Online shopping - exclusions

[ChrisGreaves]

Forum?
Using a credit card to shop in funny places
I have used my BMO MasterCard for 18 months now, all over the place, including domain name registrations and (gasp!) a book form an online book store. Not a problem.

This morning I took my *!#new#!* Scotiabank VisaCard down to the local branch who issued me the card last week. Withdrew $20 cash. Not a problem (I figured that if there were a problem, it would be resolved while I was inside my branch which had issued the card).
I walked across the street and purchased two disgustingly large blocks of chocolate from the Convenience Store. Sadly, not a problem, so I am now working my way through a pound or two of "Lindt" (or somesuch) chocolate. Sigh.

OK, so the SB credit card works for cash from the bank clerk, and chocolate from the store clerk.

Home again, and go to place the order for the pumpkin seeds from a European Country.

Untitled.png

"The Operation is temporarily Unavailable ...".

I phone the SB help line and Emil doesn't know why. We exchange emails and he will get back to me.

Nothing stops me. I return to the seed catalogue and try using my BMO MasterCard. BMO asks for the email verification code thay say they have sent me by email (If this is not you ...), so I paste that in and receive a screen which looks like the earlier screen "The Operation is temporarily Unavailable ...".

At this stage I think I will forget about Pumpkins next spring and just stick with Zucchinis.

But I have a feeling that this particular European Country, or perhaps this particular Seed Company, has been known to both big banks (BMO and SB) for some time, and my Two Good Friends are trying to protect doing a good job of protecting me from some racket that takes money from unsuspecting retired pensioners who live in Bonavista.

The prices are low enough to make one think that the worst case is "they could take my €13 and not send me seeds", whereas they might send me the seeds and then go on using MY card to order stuff for themselves.

Comments?
Thanks
Chris

[StuartR]

Most websites use third parties to do their payment processing, and any temporary technical issue at the vendor web site, the payments processor, or your banks external interfaces could cause this issue. It is very likely to just go away if you try again later.

[BobH]

The prices are low enough to make one think that the worst case is "they could take my €13 and not send me seeds", whereas they might send me the seeds and then go on using MY card to order stuff for themselves.

I don't know about laws or credit card practices in Canada, but I spent 20+ years working in the credit card industry in the US. As a matter of practice (in the US) MasterCard and Visa assume losses for fraud, not the banks whose names are on the cards. If you are charged and do not receive goods by MO/TO (mail order/telephone order) or Internet order, in the US the banks are required to refund your money provided you follow their steps in the time frame required to document the transaction so that they may pursue collection from the merchant bank that entered the transactions into interchange. You must act within the time frame required (90 or 180 days, depending on the situation) and provide details that the bank who issued you your card requests. It is wise to contact you card issuing bank within 30 days of a questionable transaction to receive explicit instructions and information about time frames. This applies to any non-face-to-face transactions and to any transactions that originate fraudulently that you did not originate.

You should have received disclosure forms with your cards that provide all that information but it is so long and daunting that you might not have read it closely. Go to your bank and ask them to explain it for you or give you a phone number to call for explanations if they aren't knowledgeable.

[PJ_in_FL]

Chris,

You stated you completed a cash withdrawal using your VISA card at the bank. Did you do a cash advance with a CREDIT card, or a withdrawal using a DEBIT/VISA card. Many bank-issued debit cards have VISA logos, but THE PROTECTION FROM FRAUD IS NOT THE SAME!

This is a very important difference. If the card also has "DEBIT" printed on it, I'd recommend not using it anywhere other than the bank. Any money withdrawn via fraud is NOT COVERED by the bank, but has to be petitioned for reimbursment. That goes through the bank's processes, and may take months, if they decide to return your money at all.

[BobH]

Good call, PJ.

Chris did start by saying that it was a credit card.

[ChrisGreaves]

Most websites use third parties to do their payment processing, and any temporary technical issue at the vendor web site, the payments processor, or your banks external interfaces could cause this issue. It is very likely to just go away if you try again later.

Untitled.png

Hi Stuart. This is my perception of what goes on, and I hope that you and/or Bob will correct me.
Simpliified: I see that the banks (in my case BMO and most recently SB) sat with me and submitted applications for credit cards.

There is a layer which is a separate organization that actually deals with credit-card business. These are possiblky the people who decide whether or not to offer me a card and tell the banks whose managers swivel their chairs towards me and smile or frown.
There is another layer where the work gets done; I think of this as the interface betrween the credit card businesses and the merchants. Yes, that's a typo, but I left it in as what I think will be a most appropriate French pun. It may happen that for a pair of banks, this work-gets-done layer may be a single data processor, a system that ends up processing Chris's data no matter which of his two bank's card he uses. Or it may not.

The merchant layer is of course the shop or web page where I decide to insert-your-card.
I suspect that there is indeed some debit-card description supposed to go in here; that is, when I use my debit card in a merchant store, the data goes through several data processing layers and ends up in, say, ScotiaBank, where they take the money out of my chequing account.

Now yesterday a single merchant web site told me that (a) my SB-Visa card was temporarily unacceptable and (b) my BMO-MCard was temporarily unacceptable.

My immediate thought is "merchant problem", perhaps their checkout page is not working, but now I think "perhaps two Actual Data Processors are not working, which is less likely than a single communal Actual Data Processor not working, same thought for a Credit Card Portal, communal or not.

Or, as I quickly suspected, the merchant had been flagged by the consortium of bank/card/processor fellows.

If I get much deeper into this I am going to have to reveal two other clues to you all (clues as to why I suspect a flagged mechant merchant), and then you will all learn that I am not such a smart person as you thought I was.

Now on to Uncle Bob ...

Thanks
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I don't know about laws or credit card practices in Canada, but I spent 20+ years working in the credit card industry in the US. As a matter of practice (in the US) MasterCard and Visa assume losses for fraud, not the banks whose names are on the cards. ...

OK Uncle Bob; it is good to see that at long last you are going to earn your free membership on Eileen's Loung. I knew you would come in handy some day (HUGE grin)

I think we can assume that for our purposes the US/Canadian systems are the same. The parameter values may vary (90/180 days vs 80/160 days, say), but the overall mechanism will be the same.
I should add here that I love the way credit card companies monitor my spending habits in real time, and I have several examples of the credit card companies phoning ME within a couple of hours of an out-of-pattern purchase. "Love" is not too strong a term. Indeed this initial "temporarly unavaialble" flag made me think immediately "I am being protected by the credit card companies".

I have noticed a change in the monitoring from the mid 1990s (a convenience store/gas bar taking $50 cash out of the card long after I had returned to Toronto from one of the Carolinas) through the early 2000s (when I used a card for the deposit on a new car), and I suspect that the card conglomerates have been working assiduously to tighten up their fraud-barriers. And good for them.

You must act within the time frame required (90 or 180 days, depending on the situation)

As far as this goes, Since 1989 I have been using a spreadsheet to monitor my daily purchases. Back in those cash-strapped days I would empty my wallet every night and reconcile balances. Nowadays I still enter the data and once a week check my active accounts (six of them) and confirm my Net Worth, and compare each account balance (as reported online) against my interpretation in the spreadsheet. This helps me to get to sleep each night!.

So, given your experience in the industry, what would your best bet be about a single merchant being flagged by two separate channels, as in my case? I am not saying that the merchant was flagged, just asking what is the most likely explanation?

I have my money, figuratively speaking, on it being a flagged/rogue merchant.

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

You stated you completed a cash withdrawal using your VISA card at the bank. Did you do a cash advance with a CREDIT card, or a withdrawal using a DEBIT/VISA card. Many bank-issued debit cards have VISA logos, but THE PROTECTION FROM FRAUD IS NOT THE SAME!

Hi PJ; Good Point.

(1) We used my SB debit card just to bring my account onto the teller's screen. At this point Laurie can "see" into my account(s).
(2) We then used my ***new*** SB Visa card to withdraw $20. It turns out that my PIN defaults to my debit card PIN. Yes, I must change that ...
(3) At this time I said "OK, the card works here; there is no need to sign the receipt for the first purchase" (as used to happen).
I exit the bank clutching both cards.
(4) I enter the Convenience Store where, too, i am well known (The manager bakes banana bread from zucchini and drops the bread/cake off in my porch!) where I purchase a ton of chocolate and use my credit card. Works fine, nothing to sign. I pocket the receipt and card and hurry home to unwrap the chocolate bars and

At this point I have transactions and a balance on the new credit card, and can test out my "Add Transaction" macro in my spreadsheet and confirm that "Capital One" is truly dead and "SB Visa" is truly alive and kicking. Then I can set up the automatic $20 transfer from my chequing account to the credit card. But see my note to Bob about reconciling my spreadsheet against the online statements above.

(5) At this point I want to complete the initiation of my new credit card by making a small (13 Euro) purchase that was on my list. Off to the merchant web site and - instant rejection.

Hence this thread.

or a withdrawal using a DEBIT/VISA card.

As an aside, the day I applied for the new card I commented that I had left my wallet at home ("The best way to pay off a loan quickly is to leave your wallet at home"), and the bank manager said casually "If you want twenty dollars cash, just ask one of the girls⁽¹⁾ and they will give you twenty dollars". I flipped, thinking that she meant they would pick their purse up off the floor and ask If twenty would do. Turns out no. Small town. We know you well and can bring up your account on the screen; you will need to key in your PIN.

⁽¹⁾Her words!

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Good call, PJ. Chris did start by saying that it was a credit card.

True, but I know it would be easy to get things mixed up. I had the advantage of living through this, PJ had only my mumbling description to go by!
Thanks Bob
Chris

[BobH]

(In an effort to earn my keep . . . )
The amount of your purchases/withdrawals and their location might have had something to do with both your approvals and denials. Before diving in, let me first demur that my experience in the industry was more than 30 years ago and MUCH has changed since then.

First, most card issuers now have a security check on cards that requires you to call a toll free phone number (we call them 800 numbers) to activate the cards for use. It is intended to assure that the card has been delivered to the true account holder. If you have not done so, either the issuers have not required it or not having done so might have affected your international transaction.

Merchants have what we used to call 'floor limits.' Only transactions exceeding those limits required authorization at the processing center. These days, most merchants have electronic terminals that read either and RFID chip or a magnetic stripe and are connected to the check-out scanner or electronic 'cash register' (now you know how old I am) and to a telecommunications network which might be either their store telephone lines or the Internet. In any case, the terminal might have some 'intelligence' which verifies that the card is not on a revoked list or the transaction amount is not great enough to warrant the costs of processing an inquiry.

Because your pumpkin seed purchase was international and, presumably, the card was not present for the transaction, it is likely that the merchant's card processing equipment verified the transaction because it assumes a zero floor limit for all sales with no card present (the most likely answer). IFF you have not verified the card as described in para 2, above, then their authorization would have returned to them that the transaction was invalid because the card had not been activated; and they would have, in turn, told you that the transaction was denied. Your card was present and verified (I presume) when you used it locally, but the card was not present at the merchant in the transaction that was declined, ergo the merchant had no information from the card. I must confess that RFID chips in the so-called 'Smart Cards' are a blank area in my experience as they came into general use this side of the pond after I left the industry.

There is yet another possibility. It might be that the merchant doesn't engage in international transactions unless they exceed a large enough amount - which your 13 Euro didn't reach. If this is the case the website should have announced the terms and conditions when you checked out. Note that I said 'should have announced' because I don't know if there are rules and regulations that might apply.

HTH

Bob's yer Uncle.

[ChrisGreaves]

... let me first demur that my experience in the industry was more than 30 years ago ...

That's OK Unc; my experience has not yet only just started.

First, most card issuers now ... activate the cards for use.

Quite so. Turns out that I had activated the card (via a thing called "the web, Uncle) but was still hesitant. I remember that The first time I used an earlier card, the POS device spat out a paper receipt and flashed the clerk that I had to sign the extra receipt in ink (and presumably that signed docket had to be sent in as a cross-check?). It was for that scared-hesitant reason that I decided to make the first use of my credit-card to w/d cash from a Real Live Teller, so that of any confirmation was required, at least I would be surrounded by friends.
Laurie understood all that ("Oh Dear; it's Auld Chris again ...") so we both were happy when the transaction went through and she could hand me a crisp almost-new twenty-dollar bill.
Objective Number One achieved!

Merchants have what we used to call 'floor limits.' Only transactions exceeding those limits required authorization at the processing center.

Hence my second objective; to run up a small non-critical purchase nearby, The Convenience Store, Chocolate bars. Nothing critical, just a simple small transaction, again, surrounded by friendly staff.
Julie handed over the two chocolate bars.
Objective Number Two achieved!

Because your pumpkin seed purchase was international and, presumably, the card was not present for the transaction,

Now we come to the meat course.
I reckoned that a third objective would be an online transaction with a firm I'd never dealt with before, again for a non-critical purpose (pumpkin seeds)

it is likely that the merchant's card processing equipment verified the transaction because it assumes a zero floor limit for all sales with no card present (the most likely answer). IFF you have not verified the card as described in para 2, above, then their authorization would have returned to them that the transaction was invalid because the card had not been activated; and they would have, in turn, told you that the transaction was denied.

Granted. However as we now know, both the bank and the convenience store have effectively confirmed that there is no basic reason for me not to use the card. It must have been activated/authorized/etc. as valid, because it gives me cash and chocolate.
However at this stage I did NOT contact the merchant (as I might have done had I been standing at the counter in the Toy Train Store with an anxious clerk waiting for their commission).

Instead I decided to contact the SB-Visa inquiry (toll-free) line.

Your card was present and verified (I presume) when you used it locally, but the card was not present at the merchant in the transaction that was declined, ergo the merchant had no information from the card.

Exactly! (I knew you were good!).
Although as I show below, the merchant may well have received my data and thrown up the red herring as a ruse to keep me on-the-hook, so to speak.

There is yet another possibility. It might be that the merchant doesn't engage in international transactions unless they exceed a large enough amount - which your 13 Euro didn't reach. If this is the case the website should have announced the terms and conditions when you checked out.

I agree, although I had not considered this at the time. I had used the same reasoning. At no stage had I seen anything like "Minimum Purchase of €100 required". There was "Free shipping for sales over €35", which is OK, and that is where I would have expected to see a Minimum Threshold. Further the merchant web site took me all the way through the type of card, 16-digit card number, 3-digit CSN from the back of the card etc, which gave the merchant web site plenty of opportunity to shriek "order is too small", or similar.

Indeed it was at this stage that I began to wonder - I have handed over my credit card data and yet, and yet, I am no closer to getting my pumpkin seeds. Uh-Oh!

Part of my weak tactic of calling SB-Visa was to get myself on record as having perceived the problem. I figure that the emailed screen snapshot (shown in my first post here) would establish my cred cred (if i got that right).
That the same thing happened with my BMO-MCard made me start thinking that it was a "weird unruly nation" thing, but as I type this I realize that I should tell BMO-MCard about this instanter, just in case some crook is conning me out of my credit card details and then running away.

(signed) "This is a rotten Saturday Night" of Bonavista.

[StuartR]

Hi Stuart. This is my perception of what goes on, and I hope that you and/or Bob will correct me.
...

This is a greatly simplified version of what happens. There may be many different software layers betweedn the web page that you interact with and your bank, each layer may be owned and operated by a different organization.

[ChrisGreaves]

This is a greatly simplified version of what happens. There may be many different software layers between the web page that you interact with and your bank, each layer may be owned and operated by a different organization.

Hi Stuart.
Absolutely! I was limited in my creative documentation by MSPaint and wanted to show that there was more to a SB Visa card than SB (as Uncle Bob, I think, pointed out, or it might have been you).
Indeed I suspect that the SB has never, and will never, hear about "Shady Pumpkin Seeds Inc" of the as-yet unnamed European Country.

Cheers
Chris

[BobH]

Chris, I would ask both card issuers to verify that you card and account have been activated. The 2 transactions you described (unless you bought an enormous lot of chocolate) might never have been 'authorized' by the central card location but stopped at the local terminal because the amount(s) did not exceed the threshold for authorization from the central processor. Even electronic transaction have associated costs. Network traffic and host authorization traffic are probably minimized by OK'ng small transactions with card present at point-of-purchase.

[PJ_in_FL]

Chris,

From ALL the details (ad nauseum) you've provided I'd say most likely scenario is the international transaction was rejected by SB due to heuristics in place to detect fraud. It's a threshold thing and a series of uses in multiple locations, then suddenly one coming from EU (a known hotbed of CC fraud, I'll get into that later) probably met the threshold and was rejected. The bank's CC customer service line can confirm why they rejected the transaction. A repeated attempt probably lowered the bar for your transactions going forward, too.

The EU has had problems for years, and was the reason chip cards were developed and issued, at a substantial cost to the banks! CC transactions in the States and probably Canada are processed REAL-TIME, meaning all the steps to confirm the card is legit and the transaction is approved (i.e. an authorization is issued) happen during processing, usually in a matter of <5 seconds. Lots of servers are used to keep VISA and MC happy with the turn-around time, and even more to score the transactions to check for potential fraud. All this comes from my wife who just retired after 15 years with a major processor, FISGLOBAL, so this is up to date with the current industry, IIRC. All errors are my own. Now where was I? Oh yes!

Now back to the EU...
CC transactions in the EU were NOT processed real-time, but batched over-night. The authorizations came from intermediary processing to check for cancelled or known fake cards, but the rest of the processing was delayed. Lots of fraud can happen in the wee hours of the morning. (I will NOT segue to the news here in the States, but it's very tempting). Anyway, chip cards were a band-aid because the chips could perform some internal calculations and provide proof of authenticity to the terminal. That helped some, but the real solution came from real-time processing and transaction scoring.

Just so you don't get paranoid, the fraud heuristics LOVE international transactions, and they also LOVE gas station at-the-pump transactions. I was denied use of a card last week on a road trip from Tampa area to New Orleans. Had filled up the car with gas before leaving, then again while still in Florida (it takes a LONG time to get out of Florida if one travels down the panhandle!), and the transactions went through as expected. Get into the next state, either Alabama or Mississippi, and the transaction was denied. Pull out another card and all is well. Called customer service, put through to the fraud team, and they confirmed it was flagged because of multi-state use for at-the-pump transactions. Two strikes and you're out! Confirmed to the fraud team member I'm still of sound mind and body and still the party to whom they are speaking, and the card was fine for use to purchase coffee and baguettes at Cafe Du Monde, and other sundry and fun uses.

Now, one other point I'd like to make about pumpkin seeds from foreign actors: Are you certain of the country of origin of these seeds? Just asking for a friend... (Mystery Seeds)

[PJ_in_FL]

Chris, I would ask both card issuers to verify that you card and account have been activated. The 2 transactions you described (unless you bought an enormous lot of chocolate) might never have been 'authorized' by the central card location but stopped at the local terminal because the amount(s) did not exceed the threshold for authorization from the central processor. Even electronic transaction have associated costs. Network traffic and host authorization traffic are probably minimized by OK'ng small transactions with card present at point-of-purchase.

Bob,

Very unlikely to have any local processing in the US or Canada now. Almost all CC transactions are real-time. Especially if it was a chip-card reader terminal and not a swipe-only terminal. Those should all be phased out by now. Even my local Aldi's, who are very expense-averse, has gone over to chip-card usage. Even swipe terminals are real-time processed unless you're in the outer Aleutian islands without phone or net, but SpaceX is going to solve even that problem with Starlink.

[BobH]

Thanks for the update, PJ. Thirty years is a long time out of a relatively dynamic industry. When I left chipped cards were being discussed and one of the possible uses was to carry information that would allow below-limit transactions to be approved without an authorization message to the processor. I guess if that was implemented it has now been changed. Mind you, all of this was pre-Internet; therefore network traffic involved higher cost per transaction.

[Argus]

There is no need to activate a card here before using it in a shop. However, there are two exceptions. Before using the RFID (NFC) part of the card, not interesting in this case, one must use it in a store or with an ATM to get it activated. And, online, Internet purchases can be deactivated or activated via the bank.

Apart from that there are plenty of small things that can go wrong, apart from picking the wrong store. As has been mentioned by Stuart and other there can be a couple of third parties doing payment processing, and if one is using white listing as I do, one can stumble there. Are scripts allowed, are cookies allowed, for all sites and services that need it. I also stick to national shops.

Since EU is mentioned; how is it going with chip cards (EMV/smart cards) in North America? Some said the reason we still have magnetic stripes is because slow adaptation in some parts of the world. Here, if I guess, the use of "smart cards" in general will continue to go down due to phone apps, bank payment systems etc. Travel cards and similar will continue for quite some time though.

[ChrisGreaves]

Post by BobH » 06 Dec 2020, 00:09

BobH >> Chris, I would ask both card issuers to verify that you card and account have been activated. The 2 transactions you described (unless you bought an enormous lot of chocolate) might never have been 'authorized' by the central card location but stopped at the local terminal because the amount(s) did not exceed the threshold for authorization from the central processor. Even electronic transaction have associated costs. Network traffic and host authorization traffic are probably minimized by OK'ng small transactions with card present at point-of-purchase.

Hello Bob. . Both cards have been activated. I have been using the BMO card for all sorts of transactions for almost two years – just before I migrated from Toronto to Bonavista. Never a problem with the BMO-MC.

The SB-Visa was confirmed as activated by the bank teller in my Bonavista branch of the SB. Gave me $20 too to prove that it "worked"!

I understand your point about Activated-Only-Locally. Nonetheless 3-days (72 hours) have passed and an inspection (two minutes ago) of my SB Visa account show the two transactions logged, and there is no panic-message on my account page, nor via email or phone, to call-the-bank-at-once. However the tiers of processing work, both my $20 cash and my $11.93 choccie blast show up on my account page, so one way or another, both amounts have travelled from the POS terminals to my SB page, and this IS my SB page, which suggests to me that they have traveled via the SBVisa stuff to my personal portal to my chequing and Credit card account.

From my point of view the card and two purchases appear to be complete.

Which, of course, leaves me at why the online transaction failed and, of course, why my 1-800 Emil hasn't emailed me back with an explanation.

Post by PJ_in_FL » 06 Dec 2020, 00:28

PJ_in_FL >> From ALL the details (ad nauseum) you've provided I'd say most likely scenario is the international transaction was rejected by SB due to heuristics in place to detect fraud. It's a threshold thing and a series of uses in multiple locations, then suddenly one coming from EU (a known hotbed of CC fraud, I'll get into that later) probably met the threshold and was rejected. The bank's CC customer service line can confirm why they rejected the transaction. A repeated attempt probably lowered the bar for your transactions going forward, too.

Hi PJ. For once (Grin!) I agree with you that "… rejected by SB due to heuristics in place to detect fraud …" is a possibility. I can see that, too, I might have to make a real-live-voice confirmation that I want this transaction, especially as I am in the first day (Friday) of using the card. This to me is the equivalent of phoning a credit card before I go on holiday to tag my account with "I am driving to Florida, staying a week, then driving straight back" to put a temporary hiatus on fraud alerts along the eastern seaboard,

The banks front-line 1-800 was unable to come up with a reason, even when I emailed that pink-failure image (at the top of this thread)

PJ_in_FL >> Just so you don't get paranoid, the fraud heuristics LOVE international transactions, and they also LOVE gas station at-the-pump transactions. I was denied use of a card last week on a road trip from Tampa area to New Orleans. Had filled up the car with gas before leaving, then again while still in Florida (it takes a LONG time to get out of Florida if one travels down the panhandle!), …

Paranoia is my friend! (started back in the WinXP days …). And yes, my first drive ever to Fla. got me as far as Pensacola (from Mobile) and I took one look at the map, hung a left, and went to Connecticut for supper the next night. Later I stayed in Jacksonville for a week; a drive to Miami/Key West as an all-day affair.

PJ_in_FL >> Now, one other point I'd like to make about pumpkin seeds from foreign actors: Are you certain of the country of origin of these seeds? Just asking for a friend... (Mystery Seeds)

Well no, but more about that in a later post. I think that by "Mystery Seeds" you are refereeing to the seeds-in-the-postal-mail scam. This is not a packet of seeds arriving in my PO Box, but me Goggling for pumpkin seeds, finding a site, liking the price, and placing an order for five different species of pumpkins.

That I initiated the purchase does not free me from fraud, I understand that, but my proposed purchase was not in reaction to an unsolicited offer.

Post by BobH » 06 Dec 2020, 16:27

BobH >> Thanks for the update, PJ. Thirty years is a long time out of a relatively dynamic industry. When I left chipped cards were being discussed and one of the possible uses was to carry information that would allow below-limit transactions to be approved without an authorization message to the processor. I guess if that was implemented it has now been changed. Mind you, all of this was pre-Internet; therefore network traffic involved higher cost per transaction.

I have a very vague memory of coffee-shops in Toronto handing over a coffee without a user having to sign a paper docket or key in a PIN. I suspect that that was a manifestation of this below-limit transaction threshold.

That said, in my third use of the new SB-Visa card last Friday, I was looking at (13 Euro), say $cdn20, and I suspect that that might be a near-threshold amount.

Post by Argus » 07 Dec 2020, 03:05

Argus >> Apart from that there are plenty of small things that can go wrong, apart from picking the wrong store. As has been mentioned by Stuart and other there can be a couple of third parties doing payment processing, and if one is using white listing as I do, one can stumble there. Are scripts allowed, are cookies allowed, for all sites and services that need it. I also stick to national shops.

I suspect that I have picked the wrong store (more about that in a later post), but regardless, the "pink notice of failure" popped onto my screen after I had typed in the 16-digit card number, the 4-digit expiry date, and the 3-digit CVN, so my reasoning is that the web site has access to my credit card credentials, and then could maliciously say "sorry: your card was rejected for some reason". Then they have my card credentials and I could discover some very weird online purchases over the next few months.

Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Using a credit card to shop in funny places

But please see a later related thread Firefox and Online Banking
Cheers
Chris