storewanderer

Tried fuel prepay at 7-Eleven again and again Tap has some kind of a limit (appears to be $75). So I attempted $125 prepay again with Tap but card instead of phone. This employee just kept telling me to tap over and over and over again not reading the error on his side that was coming up and taking two customers behind me on the other register. Finally I just inserted the card and it processed that way and after remove card this alert flashed on the screen "HAVE CC & ID AVAILABLE FOR ASSOCIATE." The employee was working on two registers and he came back over to mine and pressed something and cleared that alert and the receipt printed. No signature prompt and he didn't have any interest in "CC & ID." I tried to converse with him regarding the Tap not working but he wasn't interested and said I need to get out and pump fuel because the prepay expires in 2 minutes and if I don't get out there in time we will have to do it again.

7-Eleven is a pathetic joke. ID prompt with Chip Cards...? Zip code with Chip cards on the gas pumps. No Contactless on the gas pumps. This is really a lousy and backwards operation.

tmiw

In more positive news, one of the Wendy's locations here finally got around to switching out their terminals. AmEx contactless worked without issues, though it took longer than expected for it to actually read my card.

storewanderer

The Wendys I reported to Visa for previously having NO APPLE PAY signs posted despite having the new pinpads removed those signs and installed Apple Pay stickers and stickers showing other contactless forms accepted. You have to put your card at the top and sort of behind the pinpad to make it tap (same for the KFC pinpad and Raising Canes pinpad and Carls Jr. pinpad). Sort of weird but works fast once you know where to put the card. This pinpad model is designed to have the screen/keypad/Chip reader facing the cashier and this is why the Contactless part is positioned so oddly when the unit is facing the customer. I don't know why they're putting pinpads in designed for cashier facing, at this point, but we've definitely discussed that topic a lot here before.

So most of the Wendys in my area now accept tap; they just put in new pinpads (old registers are still there). The other Wendys franchisee installed new registers supposedly believing that was needed for them to accept tap, but did not replace the pinpads, and those older pinpads still do not accept tap. I think there is some confusion regarding what needs to take place to make it so tap will work and Wendys corporate is obviously doing a terrible job or just not communicating how this needs to go.

tmiw

I don't think the Lane/3000s are designed to be cashier facing. The PIN pad (which would quite likely be optional in the US market and possibly not installed at all by many merchants) and contactless reader would be separate units if that were the case.

Anyway, for me, tapping the side with the LCD and contactless logo seems to work fine at the places that use it. At Wendy's, I did have to position the card a bit further down so that it was also covering the screen, but that could have been a side effect of the Bonvoy card being metal.

storewanderer

One thing if they are going to start pushing for two networks and allow the merchant to select what network to route, what better thing to do than have a network that has a lower cost to the merchant because that network requires PIN for all transactions (to cut down on fraud risk), this may be part of why we keep seeing pinpads installed even at places that don't seem to need them.

Also US Foods Chef Store with its really clunky set up of the semi integrated FD200 monster for every 2 registers is now requiring a signature on a $6 purchase with a chip card (or any purchase on a chip card). Talk about going backwards. At least you get to see a little moving Visa logo on the screen that animates and plays a funny sound as it processes your transaction, then the signature box comes up. Maybe next they'll bring back swipe.

tmiw

It's not guaranteed that the second CC network (assuming that bill ever does become law) will require PIN. It's just as possible that the second network will work more like PINless debit, especially since PIN has never been a thing for credit.

tmiw

Looks like the Speedway/7-Eleven Shell stations are finally turning EMV on outside. The contactless readers (at the locations with them) are still disabled, though. In retrospect, I should have tried a PIN preferring card as the screens after I inserted looked pretty similar to what I saw at the one unbranded 7-Eleven here that also has EMV at the pump (thus it's possible I would have gotten a PIN prompt).

Anyway, while contactless would be better, at least I wasn't asked for my ZIP code.

storewanderer

So the interface was different from the typical Shell interface for EMV?

It is my understanding 7-Eleven has not done any IT integration with Speedway at all yet. If that is actually the case then the Shell would still have the Verifone register for Shell (and Speedway Radiant for store purchases).

Shell does not utilize zip code prompting for EMV at pay at the pump at all, at least to this point. If you find a Shell that is still on swipe, it may prompt for zip code at the pump only for the swipe transaction if the pump even lets a swipe transaction process; gas pumps have been advised to disable Fallback and from what I can tell many have (same set up for Chevron as I describe for Shell).

tmiw

I thought it was, but I should check again and make sure. I'll update once I get a chance.

tmiw

We were at Burlington tonight and I noticed that there was "tap" wording on the terminal now (which of course only appeared after the cashier pushed a button on their end; until then, it just mentioned inserting). I presume it works fine but will need to go back and confirm.

storewanderer

I forgot there is a third possible Shell interface- the one that would be used at a Circle K/Radiant Shell site with Gilbarco pumps: it would be identical to the Circle K (unbranded) EMV at pump interface.

Given Speedway uses Radiant I wonder if they somehow got the Shell processing to run through the Radiant like the Circle K Shells (which are rapidly losing Shell branding). Given there are only ~15 or so Shell/Speedway sites I am not sure they'd go to the trouble... but Speedway was using a Verifone register for the Shell pumps/payment processing. Typically 7-Eleven with these arrangements with a gas brand/separate register for the gas/pumps from the store, always uses a Gilbarco register. So maybe they put a Gilbarco register in and turned on the Gilbarco Shell EMV. Having a gas station in SoCal that is not running EMV at this point is a completely braindead decision, you will get eaten alive by fraud. But 7-Eleven seems to have a ton of sites like that. Shell may be tired of paying for the fraud and said put the EMV on or deactivate pay at the pump. Next watch 7-Eleven remove the Shell branding, rebrand to 7-Eleven, and turn the EMV at the pump off and move pumps back to swipe+zip code (7-Eleven's favorite fraud prevention method, along with an ID prompt none of the employees care to enforce in the store).

tmiw

I mean, there are unbranded 7-Elevens with EMV out there (mainly using the vertical readers), even if there don't seem to be all that many. (For instance, I've only been to two ever; one in San Diego and another up in Riverside County.) I wouldn't expect them to rip EMV out completely at the Shells but I wouldn't be surprised if the contactless readers went away, either.

Majuki

I saw a man who appeared to be paying with a phone at Walmart tonight. He appeared to tap the device near the mag stripe reader, so I was wondering if he was using Samsung Pay. It didn't appear like he was scanning the barcode on the screen for Walmart Pay, but I can't say for certain since I was at a distance while waiting for one of the self checkout lanes to become available.

tmiw

I went back to that one Shell/Speedway station tonight. When I used my PIN preferring card, I wasn't asked for it (nor my ZIP code), which was pretty much the same as pretty much all other Shell stations. In fact, the only way you can tell prior to pumping that it's owned by 7-Eleven is the 7Rewards entry when you go to choose the rewards program to use:



I also went inside and only saw one MX915 at the register (and the prompts, etc. were all identical to what shows up at every other Shell station). Additionally, unlike outside, contactless did work.

Anyway, considering that there's no integration with 7-Eleven IT yet, I wonder if the locations that use two MX915s inside are still swipe-only outside or if they also managed to enable outdoor EMV at those. There's also that oddball location with the Europe-style pumps that would be good to check for EMV, too.

scibot

Well Kroger might buy Albertsons/Safeway and if that happens you can kiss contactless payments goodbye at Safeway/Albertsons. I know they use a very similar pos system so merging them wouldn't be that hard but it cannot be allowed to happen as it will leave many places with a grocery store monopoly.. It would be a huge step back for contactless unless Kroger finally enables contactless.