Problem with BOI Credit card

Our man in Havana

I tried to use my credit card to buy an item from www.maplin.co.uk . I entered my cc details as they required including start date expiry date and security code from the back. All done order accepted, email sent to me confirming etc.

Until yesterday this email arrived, I qoute the relevant passage:

I am writing to inform you that we were unable to authorsise your credit
card and therefore unable to release your goods. There are numerous
security checks that we have to carry out on credit cards and unfortunately
your issuing bank do not carry out the required checks.

To add insult to injury:

We will however, accept a cheque, postal order or bank transfer for the full
amount sterling. Once we have received this we will be able to despatch
your goods.

The issuing bank is BOI. Do I have any comeback against BOI or Maplins because of this? Seems crappy to say the least. Any suggestions?

Thanks

007

Sleipnir

It could be a problem with the security code on the back.

I've been having a similar problem with mine where, when I enter the security code, it gets rejected.
After many, many phonecalls to BOI, I spoke to one girl who said that she had the same problem and they had narrowed it down to the 3 digit code not being linked to the card number within BOI or Visa.
She gave me my mastercard number (they all have this card number as well, you're just not issued with the card unless you ask them) and that card number worked with the security code.

Haven't tried it for a while but I know it didn't work on CD-WOW, Paypal and another CC gateway.

sunbeam

Originally posted by Sleipnir
It could be a problem with the security code on the back.

I've been having a similar problem with mine where, when I enter the security code, it gets rejected.
After many, many phonecalls to BOI, I spoke to one girl who said that she had the same problem and they had narrowed it down to the 3 digit code not being linked to the card number within BOI or Visa.
She gave me my mastercard number (they all have this card number as well, you're just not issued with the card unless you ask them) and that card number worked with the security code.

The exact same thing happened to me last year (there's a thread in the archives somewhere). Reissuing the Visa card didn't help, not did numerous calls to BOI or Visa. Eventually out of desperation I ordered a Mastercard on the same account to see if that would work. Lo and behold the pin number was the same as that on the Visa card and I've had no problems ordering anything since.

Our man in Havana

Thanks for the quick replies. I entered the security code as written on the back of the card. I double checked before submitting the number to the site. Is this the banks problem or the retailers?

007

Sleipnir

More likely it's BOI's screw up so ring them up and tell them what me and Sunbeam told you.

Victor

Could it be that they are issuing the wrong security code - Mastercard instead of Visa?

raster

UK merchant confused by lack of postcode? (can merchants access the cc file addr to compare the entered address with that?)

shoegirl

Irish banks are considerably behind UK ones in terms of fraud prevention - partially because there has been such massive levels of CC fraud there in recent years.

Ireland are also well behind in terms of chip and pin fraud prevention - only MBNA as far as I know offer this at present. BOI is particularly backward in most of the services offered to Irish customers, as credit card fraud is different in nature than much UK fraud.