Oh thank goodness!! This furthers my move to being able to just use my phone for most purchases since I do majority of grocery shopping at Ralphs
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Kroger Begins Accepting Apple Pay at All Ralphs Grocery Stores in California
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Translation: too many people are shopping at Costco, Trader Joe's, and Aldi.
I can't remember the last time I was in a Ralph's, before or during the pandemic. They're usually filthy, overpriced, and you can't get anything fresh.
Honestly, most ppl in L.A. will opt for Northgate, Vallarta, or Cardenas.
I can't remember the last time I was in a Ralph's, before or during the pandemic. They're usually filthy, overpriced, and you can't get anything fresh.
Honestly, most ppl in L.A. will opt for Northgate, Vallarta, or Cardenas.
So like Whole Foods here? I'm not even sure if there is a close Krogers around here. Wish they would open a closer TJ already. Only been seeing articles for about a decade now.
Most hotels, fast food resturants, and gas stations do take it though. Maybe not at the pump though.
Lol. "Whole Paycheck" is slowly becoming Amazon Fresh now, I haven't seen a Whole Foods in a while. Amazon is popping up quite a bit in the SGV, most of them are variants of one another, some with things the others don't have, etc. The "just walk out" still feels like it's in beta, though.
Trader Joe's (Aldi's hipster cousin) is still as popular as ever but Aldi (the "business casual" version of TJ) is getting busier and busier.
Not necessarily. Fry's was bought by Kroger in 1983, and only operates a few locations in the Phoenix area only. Because of the buyout by Kroger, the Kroger stores were operated as Fry's in that area, as they are more known in the Vegas, SoCal, and areas around there as Smith's, in the PNW as Fred Meyer, in NorCal as Foods Co, and Kroger in other locations. So I stand slightly corrected. Fry's isn't standalone anymore as they are owned by Kroger and only use that name in one area.
The Walmart thread has all the information on this: the reason why some stores like Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot are holding out can be summed up in two words: your data.
They (especially in the case of Walmart) want to have all of the data on you for tracking your shopping habits and purposes in their stores. They can get that by creating their own payment methods, which is where Walmart Pay comes in. Since it is going only to their ecosystem, they can see where you're shopping, what you are shopping for, and suggest what they think you need, based on the data that they have on you. They lose all of that with Apple Pay, which is why they are holding out on it.
BL.
There is no limit for Apple Pay, I have made payment for thousands of £ with it.
Kroger is the closest but we shop instead at Costco and Meijer because they take Apple Pay and the service personnel are friendly.
I think QFC added NFC in 2020. I will often go an extra mile past the local Fred Meyer to get to the QFC that takes ApplePay. The Fred Meyer doesn't and is generally not as well maintained.
I'm pretty sure the Fry's grocery stores are still in business even though the electronics stores went out of business.
In the US we can use NFC/ApplePay in many places but it is not universal. The big holdouts are Kroger groceries, Home Depot hardware, and Lowes hardware because they want customers to use their proprietary payment systems. Other holdouts are smaller operations like independent gasoline stations (which are a great place to find card skimmers installed in the pumps!). There is no national mandate to enable or use NFC. it is up to each retailer to enable or not.
If there are other stores nearby that do NFC/ApplePay I'll usually go to the one that does.
Many of these places do not accept any NFC payments of any kind. They are trying to push their own proprietary payment systems that often use QR codes. That gives them more data on their customer's transactions. They promote it to their customers and most people don't even know that contactless payments exist.
After Target's payment systems were compromised and all of our credit card information stolen, Target made a big deal about switching to new payment terminals that accept NFC/ApplePay as being more secure.
I keep one credit card around specifically to be used at low tech terminals where only chip or mag stripe payments are possible. That way, if it is compromised it doesn't disrupt my used of my main card.
fast food restaurants do, but sit down restaurants with service by waiters or waitresses mostly don’t. Including all the ones owned and operated by Landry’s group, one of the largest companies operating sit down restaurants in the US, iHop (they have an app that takes apple pay, but only for take out and deliveries, not for dine-in), hooters (also the app is only for take out and deliveries) and many other big chains.
Gas stations still mostly don’t take it at the pumps, where most people prefer to pay.
The largest hotel chains such as starwoods/marriott or the ic hotels group (holiday inn), still don’t take apple pay.
Most hospitals and doctor offices still only use magnetic stripe for credit cards. Even in the most modern medical centers such as the ones in Houston.
Take those into account and the percentage drops significantly from 90%.
Also, Apple is taking a credit that doesn’t really belong to them: Contactless/nfc has expanded because it is a widely used payment technology, yet Apple tries to sell out that expansion as if it were their own achievement. As if nfc were apple’s proprietary standard, which it isn’t.
It’s the idea Apple tries to sell out to the public: that their wallet is to replace thd physical wallet. They said so when they launched apple pay. They said so again when they added support for keys and IDs. People can and will decide whether or not they will buy into it.
Only a few are left, and according to Wiki, they are in the Phoenix area. Kroger is the parent company, so they'll use different names in their various regions. Kroger = Smith's in Las Vegas and SoCal, Foods Co. in Norcal, Fred Meyer in PNW.
BL.
Is there like active disincentive in the US market by credit card companies to keep magnetic stripping the "choice" of card reading over chip or contactless? That is nutty indeed!
Yes. It comes down to liability. With the new standard in place for Chip+PIN, if any case of fraud happens and the merchant has not updated to using Chip+PIN, the liability and responsibility for the fraud lies with the merchant (the businessowner). If the fraud occurs and the merchant is using Chip+PIN, then the liability and responsibility for the fraud lies with the bank.
That is the incentive for merchants to move to Chip+PIN or NFC; those that done are on thin ice. I had fraud committed against my bank account from someone who created a fake card with my numbers. The perp went on a shopping spree in Simi Valley, CA, while I lived in Las Vegas. $9000 worth of purchases later, and 3 restaurants and Staples were all responsible for the fraud committed against them because they allowed the swipe of the card to occur without any verification of if the person swiping the card is the named user of the card.
Chip+PIN eliminates that problem and pushes the liability from one entity to another.
BL.
It think now finally all the main ones around here have it at the pump, and it works properly
When is this going to happen at @HomeDepot and @Lowes?
I got excited for a second. Hopefully Kroger rolls this out everywhere soon.