CVS and Rite Aid turn off NFC readers

denverpilot said:
Basically, they all signed agreements to screw their existing NFC customers until they devise a way to only accept the "approved" NFC stuff and deny Apple devices.

It's utterly brain dead. The whole thing. Offer multiple forms of payment to customers and take the legal hit now, while you can still prove the other system wasn't operating well. Pay a fine and move on.
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Might there be anti-trust issues involved here?
 
The Walmart backed CurrentC system has already been hacked.

One of the big objectives for CurrentC besides avoiding banks and banking laws is to enable merchants to collect and retain as much information as possible about their customers.

It's not surprising that CurrentC is a much richer target for evil-doers than the NFC based systems like Apple Pay and Google Wallet. The NFC systems are designed to hide as much information as possible about their users.
 
warthog1984 said:
Any word on when we might get EMV cards and catch up to the rest of the world?
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Pretty much every major issuer in the United States (Wells Fargo, Bank of America (including FIA), CitiBank, Barclays, Chase, PenFed, USAA, American Express) currently offer EMV cards and most have been for a year or two. Sometimes they send the chip cards automatically, other times it is on request.

Note that in most cases, these are Chip and SIGNATURE cards issued in the United States. Some (e.g. PenFed) issue Chip and Signature cards, with Chip and PIN (offline) backup which is important when using your card at a machine in Europe (train tickets, gas pumps, parking garages, etc).

Capital One just (finally!) started issuing EMV cards in the USA, but reports indicate only on the Venture card so far.
 
JeffDG said:
One thing I've wondered is why Visa or MC or AMEX don't provide a site that you can go to that will generate one-time-use card number/expiration dates.

So, for example, if you have a CapitalOne card, you go to your account page, and click a button and voila, a card number is generated. You punch that in to Amazon or other online retailer, and the charge goes through. But after that the card number is invalid. Can only be authorized one time.
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You are describing the Orbiscom (Irish company, now part of Mastercard) system for virtual credit card numbers, which is patented. Bank of America/FIA and CitiBank use Orbiscom. Discover used to, but stopped subscribing to it this year, perhaps because it is now a subsidiary of Mastercard. American Express used to have "Private Payments" which was similar but abruptly shut down almost 10 years ago (perhaps due to a licensing or patent infringement issue).

If you have a Bank of America/FIA Mastercard or Visa, log into your account and choose ShopSafe. Then you can select your desired credit limit and due date. A card number will be generated, and it will only be available to the first merchant that charges it, reducing the chance of credit card theft. CitiBank calls it virtual credit card numbers, but is similar in behavior.
 
denverpilot said:
I know if I ever do upgrade to an iPhone 6 or 6+ I'll naturally gravitate toward merchants who di accept them. Even if it means slight inconvenience. If most do that, it'll hurt the bottom line enough to pay attention to it at those businesses. There's a Walgreens everywhere you can find a CVS, for example. Not hard to avoid the retailer who won't play.
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Not true, come on out to Vermont. AFAIK there isn't a single Walgreens anywhere in VT (though someone might prove me wrong on that, but there aren't many that's for sure). The only big box alternative to CVS here is... wait for it... Rite Aid -- in fact Rite Aid is the only well-established national chain here, I think there are only 3 CVS stores in the state. Most of the other pharmacies (the one exception I can think of is Osco) are locally owned and unlikely to be willing or afford to invest in the technology.
 
azure said:
Not true, come on out to Vermont. AFAIK there isn't a single Walgreens anywhere in VT (though someone might prove me wrong on that, but there aren't many that's for sure). The only big box alternative to CVS here is... wait for it... Rite Aid -- in fact Rite Aid is the only well-established national chain here, I think there are only 3 CVS stores in the state. Most of the other pharmacies (the one exception I can think of is Osco) are locally owned and unlikely to be willing or afford to invest in the technology.
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Investment opportunity? Build a better store? ;)
 
LDJones said:
No. They're not big enough and there are plenty of alternatives.
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I think the worst this would be seen as is somewhat anti-competitive. Nothing the government could/would do would match up with the public relations hit they're taking right now over this stupidity.
 
Fredbob711 said:
I think the worst this would be seen as is somewhat anti-competitive. Nothing the government could/would do would match up with the public relations hit they're taking right now over this stupidity.
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I don't know how true that is, for two reasons.

Firstly, I don't think this board reflects the average population. Most "ordinary" people with whom I've tried to discuss EMV have no idea what I'm talking about. Outside of people in tech or financial services, or those who have been overseas, I doubt that more than 10 to 20 percent of Americans are more than vaguely aware that there are cards that don't have to be swiped through a magstripe reader. I think for most Americans, EMV falls into the category of, "Oh yeah, I think I heard something about that somewhere," not something that they actually use.

There simply aren't that many EMV users out there, so annoying them is unlikely to affect a merchant's bottom line in a significant way. Most banks haven't even started issuing EMV cards yet, and most of those that have will only issue them if specifically requested by customers, usually because they plan to travel overseas.

So with respect to the effects of alienating customers, we're talking more about people who are ****ed about not being able to use their phone-based payment options than about EMV users. The phone-based group includes Android users and iPhone users; and within those groups, specifically those users who fall toward the fanboy / fangirl ends of their respective spectra.

Among Android users, this is probably a pretty small percentage of total users. Android may dominate the market, but a lot of users bought Android phones simply because most phones on the market today run Android. Most Android users don't exploit their phones' capabilities beyond voice, text messaging, and maybe one or two favorite apps. Android's fanboy / fangirl base is pretty anemic.

iPhone users, on the other hand, do include a high percentage of fanboys and fangirls for whom the loss of the ability to use their phones to pay for their groceries is something akin to losing a limb. They also tend toward having higher disposable incomes, so they're not a group that merchants would want to alienate for trivial reasons. So why would the merchants do so?

These companies and others that have blocked Apple Pay (or who never chose to implement it in the first place) are among America's leading retailers. I think it reasonable to assume that they carefully weighed the costs prior to making their decisions. Which brings me to the second reason why I don't think blowing off Apple Pay customers is going to hurt these companies, even if some users do switch vendors as a result.

Reason Number Two is that the value of a transaction to a merchant nowadays is no longer limited to the profit made on the item sold. It also includes the marketing data collected about the consumer. This data has become an extremely valuable commodity, so much so that customers who pay in cash are increasingly being asked to provide their names, email addresses, or phone numbers at checkout time; or better still, to take a loyalty card application to fill out later in return for some rebate, fuel discount, points toward gifts, or other rewards.

Blowing off Apple Pay users will come with costs in terms of the probably-small percentage of fanboys and fangirls who are sufficiently upset to pout, stamp their feet, and shop elsewhere because their favorite toy is no longer welcome at a store's checkout counter. But I suspect that the merchants are betting that most users won't walk away, and that the data collected from those users will be more valuable than the profits lost from the users who do take their business elsewhere.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I don't know how true that is, for two reasons.

Firstly, I don't think this board reflects the average population. Most "ordinary" people with whom I've tried to discuss EMV have no idea what I'm talking about. Outside of people in tech or financial services, or those who have been overseas, I doubt that more than 10 to 20 percent of Americans are more than vaguely aware that there are cards that don't have to be swiped through a magstripe reader. I think for most Americans, EMV falls into the category of, "Oh yeah, I think I heard something about that somewhere," not something that they actually use.

There simply aren't that many EMV users out there, so annoying them is unlikely to affect a merchant's bottom line in a significant way. Most banks haven't even started issuing EMV cards yet, and most of those that have will only issue them if specifically requested by customers, usually because they plan to travel overseas.

So with respect to the effects of alienating customers, we're talking more about people who are ****ed about not being able to use their phone-based payment options than about EMV users. The phone-based group includes Android users and iPhone users; and within those groups, specifically those users who fall toward the fanboy / fangirl ends of their respective spectra.

Among Android users, this is probably a pretty small percentage of total users. Android may dominate the market, but a lot of users bought Android phones simply because most phones on the market today run Android. Most Android users don't exploit their phones' capabilities beyond voice, text messaging, and maybe one or two favorite apps. Android's fanboy / fangirl base is pretty anemic.

iPhone users, on the other hand, do include a high percentage of fanboys and fangirls for whom the loss of the ability to use their phones to pay for their groceries is something akin to losing a limb. They also tend toward having higher disposable incomes, so they're not a group that merchants would want to alienate for trivial reasons. So why would the merchants do so?

These companies and others that have blocked Apple Pay (or who never chose to implement it in the first place) are among America's leading retailers. I think it reasonable to assume that they carefully weighed the costs prior to making their decisions. Which brings me to the second reason why I don't think blowing off Apple Pay customers is going to hurt these companies, even if some users do switch vendors as a result.

Reason Number Two is that the value of a transaction to a merchant nowadays is no longer limited to the profit made on the item sold. It also includes the marketing data collected about the consumer. This data has become an extremely valuable commodity, so much so that customers who pay in cash are increasingly being asked to provide their names, email addresses, or phone numbers at checkout time; or better still, to take a loyalty card application to fill out later in return for some rebate, fuel discount, points toward gifts, or other rewards.

Blowing off Apple Pay users will come with costs in terms of the probably-small percentage of fanboys and fangirls who are sufficiently upset to pout, stamp their feet, and shop elsewhere because their favorite toy is no longer welcome at a store's checkout counter. But I suspect that the merchants are betting that most users won't walk away, and that the data collected from those users will be more valuable than the profits lost from the users who do take their business elsewhere.

Rich
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Actually agree, Rich. But in some of the industries competing, a very small percentage means the difference between profit and breaking even. Usually a minority group boycotting something means little, but it'll mean something to some of these business types.
 
I agree in that I don't think it'll have a huge impact on their actual sales if a few people are ticked off about it. And you're right, it's not a large group of people that are upset about this.

But, I have seen several reports in various media outlets about this, and not just tech websites. That's the PR hit I'm talking about. It might blow over quickly enough that there is no effect. But that all depends on how many clicks and views it gets the various sites/channels that are covering it.

It could be nothing in the end and all these retailers will keep their NFC readers turned off, but I think in time the impracticality of the CurrentC system will make it obsolete and they'll end up re-enabling them.
 
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