPhone 6 has an NFC chip that allows you to tap the pay terminal at a store to instantly buy goods. Furthermore, doing this doesn’t give the store your credit card information, so you’re less susceptible to store hacks that steal credit card information, similar to the recent Home Depot and Target hacks.

Apple Pay also works with mobile shopping apps, allowing you to pay with a single touch of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in shopping apps that support the feature.

However, these features are kind of useless if they don’t work, so hopefully Apple and banks can work together to get any bugs sorted out.