Apple Wallet Changes

Thanks Bill - this is exactly what I was trying to get at - altho I am surprised at the amount of discussion related to the subject of the wallet app which has not really been mentioned but debit vs credit and which is or is not better - support and their trying to get you to jump thru a dozen hoops before escalating a case is beyond my comprehension - I would say most on this forum are more intelligent and experienced than the first level tech rep at apple - this did not used to be the case - it is clearly the case now - that was all I was trying to get at - I now report an old case number when dealing with my iTunes or music app - iCloud playback issues and various devices to include my two synced in stereo home pods which tell me there is a problem with Apple Music or that function is not programed into seri blah blah blah - months now - videos of the top of my home pods telling me these errors sent to engineers with debug logs etc etc etc and still no fix - so - the end result is to me a dumbing down of the whole apple eco system such that my fixing my own problems is more likely going to happen sooner than apple figuring it out for me - which seems to be the case with Catalina and iTunes that also took several months of tech support calls - weeks on the phone in terms of 6-7 hour calls several times a week for months to downgrade to Mojave and fix it myself after a restore taking weeks to delete duplicates of my library and all playlists - in the case of the playlists in some cases several hundred times such that I ended up with thousands of playlists - 3 vacations without the ability to play anything but apple playlists on my phone - none of my other devices would access or play my library - I guess that’s my rant - support doesn’t know when there is a problem nor when to admit they don’t know!

Seems like the decline of support started when Apple granted phone support to anyone whether they had active Apple Care or warranty time remaining. I think Apple has hired a lower tier of associate to take care of the flood the change created.

It’s a natural consequence of success. When you have a lot of customers, you need a large support staff, and it is completely impossible to meet those staffing requirements if everybody is expected to be an expert.

So you write a script and require all of the tier-1 support staff to follow that script, only getting the more skilled support staff involved when the script fails to provide an acceptable solution.

This is also why we’ve seen so much dumbing-down of Apple’s software. Designs that reduce the number of support calls produce a very large cost saving - a saving that gets larger as sales increase.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of a solution that can permit high-power interfaces and skilled tier-1 support staff without increasing support hold times by orders of magnitude.

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As, @Bill_Acree indicates, if you restrict free calls to those under warranty or Apple Care, you’ll have more experts available to help people with shorter wait times. Have the rest pay for their support. As always, I prefer to pay for good quality than get mediocre for free.

I also disagree with this characterization that somehow features automatically result in expensive support calls and that this would supposedly drive the dumbing down of software. Apart from the fundamental flaw in logic here, I’m pretty sure Steve Jobs would argue that if features result in usability issues, it’s only because they haven’t been designed properly. Dumbing down is most likely the result of Apple shifting focus from professional tools to consumer gadgets. Any support cost savings is likely just a (welcome) byproduct.

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My biggest frustration is the time taken slogging through a script with a tier-1 associate and knowing exactly what the script is trying because I have already tried the first 20 steps myself to no avail. There should be a way, if you have just purchased a new product (i.e., under “warranty”), just upgraded to a new release, or have Apple Care (or have an appropriate rank on Tidbits:-) to bypass tier-1.

BTW back to the topic, my only credit card registered on Apple Pay disappeared last week, POOF! The only thing I can think of that I did that was unusual was to log out of iCloud on my iPhone 7 to set up a new Apple TV HD using a different (business) Apple ID. Then when I signed back in to my personal Apple ID I noticed that my contacts had all been duplicated, but didn’t then notice the credit card being missing. The contacts duplication was likely my fault due to not responding appropriately to the query asking if I wanted my iCloud contacts saved on my phone.

Confusion: I went to Settings > Wallet & Apple Pay to re-register my credit card. I saw “Apple Pay Cash” for the first time saying “Not Set Up.” I really didn’t want to set it up. Further down the menu under Trasnsaction Defaults was “Default Card,” the most logical choice, but it is grayed out. Well the only, not so logical, choice is to set up Apple Cash. The first thing it shows me is the card number of the card I has registered before (also happens the card is registered in my Apple Store account) and wants the security code from the card. WaLa! my old card appears under “Payment Cards,” but “Apple Pay Cash” still says “Not Set Up” next to a picture of the Apple Card. Totally counter intuitive in my opinion. I formerly praised Apple (mostly to “PeeCee” users) about being very intuitive. Not so much anymore.

I’m not sure about the latest iOS, because my phone is a bit old, but on iOS 12 (iPhone 6+), the first item on Settings → Wallet & Apple Pay is a switch to enable/disable Apple Cash. I disabled it and the phone stopped nagging me about setting it up.

I don’t call Apple support often, but when I spent a few hours on the phone with two separate agents with regard to my HomeKit issues a few weeks ago, they were amiable, knowledgeable, and trying their best. They never pretended to know the answer, but just worked with me to try a lot of different things and were up front about what I’d need to do if I wanted to escalate to engineering.

I would note that questions surrounding Apple Pay and Wallet may be trickier because only Goldman Sachs may be able to answer some of them.

Like Adam, I don’t call often, so I can’t say if there’s been a loss in quality, though it wouldn’t surprise me considering the number of calls Apple must get (especially since the pandemic with many of the stores closed).

My usual method with any tech support is to explain the problem using some tech jargon so they can see I’m knowledgeable and I can test their level of expertise. If they sound clueless, I don’t mess with them – and I immediately request they escalated to their supervisor or the next level up. That usually works (or at least is helpful).

(The last time I called Apple two years it was about a GPS issue that they could not solve. Basically, I’m in a rural area and mine is the only Wifi network around, so all my wifi-only devices like iPads and Macs could not use location services. My phone worked, but it has GPS. They escalated to top level support – even talked with engineers – and could not solve the problem. Basically wifi-location services requires triangulation. I was like, “That’s stupid: my phone knows my location and it’s on the same uniquely-named wifi network, so why can’t it tell the wifi-location services where I am?” I don’t know if they heard me, but a few months ago it started working, so they fixed it! Now I can finally use weather and certain streaming services like ESPN+ that wouldn’t work in my iPad because it couldn’t verify my location. Too bad I canceled those already. :roll_eyes:)

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I thought Goldman Sachs was involved only with the Apple-branded credit card. Does Apple use them as the payment processor for Apple Pay? That would make me a little less trusting of Apple Pay; Goldman Sachs doesn’t exactly have a clean record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Controversies_and_legal_issues

I think we’re confusing two different threads here.

The other thread: AppleCard routinely rejecting all Digital Nomads regardless of credit score?, is dealing specifically with the Apple Card.

This thread, about Apple Pay and Wallet, shouldn’t have anything to do with Goldman Sachs.

Apple Pay transactions are entirely between your phone, your bank and the merchant. Neither Apple nor Goldman Sachs get involved unless you’re using an Apple credit card.

This is one of the reasons I like Apple Pay, unlike (for example) Google Wallet, where every transaction passes through a Google server on its way to your bank.

As one who has been in and out of the tech support industry over the years, I can confidently say that first-tier tech support has deteriorated everywhere. In many cases, it’s because companies don’t want to pay very many people with actual knowledge, especially when the vast majority of calls are for very basic things. Except, of course, that when all you know is a script, even basic things are hard to help with if they don’t 100% match the script.

Some days, I wish companies would offer a “bypass tier 1” level of support for people who can demonstrate that they know what they’re doing. It would save those customers time by not having them listen through a script of steps they’ve already done. It would save other customers time by taking those time-wasting calls out of the main queue, reducing hold times. And it would save the companies time and money by not wasting tier-1 reps’ time on calls they can’t help with. (And yes, I would support revoking access to this level of support to those who abuse it or regularly miss obvious things that the scripted tier-1 response would have caught.)

I’ll also mention that, even on a fully scripted tier 1, checking a list of known issues should be among the very first things in the script. That would also save everyone time. Utility companies do it for their support lines all the time; if my Internet is out, and I call the provider, the first thing they do after verifying me and my location is check for known outages in my area. If I’m in an outage zone, there’s zero value to anyone in having me do basic troubleshooting like power cycling equipment.

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Funny you should use this example, because it was precisely this experience that convinced me to never bother calling anyone for tech support.

Years ago, I was a customer of Earthlink DSL. One evening, the Internet went out almost exactly at 1:00am. The modem lights were all on and looking good, but no packets were going anywhere.

I called tech support. The person insisted that I run through 40 minutes of troubleshooting (power cycle the computer, update Windows, disconnect my router and talk directly to the modem, etc.) before escalating the problem to tier 2. Then the tier 2 person made be perform all of the exact same steps a second time (apparently the report from the tier 1 person wasn’t good enough) before finally opening a trouble ticket. At this point it was approaching 3:00am - I was on the phone for over 90 minutes.

I went to bed and found everything up and running fine in the morning. I then checked Earthlink’s system status to learn that this was a scheduled outage for some kind of line maintenance.

Oh, and they never called me back to tell me anything. I assume somebody closed the ticket at some point, but I never got any notification of that either.

At which point, I decided that my personal policy (at least with regard to Internet services) is that if there’s a failure, they have 24 hours to fix it. If they don’t fix it on their own after that, I’m cancelling my subscription. I’m never going to waste my time dealing with incompetent tech support ever again.

I think you have it correct. Goldman Sachs is only the issuing bank for the Apple Card. They are the ones making the credit granting decisions. But to buy Apple products and not pay interest and also get the 5% Apple Cash rewards requires using the Apple Branded Credit card. Exclusively.

They are not Apple’s Merchant Bank. Don’t know who Apple uses but typically companies use specialized payment processors to handle card transactions. The processors need to be able to interface with all the different credit instruments. Credit, Debit, T&E, etc. they are also the ones handling signature capture, PIN codes, security, suspicious use, etc.

The standard for downtime on the VisaNet authorization network is like a maximum of 3 seconds annually. In other words, the total of all network failures and outages cannot exceed three second per year.

Apple is in violation of the terms of the typical merchant agreement with the major card companies. Why?

Because they use your credit card for identification purposes. Using your card for identification purposes is not permitted. It can only be used for financial transactions. Apple uses the card to ID users for their AppleID lost or stolen password process. So, if you card is ever lost or stolen, and that card is on file with Apple, use the card to do a password reset BEFORE you report it lost of stolen to the issuer. Once your bank tuns off the card, the AppleID system can not longer validate your identity. It took me 32 days to get back into my Apple account after a burglary. Meanwhile every single app purchased via the App Store stopped working, even on the brand new iPhone i bought to replace the one that was stolen…

The Merchant Card agreement is like 30 pages long. For example, if a merchant signs up to accept Visa, they cannot pick and choose which Visa cards they will accept, for example rejecting Rewards cards as the merchant pays more to process them.

Also, a company that accepts credit cards from Visa or MasterCard cannot tell their customers the card is not accepted if it was issued by a foreign bank. Exceptions are countries where it is illegal for Americans to spend money, like Cuba, Yemen or North Korea.

BBVA had a long list of countries where their BBVA issued Visa debit and credit cards could not be used, like Bolivia, Colombia, Serbia. Etc. A few messages to my Senior VP friend at Visa International got that policy rescinded. Funny how fast a CEO backs down when Visa tells him either follow the terms of the agreement or stop issuing our cards. It took about 9 months for visa to investigate and take action. And it was the impetus for Visa creating a reporting site for instances of the card not being usable or accepted where it should be usable or accepted. Not everyone has a friend at Visa and I don’t think she wanted to hear from me if it happened again.

Adam was the one who brought up Goldman Sachs in this thread, saying that some questions about Apple Pay and Wallet may be answerable only by GS. I too thought that this thread shouldn’t have anything to do with GS, which is why I posed the question.

My policy is the first tell them I’ve already done all that. If they insist I do it again, I just pretend to do it. It’s much faster and less stressful and the result is the same.

I also have certain things I refuse to do (like rebooting my computer) that I know are irrelevant (i.e. I can’t get wifi on my phone and my Mac, and they tell me to restart my computer) or Windows-specific actions when I’m on a Mac.

Doh! Yes, sorry, as @Shamino intuited, I was mixing two threads in my head. Goldman Sachs is only related to the Apple Card, not to Apple Pay and Wallet.

My bank replaced my keycard with a Mastercard Debit and I hadn’t really thought much about that. The worry I now have is that it has a CVV to allow ordering over the internet. I have a daily limit on the cash withdrawals but reading the fine print it seems that this doesn’t apply to internet transactions. Someone I know who had their credit card used fraudulently is certain the details were obtained when it was used in a taxi using a hidden camera. While the credit card from the same bank has lots of security settings the debit has none.

For what it’s worth, I almost never use my debit card except to authenticate ATM transactions and it never leaves my wallet at any other time.

My father is more concerned about debit card fraud than I am. He insisted that his bank issue an ATM card that has no capability to be used as a debit card and they did. If this concerns you as well, you might want to ask your bank if they can do the same for you.

I’m thinking that I will black out the CVV. The debit card has one nice feature, in that I can just tap with it to pay.