Apple Wallet Changes

any one notice that credit cards previously added to apple wallet no longer work - I went thru a bunch of hoops trying to update the expiration and code on my old card that’s been in apple wallet for at least 10 years - even called apple who had me delete the card and try to add it back - it knows the card number but when I change the expiration it says its invalid and the rep said it was my bank blocking the card - called the bank and they informed my the activated card was active and the old card was not - it had to be on apples part - called apple back and was informed that the wallet will no longer take any credit card but their own - all credit cards are now being denied and only debit cards and apples credit card are the only cards accepted! Does anyone find this offensive and or monopolistic! Im getting more and more pissed off at apples practices letting the consumer pay the brunt of the effort to figure out problems before someone gets involved and finally fixes it after months is a joke - I could rant on being upset but will leave it at that - frustrated!

update - I guess the two advisors didn’t know what they were talking about - I went back to apple wallet and added a new card - took a pic of the card - added the code and hit done - it contacted my bank which was not issue and the card was added to my wallet - man - jumping thru hoops for two hours because its not obvious how to update the expiation on a card and then to have two advisors tell me misinformation and to later figure out myself that what they said was inaccurate - upsetting as its happening too often for me - I wish there was another offering besides windows - the others are too complicated and windows is just plain ridiculous - I think apple knows it and is allowing slips to take place because of it - that to me is in fact a monopoly and should be broken up to allow separate parts to work more efficiently while still allowing those parts to come together eventually - I don’t know - I’m pissed off - sorry!

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I don’t think it’s possible to update the expiration date of an ApplePay card. At least I’ve never been able to figure it out. I always have to remove and re-add a card (generating a new device-account number) when the expiration date changes.

Thanks for posting. In the past week, I ran into this problem. Since the old card didn’t expire until next month, I decided to leave the issue alone. (Since the new card has been activated, would the old card in Wallet no longer work?) Now I know how to proceed.

The stream-of-consciousness post by @lewboski implies that deleting and adding doesn’t always work. Based on @Shamino’s post, I tried it, and in my case, it did work. But read on, as I digress.

The old card (an American Express card, if it matters) was on two iPhones. I deleted it from the first, then told Wallet to add a card, and followed what I believe are the normal steps (scan, enter security code, agree to terms), culminating in a successful add. Then I deleted the old card from the second iPhone and told Wallet to add a card. Wallet presented the new Amex card to me and only required the security code. I didn’t even need to agree to terms and conditions before Wallet said the new card was ready to use. Does this sound right? Did adding the card to a second iPhone immediately cause some linkage that simplified the process?

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It should be just like your physical card - it should work until the expiration date and stop working afterward.

Every bank is different but some (e.g. Bank Of America) will actually show your Apple Pay virtual cards on the web site, which is very convenient to know what is and is not valid.

As for your experience with AmEx on two phones, it might be correct. The information you have to enter is pretty much whatever your bank asks for. AmEx may be deliberately presenting a simplified interface if the card is already active on another device tied to the same Apple ID.

I thought that Apple Pay automatically handles cards expiration dates. I’ve been using Apple Pay since it first came out and I’ve never updated an expiration date and never had a problem using any cards.

I even once got a new card from the same bank (due to a security issue they gave me a new card with a new number) and I was delighted that I didn’t have to do anything on Apple Pay to make it work. Since it was a replacement and Apple Pay isn’t actually tied to the card number, it just worked.

Sounds to me like you’re creating a problem where one doesn’t exist.

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Sounds like different banks handle it differently. With my cards (one from Bank of America and one from Citi), the Apple Pay virtual cards expired simultaneously with the corresponding physical cards, whether due to date or replacement.

The two phones have different Apple IDs, so that’s not it—or is it? One iPhone is logged into the other iPhone’s Apple ID as a secondary user. (TidBITS contributors taught me how to do that, but I just looked at the phone with dual logins and I have no idea what I did. Nonetheless, thank you to TidBITS contributors!) In case it matters, the Amex card was added to the phone with dual logins first, but again, the phones are logged into different primary Apple IDs.

I think the confusion comes from thinking about Apple Pay as if it were presenting your card when you send payment authorization. It’s much more complicated than that, and it doesn’t use your card’s number/expiration date. (In brief, it’s a special one-time-use token. If you really want details, read the Platform Security Guide from Apple.) Bottom line is that each instance in Apple Wallet (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch) is its own unique entity and to change it, you remove the old one and get a fresh authorization from your provider by adding it again.

When I was told by the apple tech support guy for wallet that apple was no longer taking credit cards - only debit cards and their own Apple Card - no third party credit cards - once deleted having activated the new card I tried to add it back and it would not take it with a (forgotten now) error indicating it would not be accepted and to try again later - a second call confirmed that apple no longer takes other credit cards but after hanging up I deleted that card again then selected add new credit card and it took it just fine and is now available on all my devices - not sure if settings in apple get updated but that’s another deal!

My experience has been the same as Marc Z. Maybe this link will help explain… Why Companies Already Have Your New Credit Card Expiration Date

This has been my experience as well (American Express and a Chase card), but I haven’t had to update recently.

I have had expired cards declined and was forced to update the expiration and code before - the issue is not that I had to delete and not update an old card but delete and then add a new card with the same number as the old one - it is that apple support told me credit cards were no longer accepted within apple wallet - that is the issue - the inconsistency with support and the many bugs in apple software - I had to figure out that deleting and adding a new card even tho it was the same card number was the only way to get my credit card into Apple Pay - as others have said there is no way to update an existing card - 15 years ago you could update a card in apples systems but not anymore!

I have no doubt that someone at Apple Support said this to you, but it is 100% wrong. If you wrote down who it was, you might want to complain about him, but this kind of incompetence is what I’ve come to expect from all tech support people working for all companies.

If Apple was really deciding to shut down Apple Pay for all but their own card, you can be sure it would make headline news. And you can also be sure that they would say so on their support web pages. But as you can clearly see, they support cards from any participating card issuer:

The person you spoke with should have known this.

As others pointed out, adding a card involves a data exchange session with your bank to generate a device-specific account number that is shared between your phone and your bank. It’s not just transcribing your card’s numbers into the phone’s storage.

This is why you can’t edit the card information. When you remove and re-add the card (even if it’s the exact same card number and expiration date), you create a new card-add transaction that ends up creating a completely new device-specific account number. If you look at purchase receipts, you’ll see that the card number shown will be different - containing the last 4 digits of the newly-generated account number.

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Thanks Everyone for your wise words - the key I guess is patience - yes the site says credit debit whatever - have seen many sites say one thing and practice another - if an advisor said it who knows if it will not be the default down the road being debit and Apple Card only - I know many merchants that will only accept debit - my original post was more about shoddy advice from supposed educated people about the product I called about - in this case wallet - my other pending for months case = home pods and iCloud Music - etc etc etc - I could go on but that would serve no purpose - the other issues as a 30+year user are beyond the current apple environment to address!

I think they may have confused Apple Pay with Apple Cash. The latter only allows debit cards and to my knowledge have never allowed credit cards.

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Which is a shame. I have had several times I would have used Apple Cash to send funds to a person. But I don’t have a debit card and will never have a debit card so I guess I will never be able to use Apple Cash.

But not surprising. If you try to transfer cash from a credit card, your card will (correctly) treat the transaction as a cash advance. Cash advances typically incur interest charges from the date of the transaction (no grace period) and may also incur service fees.

Debit cards don’t have this problem, although the merchant processing the transaction (in this case, Apple) may pay a fee.

FWIW, most other comparable micropayment systems (Venmo, Zelle) either require a debit card or bank account information. Paypal will charge you a service fee to send personal payments using a credit/debit card or to transfer money to a bank account using a debit card (instead of directly depositing.)

It appears (from Apple’s help pages) that the debit card (or compatible pre-paid credit card) is required to add cash to an Apple Cash card. If, however, you don’t add cash (only using it to store payments others have sent to you), then I don’t think any card is necessary. But that, of course, limits its usefulness.

Similarly, if you want to transfer an Apple Cash balance to your bank account, it requires either a debit card or bank account information.

Not sure what you have against debit cards (I prefer them to credit except most don’t have the rewards), but I’m sure the reason Apple Cash only supports them is the fees banks charge to use them are much cheaper than with credit cards (hence the reason many credit cards have cashback and other rewards).

They said apple credit card was acceptable - no others!