Major Retailers that Support NFC Payments

[ecschwarz]

Well it still took a long time. As an example of the contrast, here in Mexico since gas stations are staffed in the pumps area they just provided the staff with wireless POS (the same used by restaurants to process payments at the table) many years ago when they wanted to start accepting cards. Over the years, newer models of the wireless POS came setup and ready for contactless, so the change was almost natural. I’ve been using Apple Pay at my local gas station in Mexico for nearly 6 years while americans waited for theirs to upgrade to contactless on the pumps. Even with apple pay not officially rolled out in Mexico, it was easier to use it at gas stations there than in the US. Likewise at restaurants.

Yeah, it's funny how much infrastructure was already in use in a lot of places long before Apple Pay was a thing. Throw in that there are many restaurants that are still swiping here, despite years since the liability shift and I'd even welcome some of the newer "stopgap" products like QR codes on receipts that take you to a payment page.

On the other hand, in the Midwest, Meijer had contactless on their gas pumps and in the store before Apple Pay was launched, so like places around you, everything just worked as expected. With gas prices being similar, there was a stretch where it was my go-to gas station. I found it funny on some threads where people assumed one had to be in a large city or on one of the coasts to have a gas station with contactless.

 

[lartola]

Yeah, it's funny how much infrastructure was already in use in a lot of places long before Apple Pay was a thing. Throw in that there are many restaurants that are still swiping here, despite years since the liability shift and I'd even welcome some of the newer "stopgap" products like QR codes on receipts that take you to a payment page.

On the other hand, in the Midwest, Meijer had contactless on their gas pumps and in the store before Apple Pay was launched, so like places around you, everything just worked as expected. With gas prices being similar, there was a stretch where it was my go-to gas station. I found it funny on some threads where people assumed one had to be in a large city or on one of the coasts to have a gas station with contactless.

I believe the liability shift still isn’t fully in place for US restaurants and gas stations. That’s why so many are still swiping.

 

[MisterSavage]

I'm honestly not sure what 7-Eleven's doing. Most of their gas pumps around here are still swipe only, for instance. The one or two that I've found with EMV enabled (or at least the hardware for it) don't have contactless readers.

When I saw one near me was getting new gas pumps installed I thought "Finally, I'll be able to use Apple Pay at the pump there." Nope.

 

[echopulse]

I have recently seen new stores or restaurants being opened that put in brand new registers with the swipe readers instead of customer pin pad readers.

 

[echopulse]

Went to Wendys yesterday, they did not have Apple Pay yet, but the manager did say other higher traffic stores are getting it first.

 

[cub850G2]

When I saw one near me was getting new gas pumps installed I thought "Finally, I'll be able to use Apple Pay at the pump there." Nope.

Only 7-Eleven+Phillips 66 locations with Wayne pumps seem have contactless enabled at the pump. But then they usually don't have it inside then. If it has Gilbarco pumps then yeah no ctls at the pump at all and I agree a real mess inside and out.

 

[echopulse]

On my trip to Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, almost every service station had the verifone readers on the pumps, so that's good. Shell had them, but the transaction was declined with my Apple Card, and mastercard. The pumps at QT and Buccees had Apple pay as well.

 

[LegacyDroid]

I was just at Home Depot today and noticed they had upgraded their payment terminal; it's a newer model than the ones they used to have at that store. Though the older model is also one that supports NFC. It's a model I've used Apple Pay on numerous times at other stores.

I took my phone out to pay and put it on the terminal, and the lady said "sorry no Apple Pay". I asked her why since this same model terminal supports it in other stores, and she said it's corporate policy. She has no idea if they'll ever fix it.

So yeah, corporate doesn't give a crap. The employees seem sympathetic about it, but can do nothing. They have the hardware, but refuse to enable the feature. I think we're going to need a mandate from the card processors to see an end to this bull.

That’s because Home Depot recently partners with PayPal

 

[echopulse]

That was 10 years ago, they don’t support that anymore. I think it’s just laziness.

 

[zorinlynx]

That’s because Home Depot recently partners with PayPal

That's so silly. It doesn't matter what partnerships they have in place. If they take credit cards, they should take contactless because that's a standard used by the credit card networks.

If they want to offer special deals if you use Paypal or whatever, that's fine. But they shouldn't go out of their way to disable features on their payment terminals. I'm not going to install another garbage app to pay if I can't Apple Pay. I'll just pull out the titanium card and be done with it. I may even shop at a competitor after that since I was basically annoyed as a customer for no good freaking reason.

 

[lartola]

That’s because Home Depot recently partners with PayPal

No they’ve been refusing to accept contactless payments for at least 6 years, long before they partnered with PayPal. And not only in the US, but also in other countries such as Mexico where they have no partnership with PayPal.

 

[lartola]

That's so silly. It doesn't matter what partnerships they have in place. If they take credit cards, they should take contactless because that's a standard used by the credit card networks.

If they want to offer special deals if you use Paypal or whatever, that's fine. But they shouldn't go out of their way to disable features on their payment terminals. I'm not going to install another garbage app to pay if I can't Apple Pay. I'll just pull out the titanium card and be done with it. I may even shop at a competitor after that since I was basically annoyed as a customer for no good freaking reason.

That’s not the real reason, though. The partnership with PayPal is recent, but Home Depot has refused to accept contactless payments for much longer, at least 6 years. And they do so not only in the US, but also at their stores in other countries where they have no partnership with PayPal such as Mexico.

 

[CTHarrryH]

They could be developing their own contactless payment system and cards similar to what Walmart did

 

[tmiw]

That was 10 years ago, they don’t support that anymore. I think it’s just laziness.

That's too bad, it would have been nice to get a few extra CC points back when Chase was doing 5x back for PayPal.

That’s not the real reason, though. The partnership with PayPal is recent, but Home Depot has refused to accept contactless payments for much longer, at least 6 years. And they do so not only in the US, but also at their stores in other countries where they have no partnership with PayPal such as Mexico.

IIRC it's enabled in Canada, likely because of the network mandate.

They could be developing their own contactless payment system and cards similar to what Walmart did

They would have done it by now if they were going to do that. As it is, anything QR based and retailer specific is going to be a pretty tough sell (though possibly not as much as if they were in a more mature contactless market).

Really, I think they're still unhappy about accepting cards in general, at least with the terms as they are set now. After all, they were part of that one merchant lawsuit a while back and IIRC still objected to the proposed settlement. Combined with how much they got screwed over by the whole data breach thing, I'm not surprised they're resisting as long as possible. It's not like there are many* other NFC enabled hardware stores out there for people in the US to switch to anyway.

* Ace Hardware is basically the only major one that I know of around here. They also have nowhere near the selection that HD and Lowes have, not to mention fewer/less convenient locations.

 

[lartola]

That's too bad, it would have been nice to get a few extra CC points back when Chase was doing 5x back for PayPal.



IIRC it's enabled in Canada, likely because of the network mandate.



They would have done it by now if they were going to do that. As it is, anything QR based and retailer specific is going to be a pretty tough sell (though possibly not as much as if they were in a more mature contactless market).

Really, I think they're still unhappy about accepting cards in general, at least with the terms as they are set now. After all, they were part of that one merchant lawsuit a while back and IIRC still objected to the proposed settlement. Combined with how much they got screwed over by the whole data breach thing, I'm not surprised they're resisting as long as possible. It's not like there are many* other NFC enabled hardware stores out there for people in the US to switch to anyway.

* Ace Hardware is basically the only major one that I know of around here. They also have nowhere near the selection that HD and Lowes have, not to mention fewer/less convenient locations.

I know Walmart and Home Depot do have nfc in Canada likely due to network mandate. It has to be that, since they have it nowhere else where they have stores.

As for shopping somewhere else, Home Depot has us screwed there. They have so many products and brands that only they sell that it’s practically impossible to vote with our wallet if we dislike them not taking contactless/Apple Pay. They are de facto a monopoly and certainly take advantage of that.

 

[ecschwarz]

Home Depot (US) had contactless enabled in 2014 or so and I used it a few times with Apple Pay. I guess folks using Mastercards and some debit cards had trouble and instead of fixing it, Home Depot just disabled contactless completely. It's been off ever since.

 

[lartola]

Home Depot had contactless enabled in 2014 or so and I used it a few times with Apple Pay. I guess folks using Mastercards and some debit cards had trouble and instead of fixing it, Home Depot just disabled contactless completely. It's been off ever since.

That’s in the US. In Mexico they’ve never had contactless enabled, but in 2018 they upgraded to the same pinpads as the US stores, ingenico lane 7000 (and in fact they did it in Mexico before it was done in the US in 2020). What I don’t get is why they left the nfc turned off on the new pinpads. It’s a different payment services provider they have in Mexico, BBVA, and that bank is all the way into contactless (not Apple Pay per se, but no problem: all their POS still take apple pay just fine when contactless is enabled).

 

[ecschwarz]

That’s in the US. In Mexico they’ve never had contactless enabled, but in 2018 they upgraded to the same pinpads as the US stores, ingenico lane 7000 (and in fact they did it in Mexico before it was done in the US in 2020). What I don’t get is why they left the nfc turned off on the new pinpads. It’s a different payment services provider they have in Mexico, BBVA, and that bank is all the way into contactless (not Apple Pay per se, but no problem: all their POS still take apple pay just fine when contactless is enabled).

Yeah, it seemed like some of the posts up-thread were confusing the inclusion of PayPal and the discontinuation of contactless as mutually exclusive in the US, so I just wanted to clarify. Interesting how they handled things in Mexico.

The locations by me replaced the iSC Touch 250s with Lane 7000s around May 2020 and still seem to be running a similar custom interface/config. Perhaps that’s why they left it off here?

 

[echopulse]

I know Walmart and Home Depot do have nfc in Canada likely due to network mandate. It has to be that, since they have it nowhere else where they have stores.

As for shopping somewhere else, Home Depot has us screwed there. They have so many products and brands that only they sell that it’s practically impossible to vote with our wallet if we dislike them not taking contactless/Apple Pay. They are de facto a monopoly and certainly take advantage of that.

I think it would take just one of the big two, or maybe one of the big 3 (Lowes, HD, and Menards to a lesser extent) to enable it, and that maybe would encourage one of the others to enable it. There is also True Value, which wikipedia says there are 45,000 locations, but we don't even have one in my town which has 2 Lowes, a HD, and an Ace store.

 

[AZhappyjack]

I think it would take just one of the big two, or maybe one of the big 3 (Lowes, HD, and Menards to a lesser extent) to enable it, and that maybe would encourage one of the others to enable it. There is also True Value, which wikipedia says there are 45,000 locations, but we don't even have one in my town which has 2 Lowes, a HD, and an Ace store.

I shop at the local Ace Hardware, personally... their prices are remarkably competitive with Lowes and HD, and they do ApplePay... plus friendly, helpful staff with whom you can forge a decent relationship...

 

[Eric Idle]

I shop at the local Ace Hardware, personally... their prices are remarkably competitive with Lowes and HD, and they do ApplePay... plus friendly, helpful staff with whom you can forge a decent relationship...

Normally I go to Lowes for my hardware needs, but due to this thread, I checked out the local Ace Hardware. I found it to be a nice store, with quite a lot of stock. They took my Apple Pay so I will be back there from now on. Good bye Lowes!

 

[Eric Idle]

Normally I go to Lowes for my hardware needs, but due to this thread, I checked out the local Ace Hardware. I found it to be a nice store, with quite a lot of stock. They took my Apple Pay so I will be back there from now on. Good bye Lowes!

I'm really enjoying Ace Hardware. Good store for most items. I have not been back to Lowes since I found out Ace takes Apple Pay.

 

[echopulse]

I was finally able to use Apple Pay the other day at my Local Wendy's, and this is a small city, so i would think it is being widely deployed by now. One down, 10 to go on my list.

 

[tmiw]

I was finally able to use Apple Pay the other day at my Local Wendy's, and this is a small city, so i would think it is being widely deployed by now. One down, 10 to go on my list.

Looks like last time I went to a Wendy's was a couple of weeks ago and IIRC the one I went to was still insert/swipe only. Then again, it's possible that some of major chains may be a bit different here compared to the rest of the country (for instance, most Arby's locations where I live still don't support EMV let alone contactless).

 

[Piplodocus]

This "what places take Apple Pay" thread seems crazy to me being from the UK. Although I guess the subtleties may lie in the spending limits that apply. Do you not have contactless bank cards as standard and general contactless limits for them in the US?

In the UK if anywhere has a card reader it'll 99.99% likely to take NFC (I haven't seen a non-NFC one for a few years now). Everyone uses contactless with their bank cards for lower value payments, which used to have a £20 or £30 limit, but is often now £80 or £100 since covid. If it takes NFC it'll pretty much be guaranteed to take Apple and Google pay up to this base-level contactless limit because everyone uses their phone to pay for everything because it's 2022!

The only limitation is whether the place has a standard >£30 or >£80 contactless limit and so you can't use Apple Pay if above that limit as you have to require card insertion+PIN if greater than that. But some don't and take the full card limit due to the biometrics (or PIN/removal sensing of the watch).

So I guess the point here is that maybe an actual minority of places take *full* Apple pay. But I can do things like my weekly shop using it (big brand store usually = full Apple Pay) and everywhere else from every bar in town that isn't cash-only (which is pretty much all of them) to bus/train tickets to London Underground, to small market stalls and anything general, I'm probably under £40 or £80 anyway, so still works. Some small businesses don't take cash these days because it's a security liability from a burglary perspective and a PITA to take money back and forth to banks/have a till float etc. This then had covid and not wanting to touch stuff unneccesarily too making it the defacto way to pay. So a lot of them do have full Apple Pay higher spend limits than they used to.

If I'm going shopping I'm likely to have my wallet anyway, but I can happily go out to a gig or few drinks with friends and never need to use my card. Thinking about it the little craft beer bar near me we usually get a tab and with enough nice fancy beer we can get that tab easily up to maybe £70+ and watch or phone always works and I've never even thought about it and what the limit is or isn't. It's almost annoying if I have to get my wallet out for some kinda loyalty card scan/swipe since I seldom ever do to pay! (which reminds me I need to go to the app store as I think co-op have a new app so I can use my co-op card out the wallet of my apple watch like the Tesco one now)

I just got back from Glastonbury Festival in England with 250,000+ people in the middle of the countryside on a dairy farm. Apart from a couple of bars which were cash only due to having no card readers and cellular signal to run them off, absolutely every single other bar and shop on the whole site took ApplePay and Google Pay at least up to a limit of more than any round of drinks I bought! And that's on a farm in the middle of the countryside (although admittedly with a lot of extra temporary 4G/3G base stations to give enough cellular coverage for everyone)!