Apple continues on with its new mobile payment feature for its iPhone 6 called the Apple Pay, despite glitches and competition encountered, ZDNet reported.
Apple Pay was released on Monday, Oct. 20 and since then it has been supported by some of America's banks and other retailers. It stores Visa, MasterCard and American Express credit cards and allows users to pay for clothing, food and other necessities through their phones. It also works with iPhone 6's ID fingerprint recognition feature, allowing users to pay at the touch of a button.
Apple follows after Google, which has had a mobile payment feature since 2011 with Google Wallet. However, Google Wallet has been available on only a limited number of devices, has received complaints of glitches in its user interface and had limited marketing.
Apple Pay has been experiencing its own problems, particularly for those connected to the Bank of America as users claimed they were being charged twice for purchases, according to The Daily Mail.
A number of customers claimed that their bank statements showed discrepancies and that it was difficult to seek refunds or fix the problem since Apple does not keep records of their customers' names and transactions.
CNN reporter Samuel Burke was one among many affected, saying that Apple Pay was convenient and fast, but that he ended up being charged twice for every single purchase he made.
"I called up Bank of America and they assured me it was a problem on Apple Pay's end," he said on CNN. "That seemed feasible because all of the purchases I made without Apply Pay were only charged one time."
Burke had to resort to a three-way call with Apple and Bank of America before he was eventually refunded.
"We're aware of Bank of America issue impacting a very small number of Apple Pay users," an Apple spokesman said to Burke. "They're working on a fix that will be available shortly and reversing any duplicate transactions."
A Bank of America spokeswoman said that about 1,000 transactions were affected.
Several major retailers have also claimed that they would not use Apple Pay. Instead, they introduced its own system called CurrentC, according to The Australian.
MCX, a group led by retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Sears have disabled payment terminals from accepting Apple Pay and have started using a different technology called CurrentC. It allows retailers "to bypass credit cards and use direct bank debits at lower transaction costs."
Apple has yet to release a statement in response to MCX or on continued improvements on Apple Pay's double-charging error.
