An outcry from customers who found that Home Depot no longer accepts Apple Pay resulted from an upgrade to the hardware chain’s in-store payment systems.
Stephen Holmes, Home Depot’s director of corporate communications, told Cult of Mac the problem is not specific to Apple Pay. This means that nobody, including Google Wallet users, can make electronic payments right now because the company is working on its NFC terminals.
“We don’t have the capability to accept [Apple Pay] online, and our NFC is currently inactive as we upgrade our systems,” he said.
The problem was initially reported in a post on reddit, with some users complaining that they were unable to use Apple Pay in stores, despite previously being able to.
“After using [Apple Pay] successfully many times at Home Depot, I reached out to them after my last attempt failed,” wrote reddit user burlow44. They replied ‘they do not currently accept [Apple Pay] in their stores’.”
It should be noted, however, that Apple Pay was never officially accepted by Home Depot, although many stores made it possible to use the service. Some customers are reporting that they are unaffected by the NFC upgrade, but this could change at any moment.
It’s unclear how long the system upgrade will take. In an earlier email to a customer, a Home Depot rep wrote, “We may offer [Apple Pay] in the future, but we currently do not have a time frame for this.” Instead, customers are encouraged to use PayPal.
While this is definitely bad news for people who enjoy paying with their iPhone or Apple Watch, it’s only a bump in the road. Today Apple added 24 additional banks and financial institutions supporting the service — bringing the total number of participating issuers to almost 250 nationwide.
Additional issuers include:
Bellwether Community Credit Union
Benchmark Federal Credit Union
Blackhawk Community Credit Union
Community America Credit Union
Community First Credit Union
Connections Credit Union
cPort Credit Union
Denver Fire Department FCU
Electro Savings Credit Union
Elements Financial FCU
First Financial Credit Union
Greater Nevada Credit Union
Harvard Universities Employees Credit Union
Interra Credit Union
Kern Schools Federal Credit Union
Nusenda Credit Union
People’s Trust Federal Credit Union
Premier America Credit Union
Premier Members Federal Credit Union
SAFE Credit Union
Scient Federal Credit Union
The Bancorp Bank
Tucson Federal Credit Union
Union Bank & Trust Co.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
5 responses to “Home Depot says lack of Apple Pay support is nothing personal”
One word:
Lowes.
Lowes currently doesn’t support Apple Pay either.
Yet.
If they stop accepting it, they lose customers. It just does not make sense. If they’re looking at CurrentC, that’s even worse!
What I’d like to know is: why are so many sites reporting this story without bothering to mention that Home Depot announced yesterday their formal support for Apple Pay later this year? Do news sites not follow the news?