Apple Pay declined at Sainsburys (UK)

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Level 1

11 points

Apple Pay declined at Sainsburys (UK)

Hi,

I have an iPhone 7 Plus with three cards loaded for Apple Pay - a Barclays credit card, a NatWest Credit Card and a NatWest debit card.

I have been using the NatWest debit card to pay for my weekly shop at Sainsburys supermarket every weekend since they first installed Contactless (with Apple Pay support for payments > £30) back in February 2017. Transaction value is pretty much always > £100.

I had no problems with payment until a few weeks ago when a payment was declined - and since then payments have been declined every weekend but one when value was < £50.

I have discussed at great length with my bank and the transaction is not being declined by them. (They get a notification of decline - but the actual decline is happening the transaction reaches them - and they get nothing that tells them why it was declined).

When a payment using the debit card is declined I switch to the Barclays credit card and it goes straight through. So it's not a device problem or a problem with the terminals in store.

I have also talked to the retailer and they can see no problem either but have passed the query onto their Payment Processor - that was two weeks ago and not had any response yet.

I don't really expect anyone to have a solution to this :-) but I thought I'd document it here to share with others and to see if anyone else has had a similar problem and so I can (hopefully) share the solution when I eventually find it.

Thanks,

Brian

iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 11.1

Posted on Nov 6, 2017 7:46 AM

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Answer 1

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ITGeezer Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 17, 2017 6:35 AM in response to ITGeezer

An update for others that might find this in the future ...

The new card (real plastic card with new number) did not fix the problem. Real card works fine with > £100 ... but on Apple Pay declined. I even tried using the real card immediately after a decline to see if that cleared it but nope - declined again next time.

So a new real card didn't fix it ... and I also tried removing and re-adding card to device to get a new Device Account Number and that still didn't fix it. Noting here that everyone up to the issuer (Merchant - Acquirer - Card Scheme) sees the DAN not the real number so they wouldn't know it was same card ... and add to that the new card still not working and this absolutely must be a problem with the Bank's systems.

The Bank however still say it's not them so I've raised an official complaint through my Bank Manager - who as an aside is also an Apple Pay user and has no problems with his debit card for > £100.

The only thing suggested was that the bank might have put some sort of limit on my account, although quite how they could only for Apple Pay but not the real card I don't know. The catch here is that bank policy is that if such a limit was there they are not allowed to tell me about it. (Would be the extreme of silliness as well to put a limit on someone for using it too much).

So anyway now I wait to see what happens with the complaint. Suspect this one will run and run but it's now become a matter of principle so I won't be letting it go any time soon :-)

Brian

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

276,759 points

Jan 6, 2018 1:14 PM in response to ITGeezer

ITGeezer wrote:

Update ...

NatWest told the Ombudsman they apply a £100 limit to all Apple Pay transactions (something I know for a fact is not true) and that this is because Apple Pay is less secure than Chip & PIN (the opposite being the reality). So basically NatWest do not have a clue what they're doing with Apple Pay.

They might apply such a limit to some accounts, in some cases, but not mine. 😕

tt2

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Answer 3

ITGeezer Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 8, 2017 4:26 AM in response to ITGeezer

Hi,

Update ...

The same debit card was declined today at a different retailer - M&S - with a transaction > £100. A credit card (on same device) went through OK.

I discussed with The Bank and this time got a bit more information from the Digital Wallet team. The payment is being declined by the retailer with a reason of "Payment Limits". So again nothing to do with the bank - declined before them.

I have raised the issue with M&S Customer Care asking them what the limit is and why it's there (obviously it shouldn't be).

In the meantime The Bank is going to issue me a new card, with a different number, to see if that solves the issue.

I would be interested to know if anyone else in the UK has recently used a debit card successfully to pay for transactions > £100 ... and even more interested if anyone with a NatWest debit card has done it at either M&S or Sainsburys :-)

Thanks,

Brian

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Answer 4

seventy one

Level 7

27,454 points

Nov 8, 2017 4:48 AM in response to ITGeezer

Hello Brian,

There is a certain antipathy about Debit cards nowadays and in many countries they are not accepted at all by Apple. Whether this is spreading to other retailers I don't know.

As far as Sainsbury are concerned, you must talk to head office, know who you spoke to and be prepared to ask if you can escalate to management. They can be slow; I have had problems with their activity speed level before now, though I must say they are always decent in the end.

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Answer 5

Dec 3, 2017 5:25 AM in response to ITGeezer

Exactly the same thing happened to me. Used Apple Pay in Sainsbury’s store which have a £10,000 floor limit, no problem there. Then tried to use it with the same NatWest debit card for fuel and it was declined. It has done this on a number of occasions, using the physical card, works fine, quite frustrating!

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Answer 6

ITGeezer Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 4, 2017 12:39 AM in response to Riggwelter

If I were you I'd raise a formal complaint to the bank - that's the only way I was able to get them to take me seriously.

I also had to prove to them it was not the retailer ... by successfully using a different card on the same device after a decline ... the moment I told them this they stopped blaming the retailer :-)

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Answer 7

Dec 4, 2017 1:22 AM in response to ITGeezer

Thanks for that, I will contact my bank and see what they have to say. Really bizarre that I have no problem in Sainsbury’s supermarket but as soon as I go to Sainsbury’s petrol station on the way out using the same card it just gets declined. I thought they might have some sort of restriction on how many Apple Pay transactions you can do within a certain time period or something?

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Answer 8

ITGeezer Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 4, 2017 1:55 AM in response to Riggwelter

I thought it was a transaction value limit of something like £100 ... but your experience suggests it might perhaps be a daily limit. Did your two transactions added together add up to more than £100?

Would be interesting to try it the other way around ... Petrol then Supermarket ... that might prove something :-)

For sure there should not be any limit on value or number of transactions and on different cards there certainly isn't which is why I'm absolutely certain it's a problem with the systems at the bank.

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Answer 9

ITGeezer Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 18, 2017 7:42 AM in response to ITGeezer

Update ...

NatWest have applied a security limit to the use of my debit card on Apple Pay ... (it was like getting blood from a stone to find this out) ... but they will not tell me what the limit is or why it has been applied ... and there is no process to get it removed. Oh and this limit will apparently change from time to time. So I have now escalated the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

I do not expect this to get fixed to be honest ... so suspect I will be changing bank account in 2018.

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Answer 10

ITGeezer Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 5, 2018 4:56 AM in response to ITGeezer

Update ...

NatWest told the Ombudsman they apply a £100 limit to all Apple Pay transactions (something I know for a fact is not true) and that this is because Apple Pay is less secure than Chip & PIN (the opposite being the reality). So basically NatWest do not have a clue what they're doing with Apple Pay.

At the end of the day it comes down to a bank having the right to limit card or device payments whenever they want and they don't actually have to tell anyone what they've done or why.

So that's the end of the line for my complaint - time to look at other banks.

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Answer 11

seventy one

Level 7

27,454 points

Jan 5, 2018 5:03 AM in response to ITGeezer

Brian,

You are not the first to report this of Sainsbury's. And all seem to have tried to establish the facts that you have. Just as a thought; had you previously bought petrol using Apple Pay on the same visit? I wonder if that may have totted up to a sum greater than the total petrol and store sales can be on the same day.

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Answer 12

ITGeezer Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 5, 2018 5:28 AM in response to seventy one

Hi,

The Sainsbury's floor limit for Apple Pay is £10,000 so definitely not that :-) Also other cards (other than NatWest debit) do not have the same problem.

So definitely a NatWest issue (zero doubt - they've admitted it) ... and possibly only related to debit cards although I don't have enough data (yet) to prove this.

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Answer 13

Genius!

Level 1

10 points

Jan 21, 2018 4:09 PM in response to ITGeezer

interesting discussion here. I don’t have a family to feed so have managed to keep most transactions to less than £30 by coincidence, but this doesn’t fill me with confidence about relying on my phone for above £30 transactions when required, although I did succesfully do that in Wagamama recently. Seems counter intuitive for businesses to make it difficult to spend more money, oh well their loss! I was at a Tesco petrol station recently with a friend and their Apple Pay transaction was declined but the weird thing was that the card machine came up with the contactless logo and the phone got the beep back like there is full communication the whole time, so the machine has been updated to support £30+ Apple Pay like transactions but is either being blocked by tesco or their bank, knowing how backwards tesco are I’d guess the former. And again, if I ever feel forced to stop by a Tesco for petrol I will be sure to not fill up more than £30 just to be sure, their loss.

On a side note, I was at a medium size restaurant in Birmingham a couple of months back and their card machine didn’t like Apple Pay even for less than £30! It’s the first time I’ve seen that in the years Apple Pay has been out and been using it. Card reader just said “invalid format”, who knows what software version the machine was running, wouldn’t be surprised if it was dodgy for a reason. Visa should really crack down on these sooner, just for a consistent experience if anything, because now I can only say Apple Pay works 99.9% if somewhere accepts contactless, so I always carry some cash.

On the plus side, in about 2 years from now all card machines have to be contactless or they get switched off.