Llyods Duo Amex not accepted (but Amex accepted)

Sun

I tried to buy AV products from couple of websites and both gave me following message when I try to pay by Lloyds Duo Amex:

"We are sorry to inform you that we are unable to accept the type of American Express® card you entered. Please use your Lloyds TSB Airmiles Duo MasterCard instead. This was supplied with your Lloyds TSB Airmiles Duo American Express® card."


Is this message from Lloyds, Merchant or CC processing bank ? :mad:

Wesbites I tried are:

www.digitaldirect.co.uk
www.soundandvision.co.uk

I hope Lloyds is not trying to avoid giving more airmiles...! :mad: :mad:

Sun

Kavanne

Maybe it's the retailer trying to avoid the higher amex fees?

jonesMUFCforever

Do a screen print and write to card services.
You might get the airmiles credited as a gesture of goodwill and the bank will enquire with Amex why this is being allowed.

Sun

I called retailer and apparently, they cannot accept Lloyds Amex as it doesn't have address verification facility. They can accept normal amex.

Strange...does this mean Lloyds Amex is prone to frauds...?????

Anyone from Lloyds here, who can comment?

hippey

There should not be any difference between the Amex cards, except the processing rates are much higher that M/V Cards.

I suspect it is just an excuse, the Amex licence does state what facilities banks should offer.

ICan'tStandIt

Sun wrote: »

I called retailer and apparently, they cannot accept Lloyds Amex as it doesn't have address verification facility. They can accept normal amex.

Strange...does this mean Lloyds Amex is prone to frauds...?????

Anyone from Lloyds here, who can comment?

If a retailer takes Amex, then they should accept your Lloyds Amex, however, all the account information seems to be with Lloyds rather than American Express.

American Express don't seem to have much to do with these accounts, other than allowing their brand to be used. I tried to explain to Lloyds TSB that I've been a customer of Amex for nearly ten years and I wanted to know if this counted in any way with regards to my LTSB account as I was brand new to LTSB. I tried rephrasing what I was saying in several different ways, but the penny refused to drop at the other end. They seemed to have no idea what I was on about.

All I know is that I don't get anywhere if I put my LTSB Amex card number into the Amex voice-response on their phone service. Therefore I don't think they could help with acceptance issues.

Speak with LTSB card services and see what they say.

Sun

I called LTSB and they can't see any decline, so unless a transaction hit their system they cannot comment on it !

ICan'tStandIt

Sun wrote: »

I called LTSB and they can't see any decline, so unless a transaction hit their system they cannot comment on it !

Ask them who deals with card acceptance issues for the Amex card you have been issued with.

If they refer you to Amex, then ask them to note your account that they told you to do this and get their name.

If Amex can't help, write a complaint letter to LTSB and cc the Amex complaints division.

withnell

You need to speak to Lloyds about this - talking to amex is like talking to Visa when your Barclaycard won't go through - for this particular card, Amex are not the issuer, so won't ever be able to help

bert&ernie

Kavanne wrote: »

Maybe it's the retailer trying to avoid the higher amex fees?

I would hazard a guess that this is the case. The retailer has probably worked out the BIN/IINs used by the Lloyds Duo AMEX and is blocking them at the point of sale. They know that holders of this card also have a MasterCard issued on the same account, so they would rather process the sale using that and pay a lower fee.

I would have thought that AMEX would be keen to hear about issues with their merchants refusing acceptance only to suggest that you use a MasterCard instead! Likewise, I would have thought that Lloyd's would be a bit miffed that they were loosing interchange revenue because of these merchants.

Having said this, if there is an AVS issue, then I would say that the merchant is quite within the their rights not to accept the AMEX card as they are protecting themselves from fraud chargebacks.