About the blurry launch Android Pay did not speak, probably only the lazy one. For some users, this resulted in a loss of 40 rubles for the promised free ride in the metro and informational confusion, when there was already news about the launch, but there was no detailed information about the operation of the service yet.
Fortunately, the situation is clearing up and now we can already answer many pressing questions, talk about previously unknown aspects of the service and fix one very significant error about the shortcomings Android Pay, which, unfortunately, crept into our review.
So let's start in order.
False start. In the last Spillikins, Eldar Murtazin shared an inside story that the promised metro ride for 1 ruble was the Moscow Metro's own initiative, which was not coordinated with Google in any way, so the search engine should not be blamed for this failure. But what it stands for is for the poor work of the press service and technical support, which did not clarify in time and could not answer the questions that arose.
From experience, I can say that the work of technical support in such co-branding products is almost always a confusion with who is responsible for what. And, unfortunately, AR did not escape this fate. In the early days, Rocketbank's support on many issues was sent to the support of Google, which in turn sent back to the bank.
Now we can say for sure that the employees of Google were right. The issuer of the virtual card (the same token) is the bank, payment processing is carried out by the bank, cashback and other bonuses are also accrued by the bank. So, if you need to solve a problem related to any of the above as soon as possible, you need to call the bank. It is not for nothing that the bank's phone numbers and even a button for launching the bank's own mobile application are given in the card settings and in the transaction description.
In the comments to the AR review, one user complained that when paying from a Sberbank card in Burgerking via AR, a promotional cashback is not credited, allegedly the problem is that, according to the terms of the promotion, you need to pay from a Sberbank card, and since the payment was not from a card, so cashback the bank does not charge. It is worth explaining how the system works here. The mysterious “token” that is often found in AP reviews is another virtual bank card issued by your bank and linked to the same account as your plastic card. Strictly speaking, there is absolutely no need to delve into how the payment is technically processed. The most important thing is that when paying through AP, you keep all the bonuses and privileges that your bank gives you, as if you were paying with plastic, this is separately indicated in the AP description. If in the first days of the launch you have any difficulties with the accrual of promotional cashback, then do not hesitate to call the bank and persistently convey your disagreement to the employees.
Moreover, this applies to both the buns that the bank gives, and the buns that shops give to holders of a certain type of cards under the Visa Premium and MasterCard programs Priceless cities. The essence of these programs lies in the fact that the outlet undertakes to give a certain bonus to holders of Gold, Platinum and higher premium cards. For example, holders of World Mastercard Black Edition or World Elite Mastercard can enter the business lounge of Terminal E of Sheremetyevo Airport free of charge. You can present both the plastic itself and the added card in the AR, the status of your card is always displayed.
Important disclaimer! Neither Google Inc. nor the respected editorial staff take any responsibility for the dormancy of specific employees at the checkout?
The fact that from the point of view of receiving bonuses it makes no difference whether you pay with plastic or AP – this is an important advantage of AP over such analogues as the 'Wallet' application. In such applications, you cannot pay with your usual cards, you will have to issue special cards within the application, no paper contracts are signed with the bank, which can lead to very unpleasant situations.
Well, before moving on to the abusive part, it is worth commenting on the return procedure, which Evgeny Vildyaev wrote about in the last article. There will be no problems with the return of goods purchased with a card through AP. A token (a virtual card for contactless payment) is issued by your bank once when the card is added to the AP and is always used when paying with this card (it is not a one-time use and is not tied to the payment terminal, as it was indicated in the review). The token can change only if you removed and added the card again, or if you reinstall the AP (configure on a new device). In these cases, a new token will always be issued. However, even in this case, problems should not arise, because the refund operation can be carried out directly to the account without applying the card. True, this will require additional gestures from the cashier / accountant of the store, and not all employees are able to do this.
(in the first days of the launch, Sberbank had problems with the implementation of the return functionality, this is not a feature of the AR, but a flaw in a particular bank, which was confirmed to us, both in Sberbank itself and in other banks).
Well, all the thrown stones are collected, now I would like to scold Google a little.
- When adding bonus cards, it should be borne in mind that AR has no connection with loyalty card processing. If you made a mistake in the number of your loyalty card, or forgot to fill in the pin-code field in the gift card, AP will not tell you about this, and you will only find out about your mistake at the checkout, when the cashiers do not accept your card from AP, and by no means from – because of its denseness, but because the number is wrong. Both geeks and ordinary people expect from Google, if not space, then at least cloud technologies. When adding a bank card, AP checks with the database and does not accept the card if the number is entered incorrectly. When adding bonus and gift cards, AP first asks you to choose the store that issued the bonus card from the proposed list, at this stage you involuntarily expect that there is also a check with the base. But it is not there ((I hope Google will add a warning to the user that the number of the added card must be manually rechecked;
- Now, to use loyalty cards, they must be presented on the phone screen. It seems like an obvious idea that when paying via Android Pay bonus points are credited automatically. So far, this has been implemented only for foreign Balance Rewards and Coke MyRewards. Hopefully, the list of supported programs will be expanded over time;
- A bunch of minor flaws at the start. AR allows you to pay not only in stores, but also on websites and in applications. In the AR itself, there is a link to the Play Store section, where all applications with support for paying for AR internal purchases are collected. But while this link does not lead anywhere, the section apparently has not yet been created in the Russian Play Store. Promo notifications are also not working yet. I learned that Aeroexpress, BurgerKing and Starbucks give bonuses when paying through AR on the Internet, although all types of notifications are included in the settings of my AR, including notifications about promotions, recommendations and special offers;
- Google support is poor. Employees have very little knowledge of the products they support. I wouldn't be surprised if the call center is outsourced at all. A nice girl in a conversation with me confidently stated that payments would not go through if I arrived in a country where AR was not launched. When I pointed out to her that in the description of AR 'in Russian in white' it is written that you can pay “all over the world wherever contactless payment is accepted”, she left for a few minutes to consult someone, and then brought “deepest apologies for the unreliable consultation ”. In general, we look forward to when the artificial intelligence of Google Assistant replaces live support staff;
- Sloppy design of the AP application itself. Logos and design of gift cards and loyalty cards have been added to one store out of ten (even not to all federal chains), although this would take 3-4 man-hours of one designer at most.
Also, for some reason, all the cards are displayed in bulk. Why not make a separate deck for loyalty cards and a separate one for gift cards? unclear.
In general, if the Russian office of Google had prepared more thoroughly for the launch, it would have been possible to avoid the delay between the announcement and the real opportunity to try out the service, and the initial confusion with the mechanism of work (I think we are not the only ones who gave the wrong / not See the overview for full details), and prepare normal launch promotions. Where they were in a hurry, it is not clear. It is unlikely that a delay in launch for a month or two would have made Google managers then bitterly grieve over the irretrievably lost time.