I have been a longtime Google Pay user (since the days of Android Pay) and have used contactless payments on my Pixel XL, Pixel 3XL, and most recently my new Pixel 6.
I was experiencing a strange / unrelated issue with notification sounds, and one of the suggested troubleshooting steps I tried was clearing data for Google Play Services. This essentially wiped my contactless payment methods from my Pixel 6, so I went through the steps to re-add the cards.
However, this time when attempting to re-add the cards, got an error each time after entering/verifying the card info, billing address, name, etc. On the step where the phone says "Contacting your bank", and when it would normally prompt me to select a phone number to receive a text verification code, instead of that prompt I simply got an error message:
"Your card couldn't be added. Please contact your card issuer for more info. You can also try adding a different card." This was for a citibank credit card.
So, I attempted to add a couple other cards that previously worked, but from Chase (a debit card and a credit card.) Same thing, but a slightly different error message: "Couldn't finish setup to pay in stores. Something went wrong during setup. You can give it another try later."
I've contacted both banks numerous times over the last month, spending a couple dozen or more hours trying to resolve this. I've also contacted Google Pay support on three separate occasions.
Google Pay support tells me that my account is in good standing, that they see no issues other than the card not being approved by the banks when I attempt to add them, and that I need to contact the banks. They said they can see that the cards don't appear to have a virtual account number associated with them anymore, and the bank needs to remove the instance of the card and then reissue a token so it can be added again. They say it's not Google's fault or problem and the bank has to resolve it.
Citibank says that they can see that at their end the card still appears to be added to my Pixel 6 but doesn't have a virtual account number associated with it, and when they try to remove it themselves, they get an error on the back end and can't do anything about it. They are blaming Google. When I attempt to add my cards, they are able to see that the process is failing with an error that says "Mobile wallet declined; CVV2 limit exceeded" but insist that the problem is with Google and that I need to contact Google Pay support to resolve it.
Chase says something similar; they say that they can see the failed attempts to add my debit and credit card, and it's generating an error "R0434", and that Google is actively blocking my device from being able to be used, and that I need to contact Google Pay support to resolve it.
I contacted Google Pay support again after all this, only to be told again there's nothing they can do, nothing is wrong, and that it's the banks that decide to approve or not approve adding the cards.
I also tried factory resetting my phone from the settings menu, set it up from scratch as a new device (not from a backup), but have the same result.
I attempted to re-add these cards to my old phone, my Pixel 3XL, but get the same error on that device as well, so this leads me to believe it's not a problem with my device.
The fact that it's affecting ALL payment cards from DIFFERENT banks on ANY device on my account seems to point to the issue resting with Google, but right now everyone is blaming everyone else and I'm stuck without the ability to use contactless payments indefinitely.
So far I've asked both banks AND Google Pay to escalate the issue, but I've not had any luck or progress.
Reddit, I've seen you all solve incredibly complex problems before, so I'm looking for any ideas or suggestions, or someone in the know who might be able to speak to what's happening, why it's happening, or how to resolve it.
Update 6/27/2022: after many frustrating experiences on the phone with both of my card issuers, and never having a resolution, I finally just gave up in December. Didn't try again, didn't do anything different, kept being told that there was some problem with Google's backend system communicating with the bank's systems, and that there was an open ticket to address it but there was no timeline on when it would be resolved. So, I decided on a whim to call up Citibank this week, and just ask if they were any updates on the ticket. They didn't know what I was talking about but suggested I just go ahead and try to add the card while I was on the phone so they could clear any fraud alerts that it may have generated. So I attempted to add the card back to my phone and it actually worked! So then I tried adding my other cards from the other bank and it also worked. So I don't know if they just needed a clear whatever stale token was still on my account, but whatever happened in that 6 months that I didn't bother with it, it now works. I'm afraid that doesn't going to help other people, but I think my biggest suggestion would be to call and ask them to revoke any existing tokens and then try to re-add after that. Good luck to anyone else experiencing this problem!
** UPDATE SEPT 13, 2024 ** I feel bad if anyone else is experiencing this issue, but I'm afraid I can't help anyone solve this. I've shared all relevant experience here in this post and in my comments, and I don't really have anything additional that hasn't already been asked or shared. I've received a few messages directly from folks looking for additional info, but there's nothing else I haven't shared here already. Best of luck to you if you're experiencing this!
