I'll start by explaining the nightmare I'm currently having.
Thursday night I decided I'd pre-order the iPhone 7. I've had success with the iOS app before, so I booted it up and triple-checked all my payment details. I use the same details for Apple Pay, which I use successfully all the time on smaller purchases. I chose my phone configuration and saved it as a favourite for even quicker access.
Friday morning 8am rolls around and I join everyone else in the panic. After a couple of minutes I was in, and I picked the phone up out of my favourites, threw it in my bag, and went to checkout. At the bottom I was presented with a "buy with Apple Pay" button. Knowing it would be much faster, that's what I decided to do. It scanned my fingerprint as usual, I got the confirmation tick, and a few minutes later I had an email from Apple telling me my order was being processed. Nothing at all about payment problems. And best of all, I had launch day delivery.
So, thinking everything was fine, I went about my day. At no point did anybody try to contact me about my order. I didn't even feel the need to check it. Then, before I went to bed, I saw on Twitter that a lot of people who'd ordered as early as I did were seeing "preparing for dispatch" - I couldn't resist checking mine immediately, and it's a good thing I did. I was greeted by a message:
Payment action required: We are unable to obtain an authorisation for your order. Please ensure your card provider is aware of your order, as we will continue to seek authorisation. Please update your payment method to continue with this order.
I was obviously concerned about this so straight away I clicked update and tried to get it to re-do the Apple Pay details. This continued refusing to authorise, so then I chose the second option - try again with a different card. First I tried putting in the same card's details minus Apple Pay, but that again got rejected. Then I tried putting in the details of a completely different card, belonging to a different person, from a different bank - guess what? That also got rejected. Frustrated and unable to get hold of anyone at Apple or my bank because of how late it was, I went to bed. Still no word from Apple about the payment failing.
6am this morning, we get a text message to our landline, which woke the whole house up - thanks Apple - finally confirming the failure of the payment. 22 hours after it failed, but who's counting?
At 9am we started making calls. Both banks confirmed there was nothing wrong with our accounts (no blocks, plenty of money to cover it, etc) to explain why the requests were failing, but mine took the verbal confirmation that I did want Apple to take the money and reset my account for me, and told me to contact Apple to try again. I called Apple and asked them to try again, but again it failed - they told me it was my bank's problem and told me to call them again. Can you see where I'm going this? I was on the phone and in chats for in excess of 5 hours today trying to sort this out, because I kept going around in circles, because neither party would accept fault. One of the people I spoke to at Apple offered to re-order it for me without Apple Pay - I could easily have done that myself, but cancelling and starting again means I go to the back of the queue and wait for weeks past launch day. I wouldn't mind if this was my fault, but it isn't.
At around 2:30pm, I finally made a breakthrough. I managed to get to speak to someone in an Apple Online Store Customer Services chat. By this time I was immeasurably frustrated, and though I was trying to remain polite and pleasant, my patience was long gone and I think it showed! I explained my situation for about the sixth time, and this person told me there was some kind of "global issue" with Apple Pay, and that he'd pass my details on to the payments & credit cards team, who would contact me in "24-48 business hours" to resolve the issue. He also assured me that as long as this is fixed before they want to take the money on Tuesday, I should still get Sept 16th delivery. But because I was visibly annoyed and being quiet persistent with him, I can't help but think that maybe he just told me what would get me out of the chat...
So, here I am in limbo, waiting to hear back from someone about how this is going to be resolved. In the meantime I just wanted to share my experience, and ask if anyone else has had the same trouble? If it truly is "global" like this guy said, SURELY I can't be the only one? I certainly feel like I am at the moment!
Thursday night I decided I'd pre-order the iPhone 7. I've had success with the iOS app before, so I booted it up and triple-checked all my payment details. I use the same details for Apple Pay, which I use successfully all the time on smaller purchases. I chose my phone configuration and saved it as a favourite for even quicker access.
Friday morning 8am rolls around and I join everyone else in the panic. After a couple of minutes I was in, and I picked the phone up out of my favourites, threw it in my bag, and went to checkout. At the bottom I was presented with a "buy with Apple Pay" button. Knowing it would be much faster, that's what I decided to do. It scanned my fingerprint as usual, I got the confirmation tick, and a few minutes later I had an email from Apple telling me my order was being processed. Nothing at all about payment problems. And best of all, I had launch day delivery.
So, thinking everything was fine, I went about my day. At no point did anybody try to contact me about my order. I didn't even feel the need to check it. Then, before I went to bed, I saw on Twitter that a lot of people who'd ordered as early as I did were seeing "preparing for dispatch" - I couldn't resist checking mine immediately, and it's a good thing I did. I was greeted by a message:
Payment action required: We are unable to obtain an authorisation for your order. Please ensure your card provider is aware of your order, as we will continue to seek authorisation. Please update your payment method to continue with this order.
I was obviously concerned about this so straight away I clicked update and tried to get it to re-do the Apple Pay details. This continued refusing to authorise, so then I chose the second option - try again with a different card. First I tried putting in the same card's details minus Apple Pay, but that again got rejected. Then I tried putting in the details of a completely different card, belonging to a different person, from a different bank - guess what? That also got rejected. Frustrated and unable to get hold of anyone at Apple or my bank because of how late it was, I went to bed. Still no word from Apple about the payment failing.
6am this morning, we get a text message to our landline, which woke the whole house up - thanks Apple - finally confirming the failure of the payment. 22 hours after it failed, but who's counting?
At 9am we started making calls. Both banks confirmed there was nothing wrong with our accounts (no blocks, plenty of money to cover it, etc) to explain why the requests were failing, but mine took the verbal confirmation that I did want Apple to take the money and reset my account for me, and told me to contact Apple to try again. I called Apple and asked them to try again, but again it failed - they told me it was my bank's problem and told me to call them again. Can you see where I'm going this? I was on the phone and in chats for in excess of 5 hours today trying to sort this out, because I kept going around in circles, because neither party would accept fault. One of the people I spoke to at Apple offered to re-order it for me without Apple Pay - I could easily have done that myself, but cancelling and starting again means I go to the back of the queue and wait for weeks past launch day. I wouldn't mind if this was my fault, but it isn't.
At around 2:30pm, I finally made a breakthrough. I managed to get to speak to someone in an Apple Online Store Customer Services chat. By this time I was immeasurably frustrated, and though I was trying to remain polite and pleasant, my patience was long gone and I think it showed! I explained my situation for about the sixth time, and this person told me there was some kind of "global issue" with Apple Pay, and that he'd pass my details on to the payments & credit cards team, who would contact me in "24-48 business hours" to resolve the issue. He also assured me that as long as this is fixed before they want to take the money on Tuesday, I should still get Sept 16th delivery. But because I was visibly annoyed and being quiet persistent with him, I can't help but think that maybe he just told me what would get me out of the chat...
So, here I am in limbo, waiting to hear back from someone about how this is going to be resolved. In the meantime I just wanted to share my experience, and ask if anyone else has had the same trouble? If it truly is "global" like this guy said, SURELY I can't be the only one? I certainly feel like I am at the moment!
