I had a card declined transaction for 50p today. Can anyone beat that?
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Card Declined for 50p.
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Banks don't like small card transactions as the fees collected are too low for them! They will say that thieves and fraudsters will make small "test" transactions of less than a pound before buying something "big ticket" such as a mobile phone.
I recently did an 89p transaction with a reputable media website for a book then the next day, I bought a new mobile phone! I only discovered my card was stopped when trying to buy something in a shop - I could not remember my telephone banking passwords so I had to visit a branch with proof of ID to release my card!
I recently did an 89p transaction with a reputable media website for a book then the next day, I bought a new mobile phone! I only discovered my card was stopped when trying to buy something in a shop - I could not remember my telephone banking passwords so I had to visit a branch with proof of ID to release my card!
If this was on an Avantix machine, given it processes all of its transactions, I don't think this is what happened. Are the offline limits even smart enough to do this?
I suspect its probably just an ordinary offline transaction limit (number or cumulative value) being reached
I suspect its probably just an ordinary offline transaction limit (number or cumulative value) being reached
Tom B
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Ironic, since we are continually being told to use cards rather than cash - as it's cheaper for businesses and banks.
Were they all online cardholder-not-present transactions?
swj99
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Good point. And given that many people don't carry a lot of cash, and customers are being encouraged to use other forms of payment, shouldn't it be compulsory for these to be carried by anyone processing payments, so that when the technology occasionally fails, there's something to fall back on ?
The imprint machines would be no good for cards that require on-line authorisation (iirc some of these cards do not even have embossed numbers).
Regarding swiping of cards it used to be the case that the banks would honour a transaction if the retailer could prove that the card was present when the transaction took place and there were two methods of doing this:
1. A chip and pin transaction.
2. An imprint of the card.
Where I worked at the time of chip and pin roll out a card could still be swiped but if we did this we had to take an imprint of the card to prove it was present.
Regarding swiping of cards it used to be the case that the banks would honour a transaction if the retailer could prove that the card was present when the transaction took place and there were two methods of doing this:
1. A chip and pin transaction.
2. An imprint of the card.
Where I worked at the time of chip and pin roll out a card could still be swiped but if we did this we had to take an imprint of the card to prove it was present.
It is my own humble opinion but the banks do my head in the way they can't properly update your account until part way through the working week. Would you use an airline that said "We don't have a clue where our planes are during the weekend, you gave us loads of money, didn't you check where the plane was?"
GatwickDepress
Established Member
5p. I was buying a lollipop at the newsagents. Adding a copy of Private Eye seemed to be a high enough transaction for my bank to accept it the second time.
Ha ha, good one.
All three were internet transactions via paypal.
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I don't think cards are cheaper. Cash works out a cost of 1% plus around 20 minutes staff labour in the different businesses I've worked in.
Debit Card merchant fees were around 1.5% with credit card merchant fees around 2.5-4% dependent on the card issuer. Both card types had a minimum fee for processing making it uneconomical to take on small transactions, hence a number of businesses place a minimum £10 spend on card transactions.
In the case of offline transactions, your bank doesn't have the data. It has to wait until merchants hand it over.
My local ASDA petrol station got my card locked.
> Insert card, enter PIN.
£1 pre-authorisation transaction happens.
Doesn't want to start dispensing. Tells me to start again.
> Insert card, enter PIN.
£1 pre-authorisation transaction happens.
Doesn't want to start dispensing. Tells me to start again.
> Insert card, enter PIN.
£1 pre-authorisation transaction happens.
Doesn't want to start dispensing. Tells me to start again.
> Insert card, enter PIN.
Card declined. Contact your bank.
I wasn't overly happy after that. Card that doesn't work, phone that doesn't work, car sat on forecourt after doing a lot of miles on the fuel light.
Yes, this stuff is all for our own protection; it doesn't stop it from being really annoying when it happens though
andrewkeith5
Member
I've never had a small transaction declined - I've used my card for as little as 16p. Most of the time fees are between 0.5% and 2% of the transaction value, although sometimes debit cards are a fixed fee of up to a few pence.
Barclaycard have blocked my card twice now - once when I went from spending £2-something in a shop to over £200 on the internet, and once when I made five customer-not-present transactions in a row. This is exactly why I always have more than one card on me and have an emergency card in my car!
I generally avoid retailers which don't accept card transactions. I don't mind paying a nominal amount (say 20p or 50p) to pay by card for a relatively small transaction to a tiny independent retailer to help cover their costs (the local chinese takeaway being one example), but for anything more than that I expect a retailer to be able to run at a suitable profit margin that they can cover the costs of processing a transaction. Similarly I refuse to buy more goods just so that I can pay for them.
Technologies like contactless are specifically designed to make it cheaper for businesses to process small transactions (the fees for contactless payments are always a percentage of the transaction with no minimum), It frustrates me when retailers have the equipment but can't be bothered to learn how to use contactless or use it when they can - partly because contactless save me and everyone else in the queue time, and partly because if they can process it contactless and don't it's normally costing them more.
Like many people, I never carry cash nowadays.
Barclaycard have blocked my card twice now - once when I went from spending £2-something in a shop to over £200 on the internet, and once when I made five customer-not-present transactions in a row. This is exactly why I always have more than one card on me and have an emergency card in my car!
I generally avoid retailers which don't accept card transactions. I don't mind paying a nominal amount (say 20p or 50p) to pay by card for a relatively small transaction to a tiny independent retailer to help cover their costs (the local chinese takeaway being one example), but for anything more than that I expect a retailer to be able to run at a suitable profit margin that they can cover the costs of processing a transaction. Similarly I refuse to buy more goods just so that I can pay for them.
Technologies like contactless are specifically designed to make it cheaper for businesses to process small transactions (the fees for contactless payments are always a percentage of the transaction with no minimum), It frustrates me when retailers have the equipment but can't be bothered to learn how to use contactless or use it when they can - partly because contactless save me and everyone else in the queue time, and partly because if they can process it contactless and don't it's normally costing them more.
Like many people, I never carry cash nowadays.
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Really? I know people who rarely use cash; I'm not sure I know anyone who doesn't carry any. I always have a £20 note in a non-obvious place in case my cards and normal cash should go walkabout. Do you really manage to *never* need cash?
Now you mention Asda, I've had issues after using their online home delivery site. They pre-auth for £1, and then if you amend your order they pre-auth another £1.
andrewkeith5
Member
There are certain occasions (like a music festival last weekend) where I make an exception, but in general day to day live, I do get by without cash quite happily.
You don't even need cash to park anymore - there will always be a car park where you can pay by card or phone somewhere closeby.
There's a difference between "I get by without cash" and "I never carry cash" and a jump again to "Many people never carry cash" which is the statement that surprised me.
I suspect there might also be variances between different parts of the country.
I can't think of a car park in most of my nearest towns where you can pay any other way than cash.
My local buses only accept electronic cards for a season of a week or more - though they do have hi-tech pieces of cardboard that you can buy on-line and get clipped - however for most people a return or day ticket is cheapest which requires cash unless you want to pay for additional validity.
I was surprised a couple of weeks ago - my wife had bought some clothes in Ilkley and asked me to return them. She'd deliberately paid cash so there was no confusion with having to return the money to a card that wasn't mine. The store didn't have enough money in both its tills to refund me.
Car Parks- All of the local car parks around here use RingGo which charges all sorts of 20p admin fees. Also living in Cornwall whether you actually have a mobile signal to ring RingGo to pay is a different matter altogether.
I normally carry around £15 in cash - normally made of a £5 note and £10 in a mix of change as a large number of shops round here wont take debit/credit cards for transactions of under £10 without charging a 50p surcharge.
On the cash subject I bought a car from a private seller at the weekend. The only suitable payment method was cash. Fortunately we were only talking £500, but none the less cash was the only suitable payment method for a private seller.
andrewkeith5
Member
There almost definitely are variances throughout the country, if anything just based on attitude (generalising here, but in the south the adoption of things like contactless and smartcards is generally much quicker). In regard to your first paragraph, it depends on your definition of "carry cash" - I count this to mean that I don't just carry cash around with me 'just in case' - there are some situations where there's no choice but to use cash, but generally I know about this in advance and make arrangements or, in reality, am never that far from a cash machine. One such example? I arrived at Köln Bonn airport and the ticket machine at the train station didn't accept MasterCard (my preferred payment method in Europe as I have a card which charges nil fees - better value than any cash currency exchange, incidentally!). The cash machine was all of about 2.5 minutes walk away...
I can't think of a national car park operator that doesn't accept payment by card, phone or the internet - if worst comes to worst, I park in the train station car park (again, I've never encountered one that doesn't accept payment) or find somewhere to park for free. My local buses have smartcards which can be loaded with season tickets or bulk-paid fares (5, 10 or 25) or there is a mobile app which has the same tickets as well as single fares. When I'm elsewhere, if I'm going to need the bus I've probably travelled by train so will get a Plusbus ticket.
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I can't imagine how it must feel to carry £10 worth of coins around - a note or two I could understand but I absolutely hate the hassle of dealing with coins. I prefer to pay a 50p surcharge if I really need something, though the frequency with which I find that's required is very low (once in the past 12 months that I can recall, and if EE's online top up system was working that wouldn't have been necessary).
On the car sale, I suppose that's just preference between buyer and seller - I've never bought or sold a car privately...
Overall not routinely using cash causes me very few problems indeed.
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Andrewkeith5 you would struggle to live here in Cornwall without cash. Only council owned car parks have card facilities, and that is via RingGo, but we lack mobile signal in many areas making that unsuitable.
Buses are all cash only, we don't have smart cards.
A majority of shops here are local independents who either don't accept cards at all, or impose minimum spends.
Carrying cash down here is therefore a necessity,
Carrying £10 of change is easily done using a bumbag.
Come to Cornwall for a few days and this whole line will change
Buses are all cash only, we don't have smart cards.
A majority of shops here are local independents who either don't accept cards at all, or impose minimum spends.
Carrying cash down here is therefore a necessity,
Carrying £10 of change is easily done using a bumbag.
Come to Cornwall for a few days and this whole line will change
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Well Facebook, Twitter and various online forums including this one appear to be able to share data almost instantly. How can an institution as wealthy as the banks not manage it? I suspect cheap IT systems but I could be wrong. I have a full online debit card, how do various web based businesses know when I have paid them but if I pay with my contactless card the bank don't have a clue where the money is for days. You would think the bank would make that a priority.
You didn't read what I said (and I think you've misunderstood the use of online).
Online transactions in the cards world simply means payments that the merchant will authenticate with the bank before authorising. Offline transactions are those that merchants don't authenticate with banks before accepting. This isn't unusual for low value (<£10), particularly contactless payments. It's not the same as online/internet vs. bricks and mortar shop.
So as I said, for offline transactions i.e. those that have not been authenticated with your bank, the merchant will hold the only record of your purchase. The merchant sends those files to Visa/MasterCard/banks. While there may also be delays in processing that data by your bank, the first cause of the delay is the time taken for merchants to hand the data over. Particularly for small merchants, this may only be once a day.
Transactions on the internet will almost always be authenticated given the potential fraud risks associated with the card and the cardholder not being present.
No I completely understood. What I would like to know is why institutions as wealthy as the banks are still using systems which apparently for days on end don't know what has happened? For a business that relies completely on money and where it is it seems silly, at the very least.
Offline authorisation is dying out. The railways are one of the few examples where it is widespread, due to the problems of Avantixes being ancient and not working outside signal coverage, as has been discussed on this forum many times.
I was thinking more of contactless payments. You need an online card to make one but the money just disappears for a few days. An actual bank gave me money over the till when I didn't have it available due to contactless payments they just didn't have a clue about until a day or two later, they then tried and failed to charge me for going overdrawn on an account with no overdraught facility.
*sighs* it's the cards and the merchants systems; not necessarily the banks systems in the scenario you are describing. Your bank cannot read your mind or your merchants mind.
And offline authorisation isn't dying out (only where wifi/3g signals can fill the gap for card terminals in remote locations and on the move). It's alive and kicking for many contactless payments even where there is a permanently connected link to phone/fibre lines.
As you don't believe me for some reason
"Visa payWave transactions occur in less than a second and are generally processed ‘offline’. This means that there is no delay where the terminal attempts to obtain authorisation from the cardholder’s bank via the payments network. The payment is then cleared and settled like any other standard EMV transaction. For transactions above the contactless limit, the card continues to behave like a normal chip and PIN card."
From page 2 of https://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dco...ocuments/me_Contacless_Payment_Technology.pdf Saying you have an 'online' card doesn't make any sense or mean anything.
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If the contactless payment terminal had to check with the bank, it'd be much slower and defeat the point of contactless, which is to make payments quicker and easier, and encourage card use for low value transactions.
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