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CBlakeston

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2008
678
425
Got my shiny new iPhone X yesterday. Transferred everything across from my iPhone 7 Plus. Everything was fine until I tried to add Apple Pay and saw the message

Card not Added. Contact your card issuer for more information.

From memory, this has initially happened with every device I have from older phones to my MacBook Pro with touch bar. I get the 'call card issuer' message, I call my bank, they do something at their end and say 'Try Again', I do and it works.

This time, I called my bank, hit try again and it didn't work. The guy waited on the phone with me for a bit and said there was no authorisation coming from Apple Pay for him to approve. I was to wait a bit and try again.

Fast forward to later yesterday evening. I try again. No luck. I call the bank again. No luck. Advised to wait a bit and try again. This morning I try again.. Same deal.. we go back and forth a bit until I'm told to try later.

At this point I call Apple and explain thinking they might help or there might be an issue with the X or something. They are very helpful and ask me to turn my phone on and off, no luck. They escalate me to next level support who have me reset my network settings, no luck. They have me reset everything on the phone and set it up as new, no luck. - but as I need the bank to approve the authorisation sent to make it work.. I don't know these things haven't worked yet until I hang up and speak to my bank.

The Apple rep encourages me to get any information from my bank they will give regarding case number for my problem ect so he can have their engineering team co-ordinate with theirs to fix the problem.

Unfortunately when I call my bank, they have no case number to give. They guy is helpful and confirmed on every system they have that my card is good and there is no problem with it. It should work.. He advises.. leaving it a bit and trying again.

I wait an hour trying it on and off. It still doesn't work.I come up with the idea of trying to add the card back to my iPhone 7 Plus.. that doesn't work either so at least that rules out specifically the X.

I restore my X to the iCloud backup I made and while its mostly worked. I have no photos, half my music and iMessage doesn't sync across my devices any more. It's as though a child has randomly tuned of stuff in settings to piss me off. I'm sorting this bit by bit as I find things don't work. - Weird restoring is so messed up as when I moved across from the 7 Plus yesterday it was flawless.

I call the Apple rep on the number and extension he gave to update him on my issue. I keep doing it wrong and getting through to Apple Security, who though polite, I can tell is getting increasingly more annoyed with my calls. I finally figure out how to dial the extension and leave a message it hasn't worked. Hopefully they'll follow up with me next week.

I've now spent over half an hour on the phone with apple and called my bank four separate times, waiting on hold a bit each time. This has taken up most of two days. This same card and Apple Pay is fine on my iPad Air 2 and MacBook Pro. Though I'm not going to risk deleting it from those in case I can't add it again. My iPhone X and by extension my newly paired Apple Watch don't have working Apple Pay.

I google about for a solution and find a note about certain card providers now needing a minimum 7 digit passcode on the device before the card will authorise. I change my passcodes to a longer number. Try again. It doesn't work.

Honestly, I'm about to give up. Other then just trying it after the next iOS update incase that jogs something loose / fixes something.

Has anyone heard of anything like this? It was working fine on my 7 Plus before I got the X.
 
Last edited:

akash.nu

macrumors G4
May 26, 2016
10,870
16,998
It’s an issue with your bank. Keep chasing them. Something similar happened to me after a restore and Apple’s systems are pretty solid. Eventually it did turn out to be an issue with the bank.
 

CBlakeston

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2008
678
425
So how did you eventually fix it? If I call the bank back I'm just going to have the same conversation with them I've had four times already :/
 

CBlakeston

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2008
678
425
I think you may need to physically go to the bank and try to fix in person.

Appreciate the comment but don’t think that wouldn’t do anything. The staff in the branch have no information or power over Apple Pay. They would just let me use their phone to call the same helpline I’ve calling from home.
 

akash.nu

macrumors G4
May 26, 2016
10,870
16,998
Appreciate the comment but don’t think that wouldn’t do anything. The staff in the branch have no information or power over Apple Pay. They would just let me use their phone to call the same helpline I’ve calling from home.

This is very true. People at the branches don’t deal with Apple Pay.

So how did you eventually fix it? If I call the bank back I'm just going to have the same conversation with them I've had four times already :/

Eventually I got put through to their security team and they confirmed that there’s a known issue with certain type of transaction not going through with Apple Pay and a specific type of card. I’m not sure if it’s sorted yet for me but I’ve not been in that situation again after that.

My issue was a bit different - I had the card registered with Apple Pay but it wouldn’t let me pay on Apple website using it.
 

CBlakeston

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2008
678
425
This is very true. People at the branches don’t deal with Apple Pay.



Eventually I got put through to their security team and they confirmed that there’s a known issue with certain type of transaction not going through with Apple Pay and a specific type of card. I’m not sure if it’s sorted yet for me but I’ve not been in that situation again after that.

My issue was a bit different - I had the card registered with Apple Pay but it wouldn’t let me pay on Apple website using it.

Thanks for giving me more info. My Card is registered with Apple Pay on my Macbook Pro and iPad Air 2. Thats how I bought the X, Its just registering it to the new phone thats a problem. I tried adding the card back to my 7 too which worked before.. but doesn't now. Maybe there's a glitch in the system or something. I'll just have to keep trying. :/
 

The_Roo

macrumors member
Dec 18, 2003
53
7
Liverpool, United Kingdom
Are you in the UK, what is your bank? I am having the same issue as well with Lloyds Bank.

Apple Pay started acting up on Saturday on my old iPhone 7. All transactions were declined whereas on Friday it worked as usual. The only thing I did was upgrade to iOS 11.1.1

Fast forward to trying to activate it on my new iPhone X and it just won't work. Also weirdly, the last 4 digits of the card on file, isn't actually my card!
 

CBlakeston

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2008
678
425
Yes. The the phone updated to it before it let me do anything else. My 7 plus is on 11.1.1 too actually. Good call.

I guess we can try it again when iOS is next updated and see if it jogs anything.
 

Pug72

macrumors 68020
Mar 18, 2012
2,276
2,232
England
My Halifax card won't verify on my X or Series 3 Apple Watch. Rang to verify the watch first but nothing happened. Rang when I got my X to verify the card and told him the watch didn't verify. He said but should have.

Anyway, over a week later and both still say it needs verifying, I figured it was a software problem so am just waiting for a fix.

My Barclaycard verified no problem on both but that was done in app and no need to call.
 

CBlakeston

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 31, 2008
678
425
My Halifax card won't verify on my X or Series 3 Apple Watch. Rang to verify the watch first but nothing happened. Rang when I got my X to verify the card and told him the watch didn't verify. He said but should have.

Anyway, over a week later and both still say it needs verifying, I figured it was a software problem so am just waiting for a fix.

My Barclaycard verified no problem on both but that was done in app and no need to call.

At least we know its not just us so hopefully it will get fixed.
 

Jjayf

macrumors 6502
May 31, 2015
334
392
It’s an issue with your bank. Keep chasing them. Something similar happened to me after a restore and Apple’s systems are pretty solid. Eventually it did turn out to be an issue with the bank.

This is the answer.. I went through a similar experience as OP. It turns out that the bank must add authorization to your card to be used on the pay system. I spent the better part of 4 hours on the phone one day and got so frustrated I set it down for the day. Next day I called the bank again and got someone smarter. Had it fixed in 5 minutes.
PSA.. Never ask the person on the phone if you can talk to someone a little smarter than them. They get pretty angry,.
 
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Bagaholic

macrumors member
Sep 27, 2014
80
102
I just got my replacement card yesterday and got the same issue with adding my card. It just keeps showing me the "Try Again". It's a card I don't use often so I didn't get work up over it but I'd if it was my primary card.
 

The_Roo

macrumors member
Dec 18, 2003
53
7
Liverpool, United Kingdom
Turns out the problem was with Lloyds. My card doesn't expire until end of January, but the system already thinks I have a replacement card, when I don't. Therefore the CVV2 number I am entering from the back of my current card, the system thinks is wrong as it's verifying against the new one, which I don't have yet!

Lloyds have marked my current card as damaged and will send me another one out within 5 days. This one should work. The current card will continue to be able to be used for the next 30 days.

What a palaver!!
 

cgriffis753

macrumors regular
Oct 12, 2010
145
244
Michigan
I am having a similar issue with my Apple Watch. I can add Apple Pay in all my other devices but not my watch. It doesn't even give me the screen to add cards by scanning or manually. when I hit add card, it just spins and then gives me that error message
 
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