Lost 300+ euro because of BoI's credit card :-(

Thats me

Hi,
I've rented a car in Roma Ciampino using Ryanair service. For two weeks holiday it's cost was about 170 euro.

When me and my spouse have arrived to car rental office (Interrent) office staff refused to provide a car to us because our credit cards (both issued by BoI) are not valid and we cannot use them for deposit for insurance excess. We were explained the problem is by some rules credit card should have full owner's name on it - literally full: full first and the last name (not sure may be middle name as well). The fact we had passports and driving licenses and debit cards on same name with us didn't change anything - the staff was refusing our credit cards with abbreviated first name on them.

After couple of hours debating with car rental staff we found we have no other way to obtain a car and reach our destination (~200 km from airport) is to buy full ensurance from Interrent to avoid the need in deposit. Cost we had to pay was 306.95 euro.

I'd like to have these money refunded by BoI since we were forced to pay for non-needed insurance service only because BoI have provided invalid credit cards to us.

Also, it would be not bad if BoI would update our credit cards to met EU regulations since we are going to Europe again soon.


Thanks

Bank of Ireland: Kathryne

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch with us here on Boards.ie.

We're very sorry to hear of your poor experience with the car rental company while you were on your holidays. We appreciate you taking the time to post and we will certainly forward on your experience to our card services development team.

It might be best to link in with the car rental company to raise a formal complaint with them. It appears from your post that you were not made aware of this policy prior to your trip. We would also suggest that you check their terms and conditions to see if this is mentioned. They seemed very over-zealous to implement this policy. Your Credit Card would certainly have the facility to complete this transaction.

I've attached a link to our complaints process below if you'd like to log your dissatisfaction with us formally about your experience.

https://www.bankofireland.com/help-centre/customer-complaints-process/

A new replacement card request can be sent to you with the name printed in full on the card. To do this please drop into your closest branch with photo ID and they will be happy to arrange for a new card to be sent in the post.

Many thanks,
Kat

Thats me

Hi Kathryne,
Thank you for pointing all the steps and providing a link to make complaint on BoI site.

I did follow your instructions - have sent complaint to the car rental company by e-mail. Not surprisingly it was ignored.

I also have compared car rental voucher with previous one (May 2019) - yes, requirement to have full name on the credit card was added into last one.

Next step we have raised case to BoI (please let me know if you need case ID for more details) and got response last Friday, in short:

1. Abbreviated names on the cards.


"I can confirm that your Bank of Ireland Credit Cards are valid. The bank is not aware of any such rules that state the full name must appear on the card." also <staff member> explained  that number of characters is limited on the card, therefore it is often necessary to abbreviate names.

For me this argument sounds very valid explanation, but does not refer any Mastercard's regulations. My understanding Mastercard should enforce some rules for all users (banks, customers, sellers) of their payment system to prevent abuse like this car rental does.

Given <staff member>'s expertise I think refusal of accepting credit card with no full name on it may contradict Mastercard's rules, but i was unable to get in touch with Mastercard in relation to this issue, but e-mail ukpublicsector@mastercard.com provided on their website does not appear working.

Could Bank help me somehow to obtain Mastercard's explanation in relation to the issue?


2. Refund of payment

"The bank has no control over the rules set down by the car hire company and cannot comment on their decision to refuse you a car or levy the additional charge to your Visa Debit card. The bank is happy that both your Credit Cards are valid. In light of the foregoing I am unable to refund this charge to your current account. I respectfully request that you pursue the matter directly with Gold Car Roma / Ryan Air"

But i still need bank to comment on decision to accept my credit card by car rental. I'd need some references to confirm to car rental that their requirement to have full name on the card is not valid... Or this is valid requirement and i should expect my credit card could be randomly refused by sellers?

Bank of Ireland: Kathryne

Hi there,

Thank you for linking back in with us here, it's nice to hear from you.

We're sorry to hear that the car rental company have not acknowledged your complaint.

We have checked with our card services team and they have confirmed that we are unaware of any rule that states your full name must be on the card. As our colleague in our complaints team advised, your Credit Card would be valid for this transaction and this additional charge was the result of the car rental's own policy. The terms and conditions of the third party car rental company I'm afraid is not something we would have any control over. You may certainly contact MasterCard to discuss this further on their side.

You can follow up this query with MasterCard by visiting their "Contact Us" section on the website. Please click here https://www.mastercard.ie/en-ie/contact-us.html to view your options to contact their Team.

We hope that the car rental company will respond to you soon to shed some light on why this type of restriction in within their policy.

Thanks again for reaching out to us,
Kat

Thats me

Hi Kathryne,
Thank you for the response.
The page https://www.mastercard.ie/en-ie/contact-us.html is that place where i found e-mail ukpublicsector@mastercard.com which is not working.

If you interested in technical details this is a trace which i have received from their mailing system:

Diagnostic information for administrators:
Generating server: STL3MSX06.corp.mastercard.org
ukpublicsector@mastercard.com
Remote Server returned '550 5.7.1 RESOLVER.RST.AuthRequired; authentication required'
Original message headers:
Received: from STL3MSX07.corp.mastercard.org (172.19.128.94) by
STL3MSX06.corp.mastercard.org (172.19.129.95) with Microsoft SMTP Server
(TLS) id 15.0.1497.2; Mon, 4 Nov 2019 18:51:04 -0600
Received: from FIR3STL2.mastercard.org (172.19.244.231) by
STL3MSX07.corp.mastercard.org (172.19.128.94) with Microsoft SMTP Server
(TLS) id 15.0.1497.2 via Frontend Transport; Mon, 4 Nov 2019 18:51:04 -0600
Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by FIR3STL2.mastercard.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 476WLc0r8zzMv1Ch
for <ukpublicsector@mastercard.com>; Mon, 4 Nov 2019 18:51:04 -0600 (CST)
Received: from stleegwp1.mastercard.com (unknown [172.19.244.57])
by FIR3STL2.mastercard.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 476WLb5XFRzMv1FV
for <ukpublicsector@mastercard.com>; Mon, 4 Nov 2019 18:51:03 -0600 (CST)


For the phone contact they are recommending "call the phone number found on the back of your Mastercard or Maestro card." which i believe is BoI itself in this case (unfortunately these numbers aren't readable).

In any case BoI is customer of MasterCard, not me. Could your company please contact MasterCard and get definitive response is car rental has proper requirement or they have to accept MasterCard with abbreviated names. And why. On their rules page https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/what-we-do/rules.html i haven't found anything in relation to this. The "we are unaware" is not considered valid response - i cannot claim refund from the company in the court basing on the fact that my bank is unaware about issues affecting validity of my card issued by them.

Bank of Ireland: Kathryne

Hi,

Thanks for coming back to us.

We're going to check with our card product team and see if they have any additional information they can add to our previous responses and we'll be back to you.

Many thanks,
Kat

Thats me

Hi Kathryne,
Any luck with MasterCard support?
Did they answer anything who is right in this situation - BoI or car rental company?

Bank of Ireland: Kathryne

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching back out to us here.

We're very sorry that we could not come back to you on Friday, we were inundated with queries. We will follow up on this today and we will get back to you with an update as soon as we can.

Many thanks,
Kat

Thats me

Hi Kathryne,
I hope credit card department has survived over the Christmas and New Year boom

Can we move this issue forward now?

Bank of Ireland: Alison

So sorry about this, let me follow up again on this today and we'll certainly be back to you.

Many thanks
Alison

Bank of Ireland Reps

Hi,

Firstly, apologies for the delay in coming back to you on this.

We have been looking into this for you and we regret to advise that we have been unsuccessful in finding a clear solution to your query.

We have been advised for you to independently further your query, this needs to be done directly with MasterCard and/or the Car Company. We cannot comment on third party policies or rules. From looking at your query it seems best to go back to the car rental company as they are enforcing this rule and look for a resolution.

We fully understand this may be disappointing for you to hear.   Be assured that we have done all we can in order to help, regrettably we cannot add any further value so please accept our sincere apologies.  

 
Many thanks
Alison

Thats me

Hi Alison,
Sorry for delayed response - forum does send notification on the first update, but not on the subsequent ones.

I missing from your response - were BoI able to contact Mastercard in relation to this issue?

Bank of Ireland: Aisling

Hi There,

Thanks for getting back to us here on Boards.

Please see our previous response below:

'Hi,

Firstly, apologies for the delay in coming back to you on this.

We have been looking into this for you and we regret to advise that we have been unsuccessful in finding a clear solution to your query.

We have been advised for you to independently further your query, this needs to be done directly with MasterCard and/or the Car Company. We cannot comment on third party policies or rules. From looking at your query it seems best to go back to the car rental company as they are enforcing this rule and look for a resolution.

We fully understand this may be disappointing for you to hear.   Be assured that we have done all we can in order to help, regrettably we cannot add any further value so please accept our sincere apologies.  

 
Many thanks
Alison'

Thanks, Aisling.

Thats me

Hi Aisling,
Yes, that is precisely the message from which i missing - have BoI managed to contact MC to resolve my issue or not. Could you please clarify?

Bank of Ireland: Alison

Hi,

I'm afraid we are unable to further this query for you. We would ask you to contact the Car Rental Company and check their policy and T&C's in relation to the charge you mention above.

Many Thanks,

Alison

Thats me

Hi Alison,

I'm a customer of BoI.
BoI has supplied me a credit card which was not accepted.
I'm asking BoI to clarify.
BoI obviously even didn't try to make this clear with MasterCard.


> I'm afraid we are unable to further this query for you.

This is why you are unable??? You (BoI) are customer of MasterCard, they should make clear it for you!

> We would ask you to contact the Car Rental Company and check their policy and T&C's in relation to the charge you mention above.

If you read the thread, i'm already tried to contact them. Now i need help of my bank to clarify were car rental company reasonable or not.

Given BoI delaying resolution of this issue, i have additional question. This spring i will have holidays abroad again. Should i run to bank asking to replace my credit card by the card with full name to avoid further potential issues with my current credit card?

Yourmama

It's not banks issue. There is a limit of characters on card and a lot of names needs abreviated, mine included. It's rental company made up rule to hard sell insurance. Next time don't use rentals which seemingly cost 10 euro a day. They will find a way to bring the price up by making up ridiculous rules. If it isn't name on cc, they will get you on non existent scratch or something else. They need to make money somehow, and the 170 for two weeks is not even covering costs. Go to reputable company if you don't want any of this

P2C

Gold car done something similar to me years ago. When I went searching for info I figured they have a terrible reputation for ripping off/scamming customers and trying to charge them additional fees etc. I had the last laugh. I was to drop the car at San Sebastián airport in the contracts. When I landed that San Sebastián they no longer had a kiosk or presence at the airport. I rang them and they told me since I booked they had closed the presence at the airport. They told me I had to drive 2 hrs to Bilbao to drop the car off and were right arseholes. I fired the keys in boot with the parking ticket at left it in the parking lot. I took a lot of pictures of no damage and emailed them the evidence. They recovered the car a month later and tried to charge me for the parking. I sent them the the contract and told them I would sue if they didn’t refund my deposit. They did promptly. Moral of story don’t use gold car they are a shower of fuc..rs

Thats me

Yourmama wrote: »

It's not banks issue. There is a limit of characters on card and a lot of names needs abreviated, mine included. It's rental company made up rule to hard sell insurance. Next time don't use rentals which seemingly cost 10 euro a day. They will find a way to bring the price up by making up ridiculous rules. If it isn't name on cc, they will get you on non existent scratch or something else. They need to make money somehow, and the 170 for two weeks is not even covering costs. Go to reputable company if you don't want any of this

My dear mama
Since you have mentioned a limit, lets have a look what the limit is.

Being a technical person, i'd first look into standard ISO/IEC7811-1 "Identification cards — Recording technique — Part 1:Embossing", in particular p.8 "Assigned embossing areas", or more precisely p.8.2 "Name and address area". It is telling:

"The name and address area provides space for four lines of 27 characters each at a nominal centreline to centreline spacing of 10 characters per 25,4 mm (1,00 in) of the type specified in 7.1. Any information embossed in the name and address area should always be embossed as far as possible from the identification number

NOTE The first character in the name and address area need not be justified to the left. However the use of 27 character positions is based on a 7,65 mm (0,301 in) distance to the edge of the card as shown in Figure 2"

But reality not always same with standards, therefore few years ago Visa and Mastercard decided by some unknown reason to limit name part to 21 character. YHou can check out AIB's Visa and Mastercard application forms where they explicitly telling: "Please spell out your name as you wish it to appear on the card using no more than 21 letters or spaces"

Since my name is not Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, this limit would be fine for me. But BoI by unknown reason cannot put more than 16 characters on the card. As far i can see, they cannot explain why. They just cannot, that's it. And they cannot protect me from abusive sellers like in this case. Even more - they not willing to protect me. I more than sure they even didn't try to contact MasterCard and decide how they could help me in this situation.