When we were in college there was a gas station in town(the cheapest and closest, naturally) which had glitches in their billing. They would triple-authorize charges. So if we bought $30 in gas, we’d get three authorizations for gas, same station, same time, same card. That triggered fraud protection in our Discover card nearly every time. Usually it wasn’t a big deal because the actual charges would come through about twelve or twenty-four hours later and the extra authorizations would go away and everything was fine. So most of the time we didn’t notice it. A number of times, however, we’d get declined after buying gas. Nothing wrong with the card, and the financial resources were all in line, but it was still embarassing and annoying.
I’ve had it happen a few times since then, usually when we run our primary card over the limit(we charge as much as possible, including utility bills, phone bills, etc. and get cash back). Since we always pay our bill in full, and have a long grace period, the credit card company let us run twelve or fourteen hundred over before they decline a charge, but it sneaks up on us sometimes. Vacations, car repairs, home repairs, or the holidays can run us up to that limit sometimes. I keep meaning to call and have the limit raised(we have other cards with eight times the limit of our primary card, so I know we’d qualify) but I never seem to get around to it.
Working on a cash register, I’ve learned to tell when a card is declined for lack of money (it usually says something like ‘$ not available’) as opposed to some sort of error (‘pin error please retry’ / ‘call service’). Generally the best option is, “Excuse me, sir / ma’am, your card isn’t working right now, do you have another form of payment?”
It’s not a big deal. It just means that they can’t pay for that purchase right at that exact moment.
It’s not really that embarassing, It has only happened to me once with my bank card when I deposited a check and the account was frozen until the check cleared.
It’s never happened to me, but I work at a bar and it’s no fun at all trying to explain to drunk people that I have no idea why their card isn’t working. I don’t say “declined,” I just hand them the receipt that says so and tell them, “I’m sorry, it’s not taking your card.”
Most people are cool with it–and if they’re embarrassed they don’t show it–but a few people insist loudly that I must be doing something wrong, that I should try it again and again…they explain how they “have tons of money” in that account or “just paid that off!”
I don’t care. I don’t judge anyone for their declined card. It doesn’t matter to me. It could be a million reasons. I just want to get paid.
It would embarrass me if I was trying to buy a bunch of stuff, like groceries, and I had no other way to pay for them.
A few months ago, I checked the balance on my child support deit card, and it showed that my exe’s payment had gone in for $400. I loaded up the kids and went to the grocery store, as the payment was months overdue, and we were hurting bad in the food depatment. We picked out around #375 in food, toilet paper, shampoo, etc., then my card declined at the checkout. I didn’t have any other money, so we had to leave it and drive home. I re-checked the balance, and it did NOT show that the payment had gone through. Thinking maybe exe’s check o the CSEA had bounced or something, I called the customer service number the next morning, and the lady I talked to was very rude and condescending to me. I explained to her that I keep very careful track of my account, so as not to screw up my balance, and she basically called me a liar and accused me of trying to scam some free money from them. So yeah, I got emabarassed TWICE, and had to explain to the kids why we were eating ramen yet again.
This happened to me just a couple of months ago with my Visa debit card. I wasn’t at all maxed out; I knew I had several thousand dollars in the account. I was at Macy’s buying a new bed and had paid for the first chunk already with a gift card, and was counting on the debit card to pay the rest.
The purchase was declined. I tried to call Customer Service, but because it was late Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t get a human on the phone, though I checked the card balance via the automated system and it was fine.
The salesperson suggested that perhaps there was a fraud alert on the account? Had I purchased anything unusual recently, or used the card in an unusual place? I had used my card outside the U.S. multiple times the week before, but I had notified the bank about my trip beforehand, so I thought there couldn’t possibly be a fraud alert, and I hadn’t otherwise made any large purchases. The salesperson went ahead and scheduled delivery for the bed, and said I should just straighten things out with my bank on Monday morning and call them back to pay the remainder.
By the time I got home, 20 minutes later, there was a message on my answering machine to call the credit card’s anti-fraud department immediately. I did, of course - it turned out that some moron had never actually recorded my call informing the bank of the trip outside the U.S., so they thought someone in Mexico had gotten hold of my card number and was making fraudulent purchases. I was pissed off, to say the least - what if I had needed that money for groceries, or any number of urgent things?
No, I’m annoyed…but that’s because I know it can’t be my fault. I’m pretty compulsive about paying on time and I don’t come close to my spending limit. It happened twice, and both times it was a bank error. So I got a back-up card just in case.
Actually it happened again recently. We were on a cruise and kept getting these calls from the business office telling us that our card was declined. It was a pain in the ass to have to keep calling the bank, who said it was the cruise ship’s error. I’m not sure why I didn’t just give them the back-up card. That would’ve probably done the trick.
I had my debit card declined today while buying groceries. Luckily, I had my credit card with me. I immediately thought of this thread and I was a little embarrassed. Not much, though, because I know I had the money in my account and I had just used my debit card twice about half an hour before that. I couldn’t keep myself from muttering that fact to the cashier, like she cared either way. I hope it was just a fluke, I guess I should call the bank tomorrow.
I think that over-protective attitude of some companies may be the source of some unwelcome declines.
It’s been a long time since I put a stop payment order on any checking account, but the last time I did that, for the following year, every time I tried to cash a check or transact any business whatsoever, even at my own bank, even with familiar tellers, they were forced to ask for more ID than usual.
Seems the way the system worked is if ANYTHING out of the ordinary happened to the account, which the bank defined as even a single stop payment order in the last year, then a flag was placed on the account as one needing more attention for ANY transaction. Of course, no explanation was recorded along with that red flag, no the teller didn’t have a clue as to why.
It was enough to discourage me from putting any holds on any checks in the future if it could possibly be avoided.
I’ve been on both sides of the fence – being declined and having to decline – and I understand some people being embarrassed, but I agree it’s pretty stupid.
For me, on the few occasions I have been declined, I knew without calling why I had been declined and just laughed it off – once was because my purse had gone missing for like 2 days, so I had reported my cards lost, when I found it/them, the bank was a little slow in releasing them again and the other time was because I was over my daily spending limit (it was a debit card and there is a daily limit of like $500 which cuts on your losses if the card gets stolen – I had bought a computer that morning and was trying to buy groceries that evening) it was a little embarrassing only because I had to have the clerk hold on while I called the bank to assure them that I had used the card and needed the limit upped for this one day. All in all, it took about 5 minutes to resolve both issues and the clerks were fine with waiting.
As for declining cards – the funniest thing I ever saw was when I lived in Seattle. I worked for Fred Meyer and I had a lady come through my checkout at Christmas. She had well over $1000 in merchandise and the first card she gave me was declined. At least at that time, at Freddy’s, we got a code that told us why it was declined, so we could tell the customer (like, IIRC, a 7 meant stolen card, cut it up, but a 3 meant not over the limit, but something they needed to resolve with the card company). Well, most of the time, we wouldn’t tell the customer (to cut down on their embarrassment) unless it was “I am sorry, but this card is showing as stolen, I cannnot give it back to you.” So, this woman says “oh, it’s declined? I think it’s over the limit, try this one.” We went through no less than 6 different cards with the same story on each one, and not one hint of being emabarrassed, when she finally said, “I am pretty sure I’ve maxed them all out, let me stop wasting your time” and proceeded to count out a stack of hundreds and paid in cash. The woman was obviously not hurting for money, she just had apparently been on a shopping spree!
I’ve had it happen to me several times. Generally it would be at the start of a semester. I’d be happily puttering along making $20 and $40 purchases at places like grocery stores and the local Target, and then I would suddenly pay a chunk of my university bill and buy $300 in books in the space of a couple of days. Some random time between 6 and 24 hours after the last large charge, the bank would freeze my card. I’d run it for lunch at an Arby’s successfully and have it declined 15 minutes later trying to buy three notebooks and a pack of gum. They were terribly inconsistent; some semesters it happened, some it never did, and I never figured out exactly what tripped the alert. It finally stopped after the semester I discovered they would not under any circumstances let me pay off my entire tuition bill at once without deciding my card had been stolen – I went into the local branch in person and patiently explained what I was attempting to run a couple thousand dollars in charges for, and they put a note on the account. Never happened again. I was always more peeved than embarrassed.
There’s also a local bookstore whose POS terminals are apparently made of refrigerator magnets and cellotape, because they decline cards frequently and for no apparent reason. I was rather alarmed the first time it happened, but the clerk just rolled his eyes and typed in the numbers to run the card as credit, which worked fine.
I had a card declined today. The nice women tried the card three times and it came up declined all three times. She was very apologetic. I gave her my backup card which went through fine. Neither of us was embarrassed and we both apologized for giving the other trouble.
After this I called the bank. It turns out there were three transactions in the last five days, including one for >$10,000, with incorrect credit card expiration date. This caused the bank to put a hold on the card until I called. All three transactions were fraudulent. Fortunately, the bank declined the transactions because of the invalid expiration date. The card was immediately cancelled and they promised to send me a new one.
What I don’t understand is that the card and number were given to me barely six weeks ago. I suspect that the number was recycled and the old owner is still trying to use it. Would a bank reuse a number so quickly? With 16 digits, they certainly have more than enough numbers available.
At least the first six digits, AKA the BIN (bank identification number), aren’t open to change. All of the cards issued by a particular financial institution are going to have at least the first six digits in common.
Furthermore, if, for example, 6 digits are available (NNN,NNN) just for account nunbers, don’t assume that 999,999 account numbers are available.
For two reasons:[ol][li]If every number of 999,999 (or 1,000,000 if you include 000,000 as a number) were used, the possibility of a random number showing as valid is high, and [*]One digit is likely to be a checksum, and only one of ten numbers in that digit location would be valid. So, even if 99,999 account numbers are available for use, each of those numbers has only one checkdigit that is valid (NNN,NNC), so the maximum account number count is 99,999, not 999,999.[/ol][/li]
There are many algorithms for checkdigits.