AllieKat

Contactless is no CVM

tmiw

Only up to $50, then it depends on the card.

tmiw

The DC card appears to work with at least one of the vending machines at work in contactless mode now. Google Wallet probably still doesn't work but I'm going to blame that on the readers being Softcard branded and/or something with the acquirer.

RedLight2015

I've used both GW and Apple Pay at SoftCard branded machines before. Must be the acquirer

tmiw

I wish it did because the vending machines here give me 2x with the CSP and it's not contactless. Oddly enough contactless would improve reliability with their swipers (likely because it would become a plastic card instead of metal).

scibot

A good day today as I used Google Wallet at a Phillips 66 that is owned by a company that owns BP's and they only have one Contactless reader, but a person has always been on it when I'm there and it still works great. I see a few other Conoco's and a few other Phillips 66's that are on the Paypass locator. I wonder if all these independently run Conoco and Phillips 66 stations will ever get Currentc? Also I tested Google Wallet at Big Lots as they had the Verifone MX915 which didn't say anything about supporting Contactless as on the screen all it said was "Please swipe card now.", but it still went through and I hope they don't turn it off. On the receipt for Big Lots and the Phillips 66 station it says MasterCard (S) for Swipe as its Contactless MSD.

AllieKat

Sounds like Michael's (I know others are reporting it turned off, but it worked for me as recently as last week). Transaction goes through with NO indication on screen, receipt says swiped.

tmiw

I may have been a bit too optimistic about contactless before. I'm thinking now that it'll still never be as popular as it is elsewhere, but Apple Pay and Google Wallet will get enough adoption that merchants won't buy the contactless-free terminals (or turn it off) to save money.

The only way it'll get nearly the acceptance that it has elsewhere is if there's physical cards too. But so far only a couple of issuers have such cards and one has to explicitly ask for such a card to get one, with the exception of Diners Club. I don't really see anyone asking for such a card if people don't see chip and signature (or chip and no CVM for small transactions) as such a big deal. Which is a possibility since transactions won't take that much longer compared to swiping.

RedLight2015

I really wish Steve Jobs introduced Apple Pay before he died, he would have strongarmed these retailers into accepting contactless, and Walmart and Best Buy wouldn't have even tried with CurrentC, as Apple would have shamed them to hell.

tmiw

It's not even CurrentC/MCX. Even with widespread EMV adoption, the US implementation of chip and signature just isn't "annoying" enough to provide a justification for people to adopt contactless, especially since the country is effectively chip/swipe and no CVM in the first place. And outside of the Northeast, there's no mass transit related use case for it either. Not to mention that the few issuers who have physical card contactless have to make it opt-in because of the undeserved bad reputation that it has.

Don't get me wrong, people will still adopt Apple Pay and Google Wallet/Softcard. It's just not going to be as much as Visa and MasterCard had hoped.

scibot

My first ever Google Wallet transaction was at Hy-Vee with an MX915 and it also had no indication that it supported Contactless, of course they turned it off soon after I had used it although they are part of MCX while Big Lots is not part of them so hopefully they will just leave it alone(Fingers crossed). The Hy-Vee receipt of course says [S] for swipe, if it looks just like a regular transaction, how do they know to turn off Contactless? A few Michaels are listed on Paypass locally too, but no reason to ever go into them to test it out. I tried GNC and Contactless was turned off on the MX915. The cashier knew it was off as I asked him about it and he told me that they turned it off at all GNC locations.

AllieKat

Someone with actual knowledge of programming the MX915 will have to confirm this, but it seems to me that the DEFAULT behaviour of the MX915 is to construct a magnetic stripe data transaction from a tapped card if EMV isn't programmed. Shops actually, therefore, seem to have to go out of their way to DISABLE contactless when they get these terminals. Is this the case? Perhaps only with some software?

zolk

That's not true, and I'd suspect that over the next few years many transit systems will adopt contactless-based "open fare" systems to replace their proprietary fare media.

Chicago launched the nation's largest open fare system (Ventra) last year. The Ventra-branded fare cards are just contactless MasterCards. You can alternatively use any contactless bank card to pay fares or store passes. I currently use my Chase debit card to pay, but have also used Google Wallet and Apple Pay.

BMO Harris Bank has previously ran an ad campaign encouraging use of their contactless sticker to pay fares. Currently, Softcard and American Express are running a promotion where you can get half back on fares if you use their system to pay (with several catches and limits, of course).

AllieKat

I think Steve Jobs would have been the first to support CurrentC, inside Passbook of course. He acted as if he was a huge fan of pay-by-barcode instead of NFC.

tmiw

I hope so. I have a Compass card (San Diego's proprietary tap to ride thing) because the trolley requires it, even though I ride once a year; would be nice to just use the AmEx or DC cards instead.