Contactless card wont work for me - but does for anyone else - why?

Associate
Joined
17 Nov 2019
Posts
9
The title just about sums it up!
I try to use a contactless card and it just won't work, hand the card to my wife - or shop assistant and it works.
It will work for me using a pin - but not contactless.
This is not one specific card - and it is not a new thing, for years it has been the same, and any card, some days it might work - some days it won't and on a won;t day I can fail in one shop and it will fail in another too.
I can hold the card in the same way as others, and turn it over or end to end just in case I find a working position.
Am I a ghost or zombie?
Do I absorb EMF or do I send it out?

I understand that it might be my thick dry skin that makes mobile phone screens unresponsive - that happens sometimes and perhaps using my little finger will work but my chunky work worn index fingers won't but if course that is nothing like the contactless card issue.

I will welcome any ideas - serious or not as I am doubtful I will find a "cure".
 

Deleted member 236143

D

Deleted member 236143

4203889533a5613998047l.jpg
 
Caporegime
Joined
22 Nov 2005
Posts
45,169
did you trying turning it on and off again
there's a small rubber button barely visible on the reverse of the card, might take you awhile to find it
 

mrk

mrk

Man of Honour
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
99,998
Location
South Coast
You clearly are possessed by demnons!

Switch to Apple or Goiogle Pay and forget about remembering to take a card or even wallet with you anywhere that's not stuck in the stone ages again.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
Posts
20,997
Location
Just to the left of my PC
You are Wolverine and your adamantium skeleton acts as a Faraday cage. The tracking device the aliens implanted in you when they kidnapped you is interfering with the signal from the RFID chip in the card.

I don't have a serious suggestion for an explanation. But now I'm curious about it as well. If you get an answer, please tell us.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2016
Posts
8,757
Location
Oldham
I remember back in college there was a guy called Neil (your not him are you? :D ) and when we used to have computer classes and had to use the old Unix network computers, everytime he sat down at one and touched the screen or got close to it, that particular computer would shut down. It did this regularly. We put it down to static electricity. But it only happened to him, no one else.

I wonder if you have something similar going on? Some kind of static electricity? Try and ground yourself by touching a radiator or metal leg on a table etc, then try use the card?
 
Pet Northerner
Don
Joined
29 Jul 2006
Posts
8,025
Location
Newcastle, UK
@notxon withdraw some cash from an ATM. It happened to me where one of my cards started failing on any contactless and a shop assistant mentioned trying that and it worked.

edit: although my issue was specific to my contactless starting to be denied on use, even with hundreds in the account
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Dec 2005
Posts
5,006
^^ usually just need to enter your pin in the shop when it does that...once you've used contactless so many times in a row you need to enter the pin, a security thing so you can't go on a spending spree if you find/steal a contactless card
 
Joined
10 May 2004
Posts
12,813
Location
Sunny Stafford
We still seem to be getting weird and wonderful questions from new sign-ups to the OcUK boards.

Love the responses in this thread :D

If the OP's question is genuine though, then have you tried linking your card to your phone? If it's Android, then link it with Google Pay. If iOS, then link it with Apple Pay. Go through the security questions / 2FA etc, and then try using that in a shop. Think it's up to £45 max per spend. That's the other thing to check - that you're not attempting amounts over £45.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
17 Nov 2019
Posts
9
Thanks for all the suggestions - I will have a go next time I am shopping - I'll take my glasses off, no problem about smartwatch as I don;t wear one - but more about that later, I'll increase my tinfoil hat thickness, it might be that the implant I get tomorrow (I'm old enough and have the covid vaccine shot tomorrow) will make it better or worse, I am not sure it I have an adamantium skeleton but I could kill two birds by touching my wife's leg - it has a metal plate so it might act like a chair leg, and will wear a pair of gloves and use the protective sleeves. If that doen't do the job!
It is not a card issue as it will work straight away if soemone else tries it, so not entering pin or reached my limit.
The bit about the smartwatch did remind me, quite a time ago I borrowed a wind-up watch for a couple of hours as I needed to go to the bank during lunch hour and preferred not to return to work late - the watch slowed by 15 minutes.
Perhpas I should try the Google pay thing, if my Android phone will do it - it may be updated to android 10 but being a few years old it does not like lots of apps.
It's a pity they don't have the traveling freak shows now.
More suggestions gratefully received.....
 
Back
Top Bottom