reclusive46

Unfortunately Canadian banks have blocked all fallback transactions since 2020 (2018/19 for domestic transactions) due to a significant amount of fraud associated with them.

They’ve also started to block PIN bypass on US transactions, which is causing some of it’s own issues at some merchants who are often processing cards that way, especially restaurants (as opposed to disabling the PIN CVM), but at least I can manually go up and enter it.

My only hope is that the card networks/banks are somehow tracking these transaction declines to try and fix problem merchants.

Realistically I think it’ll be a problem for the foreseeable future and many merchants (especially those away from the northern border) won’t bother fixing it and as it’ll effect a small amount of customers. I’m sure some larger merchants like Target will get it fixed at some point though,

tmiw

The ironic thing is that the few PIN preferring issuers on this side of the border gave up on blocking PIN bypass precisely because of that. IMO we should have just officially made chip and signature the standard (along with requiring merchants to disable PIN support for the credit AIDs) instead of not dictating anything either way (which in effect made the US a de facto chip and signature market anyway but without the benefit of a consistent experience even for visitors).

storewanderer

EMV has been botched in the US. Between this kind of crap, zip code prompts continuing on some gas pumps notably those run by 7-Eleven and Phillips 66/Conoco/76 despite other majors like Shell/Chevron removing the zip code prompt so International cards will work, tip adjust at restaurants still being allowed, and Contactless being disabled at some of the largest retailers in the country, the whole thing has been like many things where all parties involved want to argue with each other instead of just move a path forward that allows for flawless acceptance of International cards and consistent user experiences. I think the past few years with less International travel have caused a lot of these issues to be a "pass" and retailers think what they have done is okay when, in reality, it is not okay, and that is going to become more and more exposed as more and more International travelers come back to the US.

Sorry but I think they should have done Chip and PIN, Contactless at all merchants with a $ limit when a card was used (no limit for a phone with device CVM), tip adjust DISALLOWED (once the card is run- it is run and done and the total is displayed to the customer), etc.

I operate under a tap or fallback policy. I have a card with a Chip that usually doesn't work and don't really care. I am done with "insert card." Well, at those couple of stubborn retail chains that do not accept tap, I insert it 3 times until it fails then swipe it. I am surprised fallback transactions keep getting approved and that I have not been automatically sent a new card.

tmiw

On the other hand, EMV was semi-common in the US by 2017-18 in my experience. The places that international visitors would most frequent (hotels, car rental, most restaurants, etc.) were still swipe then, so international acceptance likely wasn't as big of an issue. Of course, merchant acceptance has grown since then, so...

Much of the rest of the world was already moving to contactless by the time the US finally got around to EMV. While PIN would have been nice, I'm not sure it would have helped that much in furthering our catching up to what was already becoming the next standard. Ideally we would have only been using EMV for maybe a couple of years while contactless infrastructure got put online but we know how that turned out.

Really, enabling contactless should have been mandatory along with EMV in order to avoid the liability shift. I would have even been okay with pushing back the 2015 deadline by a few years to make that happen, especially since merchants have shown that they don't ever want to give up the level of POS/terminal integration that they have.

Speaking of fallback, the Lane/7000s at my local Home Depot are already having a difficult time reading cards. I personally need to insert at least several times before the transaction approves (and had to swipe on at least one recent visit due to insert failing too many times). Apparently this is pretty common according to one employee there. I'm not sure if they're just not cleaning the chip slots like they should or something, or if there's some other factor that's making HD's terminals wear out faster than other retailers'.

scibot

Nope still running as credit and it's now faster as well.

RedLight2015

I know this may sound cliche, but it could be all the sawdust that is inside of a Home Depot. Every Home Depot I have been to has the same issue, very dusty dusty equipment, which I guess can be due to the cutting of lumber, and other materials.

RedLight2015

So it seems that a lot of my local Square retailers enabled NFC loyalty support! And it's one tap along with payment, JUST AMAZING! This is how Walgreens needs to be! My local coffee shop as well as Ben and Jerry's use Square, and I tapped, a notification came up on my phone to add a loyalty card. I paid next time and it sent the loyalty along with the payment. Very cool.

storewanderer

It does feel like those readers hold the card a bit loosely to me, so I could see how with Home Depot being one of the first place that deployed the units, and that Home Depot refuses to re-activate Contactless so everyone is having to insert card, that the units may already be wearing out.

I find those new card readers to be a lot faster than the old ones at Wal Mart.

I've seen them at some other retailers too but those places all had Contactless activated: US Foods Chef Store, Smart & Final, Maverik, Quik Trip, they seem to work very fast at all of those places but I haven't done a Chip transaction at any of those.

PrendellHiggins

Screenshots please!

ecs0013

My local coffee shop did the same thing - at least on iOS, after paying with Apple Pay, I was prompted if I wanted to join the loyalty program on my phone, I think was just prompted for my name and phone number (in case I forgot to bring my phone) and then I had an NFC pass loaded on my phone. It's automatically selected when I pay, much like the other NFC passes that are merchant-aware. It looks like the finished product also is "managed" by the same https://squareup.com/loyalty/profile/blahblah URL if you signed up with Cash App, but you just get different fields and information.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any screenshots of the sign-up process either, but the whole thing is fairly user-friendly - if I come across any others, I'll make a point to document what I can.

scibot

Carls Jr in Love's uses PAR Pay according to this pic I took. So Arby's must use PAR Pay as well probably. The receipt does look similar to Arby's but has chip info.

PrendellHiggins

Retailers' refusal of NFC payments are now interfering with actual government programs. Hopefully this will lead to government intervention to finally mandate acceptance once and for all!

storewanderer

US Food Chef Store (former Smart Foodservice) changed its point of sale software again (this is the second change in the past year or so). I am not sure what this new software is. It is still the old hardware from when they used Smart & Final's NCR system. All of the display screens that face the customer are powered off and no longer work. The Lane pinpads that were installed after the last software change and have a screen saver that says FREEDOMPAY in big letters, now show your items as they scan them. When it is time for payment the pinpads only activate for insert/swipe. The cashier has to press something else to get it so the tap lights up/activates. I watched the customer ahead of me try to tap then when it didn't work just inserted her card. I really hate seeing that but see it more often than I'd like to.

storewanderer

I don't know what Kroger and Wal Mart's problem is. Is it arrogance? Ignorance? Laziness? So much red tape in the corporate that nobody can make it happen? Why is it they cannot activate NFC in all stores?

Kroger proves it works with the acceptance at QFC. Wal Mart proves it works with the activation in Canada. Both Kroger and Wal Mart issue branded credit cards that have the NFC symbol; if they were so anti NFC you'd think the cards would not have that symbol on them.

Meanwhile Save Mart is installing the new Verifone pinpads. The screen now says "TAP OR SWIPE CARD." This is deliberate- they want you to tap, not insert card. The problem is this new Verifone pinpad is very slow to pick up the tap. The new Verifone pinpad no longer has the 4 blinking lights to signify if the tap is taking or not. The pinpad makes such a soft sound when it picks up your tap that you cannot hear it. If you hold your card to the middle of the pinpad it does not pick up. You have to hold the card to the top left corner of the pinpad. I am seeing customers who tried to tap now give up and insert due to this poorly and improperly configured new Verifone pinpad.

cbn42

I believe part of it is the desire to push people towards their own apps (Walmart Pay and whatever Kroger's is called), but I also read somewhere that the mobile wallets use tokenization which makes it harder for retailers to track purchases. No idea if that's true though.

In the end, I think that Walmart at least is so market dominant that it doesn't affect them. Their core customers probably don't have any other reasonable options. Kroger is a different story, but at the end of the day, it's unlikely that NFC will factor into someone's choice of store. Almost all Americans still carry a physical credit card, and while NFC is marginally faster, it's a matter of a few seconds.