Apple Pay has stopped working at Safeway stores. Returns “Not Authorized” error

I've had this happen too. The credit card selected in Apple Pay works when used directly in the Jewel payment machine, but not the Apple Pay instance of the same card. Also, Apple Cash gets the same error even though there is plenty of money on it.

What's most frustrating is not knowing who to call. Clearly its not the credit card company or a debit vs credit issue. According to this thread it sounds like a Jewel issue, but when I was in the store I asked for a number to call and they said there isn't anyone they can think of to call and he believed it was a card issue.

It doesn't seem like an Apple Pay issue either because it works fine at other stores.

No, it's not a card issue because as I mentioned earlier Apple Pay using "Apple Cash" without any credit card also fails. I believe the Apple Cash is based on a Discover debit account, but I don't know that for certain.

Here’s the rub. Apple Pay DOES work at Jewel. It just doesn’t seem to work for some people with specific cards. And for each person, the type of card that fails is different.

For you and I, our Citibank cards stopped working. For others, their AMEX cards stopped working. However, I can still use my Chase cards at Jewel through Apple Pay.

It’s almost as if some file of Card ID’s got corrupted and now all those cards are failing.

For some of my coworkers, their debit cards only run as credit now instead of debit, so they can’t get cash back anymore.

It’s a very strange problem.

For anyone willing to try: add a completely new credit card to Apple Pay, preferably one you haven’t used at Jewel before and try using it at Jewel. Just curious to see if it works or not.

Experiment update:

My original post recap - Apple Pay worked at Vons (Safeway) and then stopped working. All of these cards work at other stores.

As of today:

AmEx credit card does NOT work at Vons.

A credit union MasterCard does NOT work at Vons.

Capital One Quicksilver MasterCard does NOT work at Vons.

Capital One Quicksilver Visa DOES WORK at Vons.

Same terminal. Same (really patient) cashier.

Same error message "Chip declined" or "chip error"

Phone and POS ARE communicating, then accepting or declining as listed above.

Another update.

I spoke to Jewel IT help desk about the open Incident Report that I submitted on 3/14/19. Help Desk had asked me to call back if I had any new experiences with a failed Apple Pay transaction. They asked that I report the date, time, store #, amount, etc. Before I had a chance to report any of this stuff, the help desk guy said they were aware of the issue and are working on it. There is no estimate for a fix.

Knowing our help desk, I wouldn't put too much hope into getting a fix soon. But at least we know that someone at Jewel corporate is aware of the issue.

I don't know how this affects customers of Vons, Safeway, etc. It's not clear to me if New Albertsons, Inc. has integrated the IT Help Desk across all divisions or if every division has their own Help Desk.

I guess I would just suggest that everyone with AMEX or Mastercard Apple Pay cards try every now and then to see if they start working. This is not the type of fix that corporate is going to announce in a press release or anything. Just one day, it'll suddenly start working again.

There seems to be a variety of issues happening with Apple Pay. I am just a user and the only one I can speak to is the issue at Jewel food stores, where I believe the only issue is that Apple Pay does not work any longer with MasterCard. Hopefully that is temporary.

In all honesty, using my credit card and the chip reader is probably slightly faster than A/P. In cold Chicago weather my fingerprint reader never works and I'm forced to type in my PIN.

When the chip readers first came out they were quite slow. The read speed seems to have improved substantially so it's much less nuisance for me than it once was.

Apple Pay is going to be a fail if they don't a) resolve these location-specific problems, and b) broaden the number of locations where it can be used. Too bad, I love the technology but it would have had better hopes for success if the phone makers had all agreed on a standardized technology and payment system. The phone-specific payment methods are a barrier to wider adoption.

My credit card was hacked twice in 2018. Each has 16 numbers, expiry date and CVC.

Entering from memory is faster than digging out the card.  Pay works mostly at the

point-of-sale although you can send money via Messages - at least on Mac.  doesn't

use your CC number but a unique code supplied by Apple. They refused to buckle on

San Bernardino despite imprecations from FBI. I trust . The issue w/b fixed, hopefully

soon - as I dread memorizing all those numbers again, exposing my card numbers at retail.

I called Apple. They don’t know anything about it. I called American Express. They don’t know anything about it. I switched to a visa card and that worked!

That's good news. Too bad for me - my Vons 90272 gave me the old "chip declined" error

on April 2. Same error at the in-store Starbucks where I go to test before shopping.

Good luck, Tom

April 26  Pay/Master working again in Vons Pacific Palisades 90272 !!

For those wondering - this was a global issue with Albertsons Companies’ payment system. IT deployed a patch fixing the issue in mid-May.

Source: I work in store management at a Safeway