Apple Pay Problems Frustrate iPhone Users

Apple Pay has been out for several months now, and while the initial hype of the new payment platform has somewhat subsided, problems and issues with the service are still on high alert.

One big issue that many users have been experiencing is that it seems retailers either aren’t training their employees enough on Apple Pay, or stores are just downright ignoring it.

For the most part, though, it mostly seems that 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.”

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.

Furthermore, a Facebook friend of mine said he went to McDonald’s and tried to pay using Apple Pay, but the cashier literally responded, “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t pay with apples here. We only accept debit, credit, or cash.”

I’ve personally even tried to use it at a Walgreens and when I put my iPhone 6 up to the pay terminal, nothing happened. Normally, Apple Pay would automatically pop up and prompt me to scan my finger using Touch ID. However, this didn’t happen and instead, I ended up having to fish my debit card out of my wallet to pay for my stuff.

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 6.

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 issues we’ve seen 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 and CVS, which quit accepting Apple Pay entirely due to a contract it set up with another competing payment platform.

Apple Pay and wireless payment platforms in general are great ideas and are quite revolutionary, but they’re kind of useless if they don’t work, so hopefully Apple and retailers can work together to get any bugs sorted out soon.