card blocked after entering correct PIN 3 times...card reader fault?

builder22

builder22

builder22

Soldato
Joined
14 Dec 2005
Posts
5,038
wondering if anyone has had similar happen?

at a petrol station earlier...first time after entering the PIN it says incorrect so thought I might've pressed the buttons too quick and made a mistake, 2nd and 3rd time I definitely keyed in the correct numbers, 3rd attempt and a decline/bock type message comes up

cashier said to try the cash machine - worked first time there and got the money out to pay for the diesel and some extra since I needed to go to the shops for food etc

went to the supermarket afterwards and the card is declined straight away at the checkout...paid with the cash

phoned the bank and they said the card's only blocked at POS machines but will still work at cash machines, can also unblock the card for use at shops etc at a cash machine by using the correct PIN

can't 100% rule out some brain fart when trying to pay for the diesel but seems unlikely since it worked 2 mins later at the ATM, maybe the card reader at fault somehow? and what's the point of blocking it for POS use but you can still withdraw cash??
 
builder22 said:
wondering if anyone has had similar happen?

at a petrol station earlier...first time after entering the PIN it says incorrect so thought I might've pressed the buttons too quick and made a mistake, 2nd and 3rd time I definitely keyed in the correct numbers, 3rd attempt and a decline/bock type message comes up

cashier said to try the cash machine - worked first time there and got the money out to pay for the diesel and some extra since I needed to go to the shops for food etc

went to the supermarket afterwards and the card is declined straight away at the checkout...paid with the cash

phoned the bank and they said the card's only blocked at POS machines but will still work at cash machines, can also unblock the card for use at shops etc at a cash machine by using the correct PIN

can't 100% rule out some brain fart when trying to pay for the diesel but seems unlikely since it worked 2 mins later at the ATM, maybe the card reader at fault somehow? and what's the point of blocking it for POS use but you can still withdraw cash??
Click to expand...


Probably nothing to do with whatever glitch your card ran into, but ages ago I was driving my taxi up Montague St, behind the British Museum, when an American walked out of a hotel and flagged me down.
He wanted to go to Heathrow and asked if I took cards, I said yes and asked for the card.
The way the system worked at that time was, I swiped the card, and if it was good it was validated for £50.
If I thought that it would be more, I had to enter an amount and the radio circuit would check with the client’s bank and send a message, card validated up to £80 or whatever, or not validated.
Anyway, at the initial swipe for £50 the card was declined, I told the punter, then tried again, still declined.
He, not unreasonably, couldn’t understand why, and showed me the bill that he’d just paid with the card when checking out of the hotel, I apologised but said that I couldn’t do the job, unless we tried another card.
His next card was validated as okay immediately, so I did the job, but Christ knows why the first one was declined.
 
builder22 said:
wondering if anyone has had similar happen?

at a petrol station earlier...first time after entering the PIN it says incorrect so thought I might've pressed the buttons too quick and made a mistake, 2nd and 3rd time I definitely keyed in the correct numbers, 3rd attempt and a decline/bock type message comes up

cashier said to try the cash machine - worked first time there and got the money out to pay for the diesel and some extra since I needed to go to the shops for food etc

went to the supermarket afterwards and the card is declined straight away at the checkout...paid with the cash

phoned the bank and they said the card's only blocked at POS machines but will still work at cash machines, can also unblock the card for use at shops etc at a cash machine by using the correct PIN

can't 100% rule out some brain fart when trying to pay for the diesel but seems unlikely since it worked 2 mins later at the ATM, maybe the card reader at fault somehow? and what's the point of blocking it for POS use but you can still withdraw cash??
Click to expand...
Were the supermarket and the petrol station the same company? (Tesco etc?)
If so it's possible there was a problem with their connection/payment provider for a short while especially if they were on the same site.
My local Tesco had their card readers server go down a while back, no one could pay for anything by card in the store (or iirc at the petrol station on the site), but the cash machines worked fine because they had their own independent connections rather than relying on going through a central card payment portal on a server in the store.
 
Thekwango said:
Caused he’d just maxed it out paying for the hotel previous to getting into your cab.
Click to expand...

My hand to God, that never occurred to me, and I can sense imaginary egg dripping down my face now.
It probably didn’t occur to me at the time that the incident with the American happened, because like the upstanding member of society that I am, (alleged fast and loose practices with HMRC to one side), I’ve never come remotely near to maxing out a card in my life.
 
Strange, i don't think i have ever had my card locked and recall some instances in the past when this happened. Might check what rules have changed on banks. I almost always ignore whatever they send in post lol.
 
Something similar happened to me once but it was my fault. I was trying to withdraw cash from an ATM to pay a tradesman and despite knowing damn fine well I had put the right pin in it declined 3 times, card blocked. I hadn't realised I had put a credit card in the machine instead of my debit card. Different pins of course. Thankful for it though, a cash withdrawal with a credit card would have been expensive!
 
My local Aldi had a pin machine that double counted on one of the buttons. So I'd always **** up first time, then spot the extra digit when I concentrated second time. They had it on the one till open in the late evening, so I used it every week. They've replaced it now (after about 6 weeks)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom