Express Transit causing NYC Apple Pay users to be charged by accident
- jan
- 09
Turn on Apple Pay Express Transit in NYC if you dare.
What you need to know
- Some Apple Pay users are experiencing erroneous charges.
- Express Transit appears to be the culprit.
- The feature, combined with NYC's OMNY system, is picking up phantom taps.
New York City recently rolled out its OMNY contactless payment system to selection subway stations around the city. It is a huge push by the MTA to start accepting contactless payments, supporting users to be pay to transact for their rides with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and others. Some Apple Pay users, however, are reporting that they are being charged accidentally.
Reported by the New York Post, some Apple Pay users are reporting that when they are using a metro card or some other form of payment at one of the OMNY turnstiles, they are seeing that they are also being charged through Apple Pay. Others have reported that they are seeing charges come through when they even happen to walk too close to one of the OMNY systems. Straphanger Macartney Morris, one user of Express Transit, was puzzled as to why he started to have the issue, saying that he had been using the feature for a while without issue.
"I've had Transit Express enabled for a year and a half since I went to Vancouver, Canada. It's never caused this problem until yesterday."
The issue is being caused by users who have a certain feature of Apple Pay turned on. Express Transit, a feature built into Apple Pay, allows users to use their iPhone or Apple Watch to detect and pay for transit without having to authenticate the purchase with Face ID, Touch ID, or their passcode. It's a very convenient feature to have if you regularly commute by subway and want a quick and easy way to pay and keep moving. However, that same feature seems to be charging iPhone and Apple Watch users by accident now, and MTA Chief Revenue Officer Al Putre confirmed the reports.
"About 30 customers" had complained about "unintended charges when the Express Transit feature of their iPhones is activated ... the system is a popular success that's working well for the vast majority of people and we're in touch with Apple about addressing the issue of unintended taps."
Apple did not say what they doing or where they were in the process to fix the issue but did recommend that users who were experiencing the problem should turn off Express Transit for now.
"When a customer enters the greater New York transit area, they receive a notification that a payment card in Apple Wallet can be used for Express Transit. NYC residents are also informed about Apple Pay Express Transit when they add a payment card to Apple Wallet for the first time ... customers can easily turn off the feature in Settings on their iPhone at any time and use Face ID or Touch ID to ride transit."