Apple Pay: rejected payments, but the linked account works fine

Factual Questions
1

I have an iPhone and I use Apple Pay a lot. Now and again, when I use Apple Pay the payment is rejected by the bank. There’s no issue with the bank account itself - funds are in there, and when I try again using the same bank account’s contactless debit card instead of Apple Pay, it always works fine. This happens intermittently, maybe once every couple of weeks.

This morning, I used Apple Pay to buy entry tickets to an exhibition - worked fine. Used Apple Pay to buy lunch in the museum cafe: rejected. Used the debit card for the account that Apple Pay is linked to, and it worked fine.

Is this likely to be Apple or the bank causing problems? I’m in the UK if that’s relevant.

2

I have one card that works fine on Apple Pay, except at one particular grocery store chain. The card itself works at that store, and the card works on Apple Pay every where else. Other cards do work on Apple Pay at that store.

No idea whether the problem is with Apple or the store. I’ve submitted bug reports to both, with no resolution.

Doesn’t really answer your question, but at least you know you’re not alone.

3

The one time I had Apple Pay declined it was a problem with the vendor (seller), they declined it even though it should have worked fine.

4

Since there is an enormous amount of financial payments fraud, payments systems use sophisticated algorithms to detect fraud–and a small percent of the time they reject legitimate transactions.

5

In my case, the few times that it has sort of worked indicates that the payment system somehow thinks the account is restricted to health care expenses. Seems pretty clear that it’s a communications error somewhere between Apple and the store, not a fraud prevention glitch.

6

Is it possible the cafe is operated by a third party that doesn’t accept Apple Pay?

Can you tell us what the specific error message is?

eta-
At the places Apple Pay has been declined, have you used it at those places later and it works?

7

Assuming the museum ticket kiosk and the museum cafe use the same payment processor (which seems likely given that it’s a small scale “labour of love” kind of place) then I used Apple Pay twice at the same place in the space of an hour or so, with it working the first time and not the second.

I didn’t note any specific error message I’m afraid, the contactless terminal definitely said “declined” but I didn’t take note of anything else. I was too busy apologising and digging out my physical bank card.

8

Also: thanks for the replies everyone. :grinning: