Apple Pay Is Double Trouble

I was among the first people to try out Apple Pay the moment it came available on Monday. It was convenient, fast, and it seemingly worked without incident … until I logged in and checked my debit card bill. As it turns out, I’ve been charged twice for every single purchase I’ve made with Apple Pay at various stores. A quick search of Twitter found many other people experiencing this same exact problem:

“Problems with #ApplePay – it looks like my @bankofamerica account was double charged by @Walgreens,” tweeted fellow Apple Pay user Rohan Thompson.

Many of the other people on Twitter experiencing this same exact problem also mentioned they were using Apple Pay via their Bank of America (BAC) debit card. So I called up Bank of America and they assured me it was a problem on Apple Pay’s end. That seemed feasible, because all of the purchases I made without Apple Pay were only charged one time.

 

How Apple Pay works

Bank of America transferred me to Apple Pay customer support. The only problem: Apple’s (AAPL, Tech30) representative reminded me that for security’s sake — as promised — Apple keeps no records of names or amounts for any of the transactions. That meant there’s nothing Apple could do, the representative told me. So Apple told me to call Bank of America. It was every consumer’s worst nightmare: customer service for two companies telling you to call the other.

Thank God for three-way calling. I got Apple and Bank of America on the same line and let them sort it out. BofA was smart enough to refund me the money, because they said it was obvious to them that these were duplicate charges for the same exact amount. A source with knowledge of the situation said that a fix on the banking side of Apple Pay transactions is expected Wednesday. Apple’s public relations team did not respond to requests for comment.

“People should check their bank statements after using #ApplePay,” tweeted @SBUX75DEVILDOG.

Indeed.