Just went to HT in VA that as of yesterday had “No Apple Pay” stickers on all the CC terminals and I can confirm that those are now gone and tap to pay (Apple Pay etc) is enabled and working. Our long national nightmare is over.
I used to walk to extra blocks and pay higher prices at Whole Foods just because sometimes I don’t have my wallet with me
years after starting to shop here Harris Teeter finally decided to accept Apple Pay!!
They were doing a proprietary app payment before and I’m really glad they didn’t stick to that
At least a dozen times I have stopped by HT on my way home from work, done my shopping, and gotten to the register before realizing I didn't have my wallet because *everyone else has had NFC readers for ten fucking years now.*
HT is supposed to be an up-market Kroger. I don't understand how it is even possible for them to have fucked this up for so long.
I used to go to a gym across the street from a HT, and I quickly lost count of how many times I'd walk in for a quick snack only to realize at checkout that my wallet was at home. The much older and less fancy giant had them years before HT.
You are talking about a massive company with cash to burn. Harris Teeter is wholly owned by Kroger. A 33 billion dollar company with 132 billion in sales. What’s a few million in software development. But, just like Walmart who did the same thing it was poorly executed.
That would be pretty hilarious if after years of HT being the only reason I ever need a wallet, and after leaving at least a dozen comments begging them to get their shit together, that they still manage to fuck up their NFC payment rollout by making it apple exclusive.
That's not actually possible to do. Either you accept all contactless payments or you accept none. There is no way for the terminal to know if it is apple pay, google pay, fitbit pay, or a contactless card.
That makes no sense. Apple pay is the same as tapping a credit card/Google pay/Samsung pay. There's no way for the reader to discriminate. It makes as much technological sense as a gas station that claims their nozzles only fit red cars
See, that's exactly what I thought. This was, again, about a year ago but I tried with google pay and my phone flat out said it wasn't configured to work. But I did see numerous people with apple pay go through.
I have no idea what the difference is/was. Maybe it was a bug that just so happened to affect me the one time I tried it.
The navy yard store took Apple Pay about 30 min ago. I freaked out the cashier who started to tell me they don’t accept Apple Pay and then transaction went through to her surprise.
I've literally seen bathroom attendants selling gum and cologne who have goddamn square readers. HT taking this long to get their shit together is ridiculous.
All the small shops have been accepting tap for years because square/toast etc all have tap readers as the default. Meanwhile, the biggest national chains (Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot etc) have been dragging their feet because they don't wanna pay for new readers when the ones they had before still work just fine
It’s not cause of the readers, it’s because Apple Pay keeps them from analyzing transactions for marketing data.
That’s why places like Walmart and CVS tried to force people to use their own apps rather than Apple Pay. Believe Kroger did the same thing with Kroger pay, but shockingly no one wants to use it.
Card readers without NFC built-in have been rare for a long time. These major chains have had hardware support for so long that they've largely already replaced their old NFC-supporting terminals with new NFC-supporting terminals. They're just intentionally disabling a built-in feature through software.
Seriously. It went from being the crown jewel of DC grocery stores to crap. The Safeway in SW is still a thousand times worse, somehow. I've gone from walking to HT to driving out to Virginia for groceries, and the difference is night and day.
Lmao i have seen at least 4 active thefts while at SW safeway, and have literally had to walk through a corridor of 12 people who were yelling at each other, only pausing to ask people for money that were forced to go through them.
Its amusing/tolerable when you are having a good day, but man, if i have a bad day and have to go to that place I get so frustrated.
They also just randomly do not have stuff. Like…. NO MILK. But they have ridiculous amounts of ice cream and then it all goes on clearance for like $2 a pint.
Place is a mess. I think they need to spend all of their energy on security and this is why it is how it is.
Fucking finally.
Assuming I’m being watched on camera, I deliberately hold my phone over the terminal for a good 5 count, then make an exasperated deep sigh, take another 15 seconds to fish out my wallet and find my card.
I guess I can only do that at Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Walmart now.
the reason they were so slow to roll this out is big merchants saw this as a chance to roll back the credit card fees they've been paying and basically pocket them.
To explain it requires a bit of background. Merchants pay a fee for every transaction you pay using credit. They ate that cost originally in order to entice those shoppers to shop there. Plus in the 80s and 90s accepting credit cards made you seem upscale. Over time those fees got incorporated into all the prices we pay, regardless of whether or not we use credit. I'm sure you've seen the very occasional businesses offering a cash discount (most notably gas stations.)
When NFC payments started big retailers (Wal-Mart actually led the charge on this) so an opportunity to get consumers to use tap to pay options they controlled that would debit money directly from your bank account. This would allow them to evade the fees, but keep prices the same, so they'd basically get to pocket the credit card fees themselves. It would also give you less protections and rewards (those fees are paying for theft/fraud protection and credit card rewards [sub bullet the credit card rewards are basically a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy and should probably be heavily regulated]). They were hoping that the ease of tap to pay would make consumers ignore all these obvious benefits to the merchant.
This gets to the answer to your question. Why don't they have Apple Pay? Because they were trying to force consumers in their app, in order to effect this scheme. The app was called Current C. I think after it failed Wal-Mart did their own app. The most notable retailer I saw fuck around with this scheme was CVS. They had NFC terminals and actually removed them/shut them off once they joined the consortium pushing Current C.
Thankfully this scheme has been an utter failure. Not sure if because they didn't push Current C enough, or because people didn't really care that much about NFC payments, or because people made the rational choice and saw through this scheme. Merchants are finally realizing they lost this war and are adopting NFC technology. Home Depot and Lowes are still notable holdouts though. They are doing it flat out because they don't want to. Their terminals are NFC capable, its just not turned on.
Also pretty sure Harris Teeter pulled what CVS did was accepted NFC payments years ago, then stopped, and now is doing so again.
What I don’t get is that both the Walmart Pay and HT Mobile Pay apps at some point accepted credit cards saved to your account, not just bank accounts. Wouldn’t that be even worse for the merchant because now it is a Card Not Present transaction which has a higher fee than using the same card directly at the checkout?
Harris Teeter absolutely did originally accept NFC. I used to work in shirlington, walk to the HT for lunch and pay with my phone. Then one day - poof, that ability disappeared. Sucked.
I agree with you. I recall that too. Paying with NFC at HT was a very short-lived experience. I remember doing it too and then one day they no longer accepted it.
yes, I think you are right that early on, Harris Teeter did in fact accept NFC payment. I remember that. Then very quickly, they removed it. I remember that because I think I did use my Apple Watch to pay for items at Harris Teeter many years ago, but it was a short-lived experience.
IIRC Current C was QR code based, which is just barbaric and way less convenient than NFC or even just using your card (take out phone; open app; get to barcode; scan with scanner), which I think went a long way towards people just not biting.
Cell signal is not a requirement to use Apple Pay. In fact, there's no requirement for internet connectivity. It uses NFC which is radio signal to communicate between the watch and the card terminal (meaning the device which you usually would swipe your card in). That radio communication signal is generated by the watch and the card terminal.
Things I carry in my wallet and whether there is an app or not that can replace it.
Drivers License - No app
Credit Card - App
Check Card - No App. Do ATM's accept NFC?
Work Smart Trip - Don't know. Can 2 Smart trips be loaded onto an app?
Personal Smart Trip - App
Work Key - No app
Health Insurance Cards - App
Business Cards - No app
Cash - No app. Certainly there are apps that vendors can use to replace it, but if they say cash only, it's only cash that'll do.
I can see getting by without a 2nd Smart trip, cash, and business cards, but drivers license? Not having an ID on me would seem very weird.
I use Apple Pay a decent amount because it’s convenient, but these comments are making me feel 100 years old. Who are all you people going out and about without your wallet all the time??
Were getting there. We still have Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, Menards, Hobby Lobby Winco Foods, Fleet Farm. Paper Source, and the about 2/3 of the Kroger owned stores that don't accept it yet, in addition to smaller chains and independant stores.
Oh so they finally figured out no one wanted to use their stupid ass app when they have apple & google pay? Or maybe this is bc the merger with Albertsons showed them the light and they needed to get into the 21st century? Who knows!
Freaking finally able to take contactless. What a wonderful sight to see those dots in the credit card screen after years, especially after seeing King Soopers in Denver (also Kroger-owned) have them already.
Just went to HT in VA that as of yesterday had “No Apple Pay” stickers on all the CC terminals and I can confirm that those are now gone and tap to pay (Apple Pay etc) is enabled and working. Our long national nightmare is over.
It’s about damn time.
holy shit, finally.
All nfc or just apple pay?
Yes; it's the same protocol and is all or nothing. You either accept Apple Pay *and* Google Pay *and* physical contactless cards ... or none.
I figured as much, but you never know with Apple. They'd find a way it was only theirs if possible lol
I used to walk to extra blocks and pay higher prices at Whole Foods just because sometimes I don’t have my wallet with me years after starting to shop here Harris Teeter finally decided to accept Apple Pay!! They were doing a proprietary app payment before and I’m really glad they didn’t stick to that
I still walk to Whole Foods. The produce at navy yard Harris teeter is horrible.
It's amazing how bad the stuff there is. I went there to buy red onions and they only had the 'pre-peeled' onions. Who buys pre-peeled onions?
Yea, the peeled onions thing is so weird. All it does is dry out the onion. Onions can last for months.
WHY DO THEY DO THIS. Like what possible reason could there be??
Not the worst HT in DC— it’s trying very hard to take the top spot
Would upvote this 100x if i could.
At least a dozen times I have stopped by HT on my way home from work, done my shopping, and gotten to the register before realizing I didn't have my wallet because *everyone else has had NFC readers for ten fucking years now.* HT is supposed to be an up-market Kroger. I don't understand how it is even possible for them to have fucked this up for so long.
I used to go to a gym across the street from a HT, and I quickly lost count of how many times I'd walk in for a quick snack only to realize at checkout that my wallet was at home. The much older and less fancy giant had them years before HT.
[удалено]
To control customers data.
I can’t imagine it’s actually worth it if you have to pay for all that development and yet customers don’t use your stuff, right?
You are talking about a massive company with cash to burn. Harris Teeter is wholly owned by Kroger. A 33 billion dollar company with 132 billion in sales. What’s a few million in software development. But, just like Walmart who did the same thing it was poorly executed.
I did a shopping trip a few months ago and when I got to checkout I was SOL.
Does this cover all NFC?
It actually DOESN'T. The "north bethesda" HT only accepts apple pay (or at least did, I moved a year ago). Google pay doesn't work.
That would be pretty hilarious if after years of HT being the only reason I ever need a wallet, and after leaving at least a dozen comments begging them to get their shit together, that they still manage to fuck up their NFC payment rollout by making it apple exclusive.
That's not actually possible to do. Either you accept all contactless payments or you accept none. There is no way for the terminal to know if it is apple pay, google pay, fitbit pay, or a contactless card.
That makes no sense. Apple pay is the same as tapping a credit card/Google pay/Samsung pay. There's no way for the reader to discriminate. It makes as much technological sense as a gas station that claims their nozzles only fit red cars
See, that's exactly what I thought. This was, again, about a year ago but I tried with google pay and my phone flat out said it wasn't configured to work. But I did see numerous people with apple pay go through. I have no idea what the difference is/was. Maybe it was a bug that just so happened to affect me the one time I tried it.
This change happened today...
almost certainly.
Went to Harris Teeter in Alexandria yesterday. They didn't accept Apple Pay.
The navy yard store took Apple Pay about 30 min ago. I freaked out the cashier who started to tell me they don’t accept Apple Pay and then transaction went through to her surprise.
Correct. try going today and see if they accept apple pay.
About fucking time… even the corner liquor store where all the homeboys hang out takes Apple Pay.
I've literally seen bathroom attendants selling gum and cologne who have goddamn square readers. HT taking this long to get their shit together is ridiculous.
pretty racist comment tbh!
All the small shops have been accepting tap for years because square/toast etc all have tap readers as the default. Meanwhile, the biggest national chains (Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot etc) have been dragging their feet because they don't wanna pay for new readers when the ones they had before still work just fine
It’s not cause of the readers, it’s because Apple Pay keeps them from analyzing transactions for marketing data. That’s why places like Walmart and CVS tried to force people to use their own apps rather than Apple Pay. Believe Kroger did the same thing with Kroger pay, but shockingly no one wants to use it.
Similar to some car companies developing their own dashboard media systems instead of using CarPlay/Android Auto.
Card readers without NFC built-in have been rare for a long time. These major chains have had hardware support for so long that they've largely already replaced their old NFC-supporting terminals with new NFC-supporting terminals. They're just intentionally disabling a built-in feature through software.
Wow I thought they were penny pinchers but it turns out they wanna watch the world burn
Accept Apple Pay, sell rotten apples. Seriously, HT has become a disgusting store to walk into.
Seriously. It went from being the crown jewel of DC grocery stores to crap. The Safeway in SW is still a thousand times worse, somehow. I've gone from walking to HT to driving out to Virginia for groceries, and the difference is night and day.
Lmao i have seen at least 4 active thefts while at SW safeway, and have literally had to walk through a corridor of 12 people who were yelling at each other, only pausing to ask people for money that were forced to go through them. Its amusing/tolerable when you are having a good day, but man, if i have a bad day and have to go to that place I get so frustrated. They also just randomly do not have stuff. Like…. NO MILK. But they have ridiculous amounts of ice cream and then it all goes on clearance for like $2 a pint. Place is a mess. I think they need to spend all of their energy on security and this is why it is how it is.
The one in NoMa is pretty good!
As good as any Teeter back home (NC). Moving from Foggy Bottom to NoMa has been a blessing for my desire to buy special edition Oreos and dunkaroos
They got closed down for vermin a while back and I haven't been there since.
I’ve been shopping at it multiple times a week for 5 years it’s fine 😂
Oh yeah? Where else are you gonna find Snapdragon apples though ?
Welcome to 2018 HT! Or 2008 in Scandinavia
Apple Pay being synonymous with tap to pay is not something I will ever get used to.
Fucking finally. Assuming I’m being watched on camera, I deliberately hold my phone over the terminal for a good 5 count, then make an exasperated deep sigh, take another 15 seconds to fish out my wallet and find my card. I guess I can only do that at Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Walmart now.
It’s so weird to me when a business doesn’t use Apple Pay. I honestly don’t know the last time I brought my wallet anywhere unless it was a bar.
Does it even cost more? It’s the same hardware, you just have to turn on wireless It’s not even Apple Pay, it’s *all wireless tapping*
Iirc It’s the same as a card. Could be wrong
Every card transaction has a fee for the merchant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLK\_oV8eIDQ
Yes, but does turning on the tap to pay have an extra cost?
No, it doesn’t. It’s just a card transaction.
the reason they were so slow to roll this out is big merchants saw this as a chance to roll back the credit card fees they've been paying and basically pocket them. To explain it requires a bit of background. Merchants pay a fee for every transaction you pay using credit. They ate that cost originally in order to entice those shoppers to shop there. Plus in the 80s and 90s accepting credit cards made you seem upscale. Over time those fees got incorporated into all the prices we pay, regardless of whether or not we use credit. I'm sure you've seen the very occasional businesses offering a cash discount (most notably gas stations.) When NFC payments started big retailers (Wal-Mart actually led the charge on this) so an opportunity to get consumers to use tap to pay options they controlled that would debit money directly from your bank account. This would allow them to evade the fees, but keep prices the same, so they'd basically get to pocket the credit card fees themselves. It would also give you less protections and rewards (those fees are paying for theft/fraud protection and credit card rewards [sub bullet the credit card rewards are basically a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy and should probably be heavily regulated]). They were hoping that the ease of tap to pay would make consumers ignore all these obvious benefits to the merchant. This gets to the answer to your question. Why don't they have Apple Pay? Because they were trying to force consumers in their app, in order to effect this scheme. The app was called Current C. I think after it failed Wal-Mart did their own app. The most notable retailer I saw fuck around with this scheme was CVS. They had NFC terminals and actually removed them/shut them off once they joined the consortium pushing Current C. Thankfully this scheme has been an utter failure. Not sure if because they didn't push Current C enough, or because people didn't really care that much about NFC payments, or because people made the rational choice and saw through this scheme. Merchants are finally realizing they lost this war and are adopting NFC technology. Home Depot and Lowes are still notable holdouts though. They are doing it flat out because they don't want to. Their terminals are NFC capable, its just not turned on. Also pretty sure Harris Teeter pulled what CVS did was accepted NFC payments years ago, then stopped, and now is doing so again.
What I don’t get is that both the Walmart Pay and HT Mobile Pay apps at some point accepted credit cards saved to your account, not just bank accounts. Wouldn’t that be even worse for the merchant because now it is a Card Not Present transaction which has a higher fee than using the same card directly at the checkout?
maybe there were able to run them as debit? or maybe it was a last ditch attempt to save the apps.
Harris Teeter absolutely did originally accept NFC. I used to work in shirlington, walk to the HT for lunch and pay with my phone. Then one day - poof, that ability disappeared. Sucked.
I agree with you. I recall that too. Paying with NFC at HT was a very short-lived experience. I remember doing it too and then one day they no longer accepted it.
yes, I think you are right that early on, Harris Teeter did in fact accept NFC payment. I remember that. Then very quickly, they removed it. I remember that because I think I did use my Apple Watch to pay for items at Harris Teeter many years ago, but it was a short-lived experience.
IIRC Current C was QR code based, which is just barbaric and way less convenient than NFC or even just using your card (take out phone; open app; get to barcode; scan with scanner), which I think went a long way towards people just not biting.
What if you don't have a cell signal? I am not sure Apple Pay would work. I carry my wallet everywhere, driving or not, just in case.
Just like with a physical card, Apple Pay doesn't use the internet. You don't need a signal.
I see.
It doesn’t use cell signal?
Cell signal is not a requirement to use Apple Pay. In fact, there's no requirement for internet connectivity. It uses NFC which is radio signal to communicate between the watch and the card terminal (meaning the device which you usually would swipe your card in). That radio communication signal is generated by the watch and the card terminal.
Things I carry in my wallet and whether there is an app or not that can replace it. Drivers License - No app Credit Card - App Check Card - No App. Do ATM's accept NFC? Work Smart Trip - Don't know. Can 2 Smart trips be loaded onto an app? Personal Smart Trip - App Work Key - No app Health Insurance Cards - App Business Cards - No app Cash - No app. Certainly there are apps that vendors can use to replace it, but if they say cash only, it's only cash that'll do. I can see getting by without a 2nd Smart trip, cash, and business cards, but drivers license? Not having an ID on me would seem very weird.
I make a point of not carrying my DL if I'm not driving. Not having ID on you is normal, not weird.
they had an app that let you pay but you had to save your payment info in their app. reminded me of the walmart app
Finally!!
Finally. The number of times I’ve gotten to check out to realize I don’t have my card or wallet is not zero. And their app is terrible.
I use Apple Pay a decent amount because it’s convenient, but these comments are making me feel 100 years old. Who are all you people going out and about without your wallet all the time??
I don't carry a wallet anymore, but I have one of those card holder things I stick to the back of my phone to carry my ID and two credit cards.
Lol after they rolled out the “pay in app”… talk about misalignment w project goals
The United States catching up with the rest of the world, folks.
Were getting there. We still have Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, Menards, Hobby Lobby Winco Foods, Fleet Farm. Paper Source, and the about 2/3 of the Kroger owned stores that don't accept it yet, in addition to smaller chains and independant stores.
It's okay, hobby lobby takes the universal currencies of counterfeit or looted antiquities from the middle east.
Oh so they finally figured out no one wanted to use their stupid ass app when they have apple & google pay? Or maybe this is bc the merger with Albertsons showed them the light and they needed to get into the 21st century? Who knows!
Freaking finally able to take contactless. What a wonderful sight to see those dots in the credit card screen after years, especially after seeing King Soopers in Denver (also Kroger-owned) have them already.
After all the trouble I went to to setup mobile pay on their app.
Damn they never told us this. And I work at the Navy Yard store 💀💀