Patty

This morning I have been trying to buy some books online from the UK (and yesterday cinema tickets here in Turin) both times they have refused my payment from my UK visa card. I rang the bank and they told me there is no reason for them to stop the payment and that it could be an internet problem or some other problem. Has anyone else had problems recently with UK cards ? Up to now I have always shopped online using this card, with no problems

duffer

My Natwest Visa debit card and Barclaycard Mastercard have been working fine. Perhaps it something to do with the billing and delivery address?

Capo Boi

This has happened to me quite often. Almost certainly due to your bank imposing additional security measures. Looks like they have fobbed you off a bit when you phoned up. I think you have to phone them up again and query again why they have bounced your purchases. They should almost certainly be able to give the true reason. As Duffer says could well be address - delivery issues. If so, ask them to authorise transactions to that site for you.

However it could also be that they do not consider the site a secure provider or where there are cross border differences in tax rates. If this is the case then there is not much that you can do as the transaction will have been blocked at a corporate level without the bank employee possibly knowing. This has happened to me as well. I would phone them up again though. Chances are that you will speak to a different person who may be better versed as two blocked transactions in twenty four hours is a bit of a coincidence.

Pulaski

Agreed. And challenge your bank as to "why" they blocked the transactions, put the onus on them to investigate and explain what happened. If they come back and say they have no record of the transactions then you'll know that the problem is upstream from your bank i.e. either with the web site or the website owner's bank/ payment processor.

Patty

Thanks for all the advice everyone - I will give them another call -but the girl this morning was very thorough and said she could see the attempts on her screen but that from their point of view it was all ok.
I know they won't let you pay utility bills with Uk cards - just got me wondering if this was being extended to simple transactions ....forgive the paranoia, I've been here far too long I think

Capo Boi

Hello Patty, the attempts will always be visible on the bank person's screen. The blocking element, however, as I said could be at a different level and one in which the bank person may not be aware. Its this that you should enquire about. Ask to speak to someone further up the chain and as Pulaski says, put the onus on them to find out why your purchases were blocked.

Pulaski

I'm sorry but that does not sound right. If your bank can see the transactions then everyone else up stream has allowed the transaction to proceed. Therefore I would conclude that your bank, being the end of the line, stopped the transactions. The only way I could see the transaction bring stopped would be later manual intervention, with the transaction being reversed (and your bank would see the transaction AND the reversal), but I have never heard of that happening with respect to a web site payment, so I would doubt that is the case for you either.

Isakat

IT happened to me Patty, when I wanted to purchase something online with my credit card. The shop said the c/card company stopped the payment, the c/c company could see the 2 attempts made, but said it was not their fault, so I gave up. Maybe I should try again.
The worst thing was when I went on a shopping weekend in London, only to find out my credit card was blocked-they thought someone was using it fraudulently since I hardly use the UK credit card here.

Patty

Pulaski - I can see what you mean - Monday I will call them up again.
Its just so bloody annoying.

Isakat - I had real problems with my credit card and so I haven't used it for ages. But my debit card has always been fine and thats why it worried me.

Why is life so ruddy complicated over here? I only want a few books to read

duffer

Actually, thinking about it I have always had problems with the Paypass contactless payments here in IT using a UK card and the UK customer services person has always said their is no problem on their side and the card should work. I have tried MBNA Visa and Barclaycard Mastercard at various McDonalds so that I can get a free doughnut (although with exchange rates, conversion charges and transaction fees it would be cheaper to just pay in Euro cash). But I'm a sucker for a free doughnut!

Isakat

Yeah, the doughnut is all you need when you want to loose weight, naughty you.

Domino

Patty, you are getting good advice but would like to add to that with a incident of my own from about a year ago.

My card expired and a new one was issued. One (and only one) of my regular payments failed and they sent me an email and I spent several days in trying to resolve the situation.
It seems that when the bank are "seeing" the transaction going through they are (due to their poor training) actually telling the truth. BUT that is only the transaction being initially being authorised. It seems that is just the request being made, the card system then sends a formal acceptance of the transaction which is where it comes unstuck. If that acceptance isn't accepted by the requesting business then it "fails". There is a certain period for this to happen but

My problems were caused by Sage Accounts being used by the vendor not receiving the instruction receipt which they said they hadn't received from LTSB who said it had been sent. I spent hours on trying to resolve this (luckily using Skype so no charges). Perhaps Sage didn't have a port open on that software version??
I managed to resolve it in the end by changing from the desktop to the laptop and it went through fine and have had no problems since.
It could have been caused by slightly different settings on Norton

Perhaps it was will happen again in a couple of years time when another card is issued, but until then it works for bank, Ebay and Amazon transactions with no problems

hth

Sancho

For what it's worth, I once found my own card had been blocked (I think it was because I'd got it mixed up with another card and put the wrong PIN in twice in a cash machine). I rang the bank, and they said they couldn't see why - at their end everything looked OK. Then I called the number on the bit of paper the card comes with - not the same as the normal bank number. They saw what the problem was (my mistake with the PIN) and said they'd unblock the card. It still took a while for it to begin to work again though. I think a day or two. That was a few years back.

Patty

sorry I didnt reply before now but had guests staying. I think I have sorted the problem out - I re-rang the bank and the problem according to them was a bit like you Sancho - I had put the password in wrong and so it got blocked. Anyway I made a purchase on another site that I use and it all went ok. So fingers crossed that it was only that

Wcndave

I have found payments to be a real pain across the board.

lots of sites require a postcode, and don't accept overseas postcodes for UK card. The password reminder for mastercard did not like my address. I have had problems only online though, never in shops.

I told my bank that I could be in UK or Italy at any time and they should never block on that basis, which they seem to have done.

However lots of things i need to "visit my nearest branch", so i ask the world's local bank, HSBC, where that is. France they say. "Are you near the border at all sir?". I have actually been asked that.

I also found that some transactions require me to go to a branch.

In the end what I have done is tied my card to paypal and use that wherever possible, never had a problem, and then got a bancomat card here.

However there's no free banking here.

So it's always possible you will get an issue using a "foreign" card.