Credit card not accepted in United States

Olivia315

This is my first post so I hope it works!! I'm hoping someone can tell me why my M&S Mastercard has been refused by many merchants in the US? On some occasions it was accepted with no problem at all. M&S have been unable to come up with the answer, saying it was the merchants fault and nothing is wrong with my card, which I already knew, but further than that they have no idea. I was touring so needed petrol, food and accommodation for two weeks and these refusals really caused a lot of worry. Does anyone know the technical/financial reasons involved which could account for this please?

xycom1

Refused? As in, they look at your card and refuse to accept it?

Or transaction declined - as in tried to make a payment and the receipt printed out 'declined'?

Olivia315

When getting petrol I put my card in the pump and the screen asked me to refer to the attendant inside, who put it in her card machine and then said 'It won't accept it, it is declined'. When staying at hotels the receptionist swiped it and then told us it was declined and we should get hold of our card provider.
We had initially contacted M&S when we tried to hire a car from Enterprise and they were the first to be unable to use it. M&S assured us there was nothing wrong with the card and we had sufficient funds available and that it was some way in which the transaction was being dealt with, possibly by Mastercard. Enterprise made enquiries and said that there was a problem in Germany with their computers which would be put right later that day. We then used our visa debit card to pay for the car hire and thought that would be the end of it. There must be thousands of people who visit America with such cards yet M&S surprisingly told us that they were unaware of this problem and no-one else had contacted them.

BigDave81

Maybe they only accept Visa and not Matercard although I can't see why

Olivia315

Thanks BigDave81 but the Mastercard logo was plastered everywhere we tried and no-one commented that they didn't accept Mastercard.

BigDave81

I didn't think it would be that but you never know sometimes the most obvious answers etc...

vaporate

Op you already know this but always have back up funds in cash and credit cards. Cash more so as they wont reject cash on the hip

I toured America for 2 weeks also around the north east, new york, virginia beach, washington, boston, buffalo (buffalo was a crap hole though, only went there for niagra falls) ect.