apple cash

My wife and I both had epic failures trying to use Apple Cash today. We wanted to pay a vendor for an item, and she set up one of our debit cards to her account. After verifying identity both to Apple and the issuing bank, she tried loading Apple Cash from the debit card. The error - "service not available - try later." She tried the transaction a few more times, with the same error.

Then she called the issuing bank to find out why the transaction wasn't working - they said each transaction had been approved, but rejected by Apple's processor. She then called Apple, who told her that the problem was definitely with the bank.

Calling the bank back, she was told that each attempt to load the account from the debit card had been a valid transaction, and there were 8 different transfers pending on our checking account (each attempt had been about $900).

Fortunately, the bank quickly reversed all the pending charges, but my wife was never able to get any money into Apple Cash.

I then tried with my Apple account and a different bank's debit card which was already associated with my Apple Cash. I attempted a similar dollar amount, and was told the transaction was refused by the issuing bank.

This was our first real attempt to use Apple Cash for any substantial payment, and we are less than impressed with the way transactions have to clear so many hurdles. We disabled Apple Cash in our phones, and are going to stick with cash apps that directly debit from bank accounts (Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, etc.). Apple has made the process too difficult.

Apple makes so many great devices and services. Apple Cash is not one of them.