storewanderer

Tried to do a fuel prepay in store at 7-Eleven of $140. Used my phone to tap and it was stuck on processing for a while then the cashier said "it didn't go through it says transaction amount exceeds tender type limit." I had her lower the prepay down to $77 and that processed without issue.

So I guess 7-Eleven has a transaction amount limit for tap even with device verification. This is in the US.

Has anyone else encountered this?

storewanderer

I still think both chains will eventually cave. They are turning away transactions every day in every store from people who do not have a physical card and only Apple Pay or Google Pay. Talk to any front end supervisors at either chain and you will hear about it. It is also as you point out an efficiency issue. A few seconds adds up when you are doing thousands of transactions a day at thousands of store locations and labor continues to be more costly and more difficult to find. Also the Chip reading equipment is costly and seems to break often; tap equipment given its Contactless nature should not have that issue unless it is deliberately vandalized. At this point it isn't even about customer convenience, it is about efficiency.

tmiw

If you think about it, the US reaching ~20% user adoption of contactless (with it getting into the 40s in places like NYC) despite still having a significant number of merchants where it's difficult to impossible to use it is actually pretty impressive. Granted, we needed a pandemic to happen to get to those levels, not to mention that the probably ~10-15% of merchants not supporting it will likely set an adoption ceiling that's lower than in many other countries.

Anyway, while many of the other holdouts might be able to ignore contactless for a while (claiming/thinking "it's just Canadians that use it, Americans don't want to"), that may not be the case for Kroger. Unlike the others, Kroger knows how many people use contactless at QFC (which is a US brand with US locations) but still doesn't consider it in high enough demand to bother flipping the switch at all of their other brands. The question now is, what would be considered "high enough" to Kroger and the others to make it worthwhile? Especially since many of the holdouts in general seem to think that it's a better use of their time to focus on online ordering/curbside pickup/etc., which themselves could provide efficiency if enough people choose those instead of shopping in person.

(Speaking of Kroger, one Ralphs location I occasionally visit had to resort to putting "no Apple Pay/tap" stickers on all of their MX915s. That location is near a major university, though, so it may not be representative of demand across most of their other locations.)

cbn42

The question is not how many people would want to use contactless, but how many people would insist on contactless.

Even if the majority of customers at QFC are using contactless, most of them could easily insert a physical card, so it's a non-issue. Kroger has probably observed that trends in QFC's customer counts aren't any different from the rest of the chain. They did a similar thing a few years ago when they stopped accepting Visa at a couple of banners, and I'm guessing they monitored customer counts to see how much of an impact it had.

Right now, I don't know a single American who doesn't carry their physical credit/debit card around with them. Contactless is popular but it's not yet "leave your card at home" popular like it may be in Australia or some European countries. And as I mentioned earlier, driving to another store in order to save 4 seconds at checkout is irrational.

I expect the holdouts to fall in line eventually, but I don't think it will be soon. After EMV chips were introduced in the US, it was several years before the majority of merchants accepted them, and to this day there are some that don't. My best guess would be Walmart and Kroger will cave some time in 2024-25, but that's just speculation.

storewanderer

Kroger ended its little game of not accepting Visa right before the holidays; that "trial" didn't even last a year at Smiths (125 stores). It lasted over a year at FoodsCo (about 15 discount format stores in very low end neighborhoods in Northern California; there are similar chains in Northern California including franchise Food4Less Stores run by independents and WinCo Stores that also do not accept any credit cards). Some Smiths lost 20% of their business over not accepting Visa (some didn't lose any...) and it was particularly bad for them over 4th of July/Labor Day. They were scared to try it for Thanksgiving.

There are people who go around without their physical card. This is why places without Apple Pay have to post signs saying as such... and I am seeing more and more of those signs at these hold outs, or places with broken equipment.

Also I expect the networks to mandate Contactless acceptance sooner rather than later. What will be interesting is when they mandate it in the US, and if Kroger/Wal Mart drag their feet (knowing they could flip a switch and make it work) or just turn it on immediately once a mandate is announced. Lowe's with its very old POS is likely to run into some issues and I have no idea what Home Depot's problem is.

There is a new skimming thing going around too. No issue for folks who use Contactless though.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/09/...-atm-skimmers/

cbn42

I don't think that's the reason why. I think it's just to save time, so people don't wave their phones around for several seconds before inserting their card. Cashiers are probably also tired of telling people.

Most of the cases I've heard of someone being caught without their physical card are foreigners. If Americans go out without their physical card, then it's usually intentional, because they know the places they are going have contactless enabled. I'm sure there have been some cases of locals being caught unaware, but they are exceedingly rare. I did see one at Ralphs, but he had enough cash.

I doubt there will be a mandate from the networks any time soon. There is really no reason for it, given that EMV contact chips are considered just as secure as NFC, and there will be issues some merchants like sit-down restaurants. Banks may also oppose a mandate, as they don't want to pay Apple a cut for even more transactions.

As for the skimming thing, the easiest way to fix that is to get rid of mag stripes.

tmiw

IIRC even in places like the UK, tapping a physical card is still more popular than tapping a mobile device. I expect the same to be the case in the US (if not more so) given the relatively high number of merchants that will likely never get customer facing equipment any time soon.

It will really depend on customer demand. If average usage nationwide caps out at some number lower than 50%+, for instance, I can see the holdouts never bothering as they can claim that "curbside pickup/whatever other technology better serves our customers" or something if they're ever challenged on it.

I don't think the networks will given how late the US adopted EMV in the first place (basically when everyone else was already moving to contactless, so hardware containing both was relatively easy to come by for American merchants). Mandates were needed elsewhere because in some cases, stores installed hardware without contactless support until recently.

Maybe not as much as we think if we assume employees will be allowed to tap for customers. Mobile device users might have some issues, of course, but mitigating those could be as easy as just having those people use QR instead.

(Yes, they're supposed to always have the customer tap, but as it's pretty much a cultural thing to have some industries run cards for customers here I don't see that being heavily enforced any time soon either.)

Banks in the US also have more leeway thanks to our relatively high interchange fees, so they may not be too concerned yet. (Though if that one bill mandating dual network routing for credit cards gets signed into law, it might be a different story.)

PrendellHiggins

Contactless mandate is for retailers, not for banks. Banks will likely feel the need to start producing more contactless cards, though, which are oh-so-slightly more expensive than non-contactless ones. No bank has ever been or will ever be forced to support a mobile wallet. It's all been in response to consumer demand.

tmiw

On the other hand, given that at least a few thousand banks and credit unions do support mobile wallets at this point, it pretty much is a standard feature now. Then again, it's also possible that the people who would care about that likely have already changed banks to one that does.

cbn42

Even if the mandate is for retailers, banks may still object to it because it would increase the number of Apple Pay transactions. Apple's fee is paid by banks, not retailers.

tmiw

I went to Boston Market for lunch today and apparently their P400s don't like AmEx contactless ("Declined By Card" when I tapped my Bonvoy card). Inserting the same card worked fine, though, and it also worked fine when tapped at the following place I used it (which also use P400s, but with a different UI).

diburning

Go to any grocery/convenience/drug store in a city with a student or young professional population and you'll see it. They are lots of people who go out for a walk/jog and didn't intend on buying anything (so they only leave their house/apartment with their phone), but when they inevitably end up at a store (to use the restroom, or to buy a drink) they're going to be tempted to make other purchases and/or go grocery shopping.

Banks are experts at passing costs along to customers.

Majuki

That has been my observation as well with the most recent data point being two weeks ago (and over the 6 or so trips in the last 4 years). What I have noticed is that the contactless limit seems to have increased considerably. I forget what the limit was previously, but I remember attempting to tap or use a mobile device where the cashier or terminal would inform me it was over the purchase limit.

On a separate note, I received a new Fidelity HSA debit card, and I'm surprised that it has contactless (and can be added to Google Pay). We switched administering banks at work a few years ago, and the previous bank didn't even have EMV on its HSA debit cards.

scibot

Arby's Lane/7000s doesn't like Discover contactless but all other networks work just fine. It says card failed or something like that.

storewanderer

So it appears the US Food Chef Store that used to be Smart Foodservice and changed POS software last week, actually now process cards through a monster FD200 unit that somehow talks to the cash register (they don't actually do anything on the FD200 to process the card). There seems to be one FD200 per 2 cash registers. This would explain why the Lane pinpad activates initially only for insert/swipe then they have to go through a couple more steps to get it to activate for tap. There is also zero information on the receipt about the card transaction, no xxxx card number, AID etc. I will try the Chip card and see if it brings over any AID etc. or if they are flat out not compliant with bringing the card information like AID onto the receipt.