I used my credit card at the weekend for two large-ish purchases. The first, and larger, went through fine as a chip and pin type payment and the second, which was fill in a form and sign, also seemed to go through fine. Both of the purchases were made at a garden centre on completely different items and the second purchase was a shed, which is being supplied by another company.
Anyway, I got a message today from the shed company saying my card had been declined. (This happened to me once before and it was because I'd failed to activate it, but it still led to a long line of phone calls to both the bank and McAfee as neither seemed able to tell me whether the payment had actually ever gone through, grr.) I rang the company, phone engaged, so I rang the bank. They had no record of any payment being made and none of any payment being declined - couldn't tell me what was wrong but suggested that possibly the company had the wrong details. OK, so I rang the company to check anf this time spoke to a lovely woman who read my details back to me (all OK) then offered to put through the payment again while I was on the phone - declined again. So I paid with a debit card, which I hadn't really wanted to do as I wanted to spread the cost over this month and next. Anyway all sorted with the company, I rang the bank back. After a lot of being passed about and put on hold I eventually spoke to someone in their security section and it turns out my card had been stopped as the purchases were "out of the ordinary" for me. Now, I understand that they have to monitor suspicious activity, and it's true that most of my payments by credit card are online (and mostly to amazon 
) but whenever I have a big purchase I use my credit card - AND they'd let the chip and pin payment through on the same day at the same shop. The thing that makes me most cross about it, other than common sense telling them it was a 'safe' payment, is that the first person I spoke to hadn't been able to tell me why the card had been turned down and after telling the bank I wanted to make the payment, when I then tried again to make the payment (over the phone) it was still turned down. They also had reassured me that there was no block on my card at all.
At least I was sitting in my living room trying to buy a shed (hardly life and death!) But what if it had been a really important payment, like a hotel bill before rushing to the airport or similar and they told me there was nothing wrong with my card, but continued to block my payments? 
AIBU?
...to be annoyed with the bank?
PartialToACupOfMilo · 01/06/2011 22:13
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
hsbc did this to me with my corporate credit card, but then refused to speak to me at all as i wasn't the designated account person at our company. no of course i wasn't, on a sunday night stuck in an airport in another country. and no one in the office.
was very .
magically, although, when someone maxed out the same card fraudulently buying crap online from dodgy sites, they were only too happy to talk to me to take all the details - but then threatened me by saying it was either my husband or my secretary who had stolen the details.... and did i want to start an investigation as it would probably lead back to me or them! told them to go ahead - refunded quietly without another word... but was FUMING at their approach.
sorry to hijack your post op, just feeling a bit better for the opportunity to rant about banks!
Partial - often thieves will try a small payment and if that goes through, then go for a much larger one. This may have been what caused any suspicion
Very annoying though, we were left in Morrocco with no money when the bank stopped us using cash points (you are not allowed to take any cash into Morrocco, so really no other choice 
). Oh and they won't let us log the fact that we are going abroad in advance . Lloyds BTW
Niceguy2 - The AIBU is not really related to the actual security checking (even through my cross-ness I can appreciate that an amount going through on a chip-and-pin is less likely to be fraudulent than one going through on apaper with a signature), but rather that they weren't able to tell me why my card had been turned down or even record on my account that it had been - let alone let me know. The first time I rang them after picking up the answerphone message the person just reassured me that there were no blocks on the card and that it was all fine. When I had spoken to the guy in the security section, after finding out that the payment was 'suspicious' and complaining to them, he then went on to tell me that the payment would go through fine if I rang and spoke to the shed company again - I'd just told him that I'd had to use my debit card and that there therefore wasn't going to be a payment with my credit card anymore - it's the lack of communciation I guess that's really infuriating me.
Anyway I won't go on - I hate it when OPs come back and insist they aren't being unreasonable! This should have really gone into the 'I just really need a rant' section 
Newsletters you might like
Just read your post Hell - ditto to all of that - even when you bother calling they don't make any note of it. I had this happen so many times I simply tell people not to use them any more. Oh and I got hauled to the security desk in Tesco for trying to buy a pack of eggs and 4 bananas. 30 mins later and the guy on the phone can't understand what I am saying, trying to tell him where I was born and having to shout it loudly in front of the queue at the fag desk. That's clearly secure
That is why I won't use them on a daily basis.
I had M&S credit card declined while trying to pay my hotel bill in Greece. When I got home and rang them, they tried to claim that the message said for the vendor (ie the hotel) to ring to confirm details. I was with George (the hotel owner) as he was trying to do it and it did no so such thing: it just said "transaction declined". Had to put it on a debit card instead - fortunately there were enough finds in that account.
M&S's other little trick was to ring either a work or a home number despite having mobile numbers to confirm transactions while you are away on holiday (having told them in advance) - and then stopping the card 'cos they don't get a response within a day
In contrast, American Express (which we took out after these and other incidents with M&S) have always been fantastic - the only problem is that not everywhere takes them.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.