'Compromised' card

bruche06

I've had an M & S card for years, use it a lot and always pay it off if I can, no lingering debts. Yesterday I wanted some stuff for my new house so went online and ordered from one website, just over £1000 - no problem. Then went to another for electrical items, £1279 but couldn't checkout, kept getting 'error'.
While I was trying my home phone rang and it was M & S checking the transactions - great I thought, at least I know they do check. I was able to give all my security details and also the last 5 transactions on the card, plus the fact that there was a zero balance before these purchases.
She then told me that my card had been 'compromised', and that I couldn't use it as it was blocked. After a row on the phone she said I could use it to do the transaction I was in the middle of and it would then be blocked. Transaction went through OK (since been checked up on by the retailer as well!) and I now have to wait for a new credit card to be sent out within 7 to 10 days - great idea with the backlogged Christmas post etc.
They can't tell me how the card was 'compromised', I can understand that 2 biggish transactions in 20 minutes might flag up but they phoned me at home to check - a fraudster is unlikely to be at my house! Seems to me that they have blocked the card before they checked with me, which I'm not happy about.
So I'm stuck now - anyone any advice or had similar problem?

lisyloo

My advice is not to leave yourself with only one method of payment.

chattychappy

lisyloo wrote: »

My advice is not to leave yourself with only one method of payment.

Classic "shutting gate after horse has bolted" advice, but this really is the lesson.

The whole credit card system started based on paper, manual imprinters and occasional telephone authorisations. The system was never perfect. Now it consists of a worldwide network of different banks with different systems all joined up. It works most of the time but simply cannot be relied upon to work all of the time. Who knows what happened here - perhaps your card got copied a while back, staff fraud, IT mess-up, or Venus crossing the path of Jupiter.

The point is, it's not set up to make sure that every valid transaction can go through. It's set up to try and make sure that as many valid transactions can go through as possible whilst not letting through fraud. A bit like railway networks with signals that default to red in the event of a potential problem.

Yep - they've blocked the card before consulting with you. That's just the way it is. I personally feel that a bit more human contact could work well in these systems. But often it's just not practical to set it up that way - even if in this particular case it seems to you this would have prevented alot of trouble. Often call centre staff do not know why a particular block has happened it's "need to know" - and that doesn't include you, however harsh that may seem.

INT1

I would rather my card be blocked then to get my statement and then mess about filling out disclaimers and getting the charges removed.

Maybe apply for another credit card and have one just for internet use or as a back up