back to article DOUBLE BONK: Fanbois catch Apple Pay picking pockets

Tim Cook's dream of bonk-to-pay global domination has taken a serious battering after customers using the new Apple Pay system were double charged. Fanbois took to Reddit and Twitter after finding their Apple Pay transactions had been duplicated. Apple said it was aware of "a Bank of America issue impacting a very small …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More Apple Awesomeness

    Maybe Apple's payment system is written in SWIFT.

  2. Semtex451
    Joke

    Have a holiday

    This and the China Telecom thing, seems even Jasp can't quite pin stuff on Apple lately.

  3. jb99

    I still fail to understand why an ordinary contactless payment card isn't better and easier than this (and I'm a huge technology fan!)

    1. Caff

      because apple

      Obviously applepay(TM) offer a richer user experience, offers the user a streamlined seamless method of leveraging the cloud while shopping. Applepay(TM) is a vastly superior agile payment system that empowers the user through the apple platform.

      1. Richard Jones 1
        FAIL

        Re: because apple

        Well that may be your view. Shelling out a vast wedge of cash for a 'user experience' when the card in my pockets comes without an extra charge would make me feel it was a considerably poorer user experience from my parsimonious point of view. Since I have yet to even use pay by bonk for anything with anything I am unlikely to be near the front of the stampede. I instructed my card company to disable some types of transaction when they were offered

        1. Caff

          Re: because apple

          You still have to have a card to use applepay, but instead using the plastic card you register the number with apple.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: because apple

            You still have to have a card to use applepay, but instead using the plastic card you register the number with apple.

            What could possibly go wrong there?

        2. Vic

          Re: because apple

          Well that may be your view

          ITYF it was parody...

          Vic.

    2. dkjd

      It doesn't transmit your name to everybody?

      You can wipe it remotely if it gets nicked?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Because the vast majority of people don't have contactless payment cards?

      Because in the US (which is the market for this) people are forced to use insecure swipe cards because the banks haven't invested in card technology for a decade and have been left behind the entire rest of the world?

    4. Velv
      Gimp

      If you've just slept outside an Apple Store for 5 days to get yourself an iPhone 6 you want every excuse possible to take it out of your pocket and flash it in front of people.

      1. returnmyjedi

        The girl in the queue for overpriced coffee had the first iPhone 6 Plus I've seen in the wild. She didn't bonk it (being in the UK) but I was disappointed how ordinary the phone looked in the (or should that be 'her') flesh, certainly not as Purdy as a HTC One M8 or orange Lumia 930 (the latter might be just my own preference for day glo moves). It was perfectly flat though.

        Anywho, the time she spent getting the loyalty app for said rank coffee shop to open she could have slid her card in and punched her pin in. Hopefully apple pay doesn't require quite so much faff.

        1. Michael Thibault

          >Anywho, the time she spent getting the loyalty app for said rank coffee shop to open ...

          It would have been much worse if paying with cash. One upside to pay-by-bonk is that the means to pay is almost certainly already in-hand (literally), so there's much less need for the hard-of-thinking to go faffing about in pockets and purses for the necessaries--after the total has been announced over the store's PA system.

          1. Tim Bates

            >One upside to pay-by-bonk is that the means to pay is almost certainly already in-hand (literally),

            I'm considering taking my rarely used credit card out of my wallet so the only contactless card left in there is the card I want to pay with... Then I can just wave my wallet across the terminal.

            My Aussie bank actually does support pay-by-bonk on Android (has done for about 12 months - didn't hear the media praising that innovation), but rudely only on a preselected collection of phones. My phone has NFC, but no support from them.

      2. Michael Thibault

        The voice of experience?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guess these things happen...

    One day at our national insurance company, I guess someone pressed the enter button twice by mistake on the batch billing screen. All the customer got double billed that day.

  5. Preston Munchensonton
    Joke

    No one should be surprised

    This is the Apple surcharge. They have to make money somehow...

  6. sisk

    Not Apple's faust

    Much as I dislike Apple all suspicion of it being their problem vanished the instant I saw the words "Bank of America". A more corrupt and/or less competent financial organization would be difficult to find.

    1. Aitor 1

      Re: Not Apple's faust

      It is their fault.

      It is fundamental to check for duplicates before charging, and to lock the account before charging.

      After that, you have to check for duplicates.

      The reason is many systems can guarantee that the transaction will happen AT LEAST ONCE (tibco, I'm looking at you), it is your responsability to check that only one is valid.

      Happened to me once, years ago, won't happen again.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not Apple's faust

        Seriously haven't ever worked in this space have you? The typical solution to this is that the initiator of the transaction creates a unique transaction ID along with the rest of the details, this passes to the FI. The FI then _should_ de-duplicate the transaction ID's, with at most only one ever being presented per ID. The initiator can sometimes (legitimately) send duplicates, if the initiator doesn't receive a timely (or correct) response it may re-present the transaction (identical, same ID, so it's easy to spot). Many Issues at the FI end may cause this, but as long as the transaction is identifiable as the same one, it's fine.This allows for scenarios like someone buying something for £9.99 from a vendor, then deciding a second later once the transaction has went through that, you know what, they really needed two widgets, not one so another transaction from the same vendor comes through immediately after for the same amount.

    2. Sven Coenye
      Coat

      Re: Apple's Faust

      So *that* is how they got to be so successful...

    3. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Not Apple's fault

      No kidding. I'm an Android fanboi and even I hate BoA worse than Apple...

    4. Tom Maddox Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Not Apple's faust

      Actually, this is precisely Apple's Faust. They've chosen to deal with the devil (B of A), and exchanged their soul for wealth and power. When you sup with the devil, make sure you dine with a long spoon.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not Apple's faust

      Ah no? So whose Faust is it then? Goethe's?

  7. jai

    spin

    "1,000 transactions" != "serious battering"

    "a Bank of America issue" != "Apple Pay picking pockets"

  8. Ashton Black
    Joke

    No....

    You're bonking it wrong...

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: No....

      You're bonking it wrong...

      First put some Barry White playing on the phone, then change the colour scheme to something muted and warm -- and be careful, you don't necessarily know who bonked there previously.

      1. sabroni Silver badge
        Happy

        Got some Chop Suey warming by the fire...

        Show us yer knickers!

  9. Rabbit80
    Joke

    #Bonkgate?

    Sorry.. had to be done..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: #Bonkgate?

      Bonkgate and Bendgate - Apple seems to have a one-track mind recently...

  10. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Benefit of the Doubt

    I was going to deploy my favourite rant (not used in a while) about the weasely apologies that technology companies seem to have all adopted these days. Their cloud system goes down for a day and they apologise for the inconvenience to a "limited or small number of customers". Which you know is a big fat lie, as it was probably the majority of them.

    Although limited is a great word, as it doesn't actually mean small, it's just often used that way. It really means not all, so as long as you can keep one customer's service up, only "a limited number of our customers were affected" is still true.

    However, small number was about 1,000 I can accept.

    Although with my cynical hat on, I might wonder if there have only been 1001 transactions so far on Apple Pay. In which case the wording would be strictly truthful, but wildly inaccurate..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Benefit of the Doubt

      Read the article - it's a BofA issue - they said so and apologised etc.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: Benefit of the Doubt

        Sure, this may not be Apple's fault. But the banks are huge cloud players too. After all, what is a High Street bank? It's a huge database with some customers' money attached. And when the bank systems go titsup, they wheel out the same dishonest-non-apologies.

        But obviously here Bank of America got it right, that a small number of customers really was. It'll be interesting to see if they come out with a number if they have a bigger outage though...

  11. Chas

    Since only BofA customers seem to have been affected, it would seem that logical that it's their fsckup.

    =:~)

    1. Frankee Llonnygog

      Never let logic get in the way of a good rant

      Or an opportunity for boy reporters to rewrite a press release into propaganda that would be rejected as unbalanced by the lowest Sixth Form College magazine

    2. Chas

      Looks like I'm right:

      http://recode.net/2014/10/22/bank-of-americas-apple-pay-glitch-should-be-fixed-today/

      =:~)

  12. Scott 1

    Yep...

    It's a new feature on a proprietary device. I'm not surprised there are a few teething problems.

    Of course, this observation is boring and not sensational. I would not make a good journalist.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yep...

      Let me help you re-write it Jasper style:

      Desperate Apple have locked Fanbois financial gonads to the iSyphon. Utter chaos has ensued, with huge wads of cash being spirited from their accounts. We reached out to Apple asking if the fuck-ups we, at El Reg just keep on identifying, will ever end. The stuck up c**ts couldn't be arsed to reply. Wankers. As predicted for over two years now, the arrival of that Peak is imminent. When it does arrive, you know where you heard it first. Ooh yer!

      ok, maybe slightly exaggerated. But not by much.

  13. Real Ale is Best
    Joke

    "Apple is so good that you paid them twice. "

    Well, you've seen how much they charge for an iPhone!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is this what it has got to on here - BoA admit it's their issue and apologise yet it's an Apple problem?

    If it was happening with all banks then you could blame Apple but suspect Apple had zero control over this BoA error?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Eh?

      It's only effecting people using Apple Pay though, I guess that's where the Apple connection is...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      you test before you go production

      > Apple had zero control over this BoA error?

      Apple should have tested its payment system with every single bank that signed up for it, including Bank of America.

      Evidently Apple did not do that.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    is it just me?

    Or does anyone else think that 22,000 outlets in the whole of America is pretty paltry? Wouldn't that average out at less than 1 per town or city?

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: is it just me?

      Well to put it in perspective, globally there are nearly 21,000 Starbucks locations, of which over half are in the US. By another measure, there are over 100,000 filling/petrol stations in the US.

  16. OmgTheyLetMePostInTheUK

    Apple found a way to increase that $92 billion pile of money it has!!!

    Hilarious!! Apple made people pay way too much money to buy their state-of-the-art phone that finally got some features that Samsung has had for years, and then doubles up on the charges. Now that sounds like the perfect way to toss more money onto that humongous $92 Billion pile of cash they already had...

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1000 transactions affected?

    Just like 9 iphones bent?

    http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/25/apple-response-bend-iphone6-6p-plus-nine-complaints

    So that's 1000,0000 duplicate transactions if you transpose the bending lie to this new one.

  18. chivo243 Silver badge
    Angel

    Banco de Amerkia

    Too funny, after years of faithful service, de BOA closed my credit card account as I didn't utilize the card enough, I had paid off all balance(quite a large sum) ant then only bought plane tickets once a year. Glad I don't use an iPhone or BOA thanks to their clear insights.

    Some call karma, I call it dumb luck...

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