You have never given proof for this reason for the change.
I can't find a source right now, but it is certainly the case that 'authorise all' can be applied and removed ad-hoc - and every bank carrying the Current Account Switch Guarantee will do this ahead of transferring away a customer.
As someone who worked in retail when Chip and PIN was introduced, I learned a few things. When a card could phone home, it would. Our machine always attempted to contact the bank for authorisation. The change to not allow an offline authorisation could be done then (and was on occasion) precisely for the reason you gave (unusual activity. Online attempts would decline as well once this flag was set). It was then reset on the first online use after the customer had verified with their bank that the transactions were genuine.
I also worked in retail in Feb 2006. We had an integrated setup, but as in your case it would always attempt online authorisation - if it couldn't connect straight away it would stop trying unless the card was foreign or Electron/Solo. Most stores still do that - only some of the bigger supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl, Asda and Tesco + railway equipment) will authorise offline (goes through as soon as I put my PIN in). As the time which online authorisations decreases I would expect banks support such methods decreasingly; and merchants probably equally see it as not worth the risk.
Obviously on a Delta, Maestro or a credit card it would indeed allow a transaction up to a certain amount (I seem to recall £100 on Delta, Visa Credit and MasterCard and £50 on Maestro) should our machine not be able to contact Streamline (who we used). However had the flag disallowing offline transactions been set, the card would decline.
The amount which can be authorised offline (before an online transaction must be made) is set on the chip. This is why the member 'sarahj' earlier mentioned that putting a card in an ATM and getting a balance will reset the level.
As for disallowing offline transactions completely in the future. Not going to happen. Offline transactions exist as a backup to those who are deemed eligible by their banks.
You're free to your opinion, but it is clearly in that direction the banks are steering things; you mention yourself how retailers nearly always do everything online where possible...
I suspect the reason the Electron branding almost disappeared (it's beginning to make a comeback but only on basic bank accounts for example
http://www.halifax.co.uk/bankaccounts/current-accounts/other-bank-accounts/basic-bank-account/) was more an effort to remove some of the prejudices that some retailers had. Some of my colleagues would not accept an Electron card, despite the fact that our processing system would authorise them as normal.
Acceptance was certainly an issue, as I alluded to previously Electron card users previously couldn't use their cards in most TVMs or Booking Offices (regardless of whether the infrastructure was there - and it should have been by 2009!) - and Visa have forced that ridiculous situation by simply rebranding them. It also allowed banks to create 'Control' type accounts without the stigma of an Electron card. There are many advantages to merging the schemes.
By the way, Halifax (and Lloyds Banking Group as a whole) do not issue Electron cards. If you applied for that account, you'd receive a Visa Debit card; raised digits and all. Halifax terminated all their Electron cards in 2012.
The IIN (Issuer Identity Number) previously known as the BIN generally identifies the issuing bank and card network (Visa or MasterCard). All Visa cards start with 4 and generally the first 4-6 numbers are unique to a bank. There are exceptions.
Cards with the IIN 4508, 4917 or 4844 (there are others I can't remember) are all permanently online only. They cannot be changed to offline authorisation as Visa have set these in stone. They are the original Electron IINs and are used by multiple banks worldwide.
Customers with cards with those IINs should be told by their bank that their card is online only.
Well I have a card starting in 4508 which works fine offline - but OK, ignoring that, I still reject that a customer should have to understand the card authorisation system to know when they can and can't use their card. The whole point of the Visa acceptance mark is that it works as exactly that - the railways should either accept Visa or not.
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Or maybe just let the customer know?
In the age of internet banking (with mobile phone apps too) there is zero reason at all why a bank could not send a message to the customer to say what restrictions have been placed on / removed from their card.
How? Text message? What would it say? "Your card is no longer a Visa card but you should be able to use it in most places a Visa card is accepted; with the exception of on-board trains and aeroplanes"
It should be no concern of the customers' - that's the whole point!
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I dont know how this would work, but lets say i had to pay for a journey on a credit card on-train and I had three credit cards all handled by three separate systems (Halifax, Barclays and Metro Bank) but all three was declined.
Ignoring the likelyhood of all three banks having issues at the same time, what would happen then? Would i be given the ability to pay at destination (or via another method where card would be accepted) or does it become my fault because i am unable to pay? What if i am given a penalty fare or made to pay an unreasonable rate?
Although, strictly speaking, this example is more of an issue of "unable to accept payment" as opposed to "unable to pay" (which really is the retailers/merchants responsibility, and ultimately their responsibility to acknowledge this without placing me at a disadvantage).
This is precisely my problem. I reject the rationale that the railways simply can't do anything about this; but accepting that - they don't even seem to have an official policy for what should happen.
To those who want to pay, there is some inconvenience.
For those who don't want to pay, there's a massive loophole which has remained in place for years.