Tesco Credit Card purchases stopped

[HandsOffMyRights]

Whenever I make a transaction of over say £200 online (a holiday last year, bathroom furniture this year) Tesco declines the transaction as a 'security check'

It then sends you a text to confirm if it was you making said transaction. You have to text back yes and then it unblocks your card and you have to purchase the item 'again'. But two lockouts and your card is permanently blocked.

When I was booking my holiday Tesco declined the card as above. During which time the holiday page expired and I had to start again.

I never had this with my previous Mastercard. I could buy what I wanted and when I wanted.

When I called Tesco they explained this is what they do, without acknowledging that this could be problematic in an emergency/or buying tickets etc. Or, if you messed up the input the second time your card is on lockdown.

Is this the norm these days or should I switch providers?

I'm with tesco and i've never had that.

Always put holidays etc on the cc

Happens with Santander current account too. It's a pain for the account holder.

I purchase pretty much everything with my tesco mastercard, never had it blocked as you describe. I do sometimes get text messages to confirm transactions that say to contact if it wasn't you, but the payments aren't declined

Had it from RBS but the Pin hadn’t been used for a while. Future purchases didn’t require it.

How often do u make large transactions? Usually providers trend ur behaviour so if u regularly use it to buy a £1.50 coffee but then every 12m buy a holiday, the holiday will show as potential fraud.

Happened me last week (Santander credit card) when I bought several flights and hotels on separate bookings. It triggered fraud check

Thanks for the replies. I buy everything on my card (to get points, Pay it off with my debit card) so maybe £80 food shop each week, petrol etc.

I tend to purchase something over £200/300 only a few times a year - holiday, furniture etc.

I have had this a few times, always with my Tesco card, rarely with other credit cards, no idea why Tesco are more strict - we use 2 cards regularly for purchasing everything, then paid off by DD monthly. One transaction was John Lewis, so not exactly an unknown name, we have bought loads from them in the past.

The third (Halifax MasterCard) we use generally for foreign transactions, as it has no fees, it has never been stopped, despite me using it online for a number of foreign transactions of £200-400, 3 of them in almost quick succession last October (we were booking for a NY trip)

Tesco also stopped our card on the Friday before Xmas one year because we were using it too much (joint card, we were both out shopping in local town). The guy I spoke to said “ah but the computer doesn’t know that you are Christmas shopping” 😂😂