Lloyds TSB - Are all of their branches this bad?

someone

ejones999 wrote:

Kilty wrote:

True, but I'm not going to have certain online retailers not accepting my card because it will show up on their merchant system as Visa Debit / Delta.


Yeah, I know that, going to be using cheques solely to purchase from small businesses who don't accept cards

Small businesses accept cheque without a cheque guarantee card?

This is the exact same situation I have, goods are on a 30 day invoice from the company i buy it from so i just send a cheque to them when i get an invoice

babe_ruth_3

Kilty wrote:

Do all Lloyds TSB branches have such misinformed staff who don't have a clue about the products they are selling? (After all, they are a business selling a service, not doing so for the goodness of the customers). In any other retail industry a workforce who knows nothing about the product would be corporate suicide.

Not just Lloyds. Our local branch of A&L are the same. You may as well approach a stranger in the street and ask them your banking question :wall:
Telephone staff are just as bad too.:eek:

pinkfluffybabe

Lloyds TSB are a nightmare for cornering you for personal reviews - which ultimately consist of a recent graduate trying to convince you that you would be better off transfering your 3.9% LOB debt to a 6.9% loan. Yeah right mate. Glad I know better, not everyone does :mad:

username

There was a poster on another board throwing a hissy fit because this type of card would not work with South Western trains automated ticket machines.This is because these machines do not have access to a terminal to check balances and therefore transactions will not work. This is similar to the way that Electron cards worked.

That'll be me then. :mad:

It's all very well you saying I'm throwing a 'hissy fit' but you know, don't you know how a pain in the backside it is when nobody (on the record) knows what's happening? Especially when nobody (on the record from Lloyds) has said that it doesn't work in certain places.

The literature even says "use wherever you see the Visa symbol in the UK or abroad", so therefore there is the assumption it will work everywhere as intended, not whenever there is a terminal to check the balance.

It's not helped by the fact that the ticket machine spat out my card saying it wasn't valid, and nobody seemingly having a clue as to what's going on, since the card was accepted at the window but not in the machine. Previously, I topped the Oyster up at an LU station and it worked fine so there was the assumption that the card worked fine in machines.

Seeing as you seem to be knowledgeable about this, is there a list of places/applications where this won't work then?

jonesMUFCforever

Seeing as you seem to be knowledgeable about this, is there a list of places/applications where this won't work then?


Yes any remote site that is not connected to a terminal which can check your available balance. A lot of these places will be the ones that did not accept Electron cards.
In your example the card would not work in the ticket machine but did work at the window where it was linked to a terminal.
Other places where you might have problems is pay at the pumps for petrol but you should be fine by going inside to pay!

It is retailers that should really be upgrading their machines but I suspect that they will cost them more to run so there is no incentive for them to do so.

Kilty_2

It does state that the balance wil be checked before the transaction is authorised where possible, so shouldnt the transaction just go through where it is not possible to check it beforehand?

username

ejones999 wrote:

Seeing as you seem to be knowledgeable about this, is there a list of places/applications where this won't work then?


Yes any remote site that is not connected to a terminal which can check your available balance. A lot of these places will be the ones that did not accept Electron cards.
In your example the card would not work in the ticket machine but did work at the window where it was linked to a terminal.
Other places where you might have problems is pay at the pumps for petrol but you should be fine by going inside to pay!

It is retailers that should really be upgrading their machines but I suspect that they will cost them more to run so there is no incentive for them to do so.

Ah, right. These ticket machines are pretty shiny and new so I think it's a bit odd that they didn't get hardware that had the ability to make balance checks, as per window? I take it others who have Maestro/Visa/Mastercard don't have this problem as it's done 'offline' -i.e. there's no online verification of available funds?

jonesMUFCforever

Kilty wrote:

It does state that the balance wil be checked before the transaction is authorised where possible, so shouldnt the transaction just go through where it is not possible to check it beforehand?

No. This is the point of it being a control card. It has to be able to verify available balance before authorising the transaction. This money is then 'ringfenced' until it has actually been debited to your account in case you try to spend it again.

The full 3-1 debit card may well take a chance on your transaction if the card has not either been reported lost or stolen and your account does not have a strict limit marked against it.

someone

ejones999 wrote:

No. This is the point of it being a control card. It has to be able to verify available balance before authorising the transaction. This money is then 'ringfenced' until it has actually been debited to your account in case you try to spend it again.

The full 3-1 debit card may well take a chance on your transaction if the card has not either been reported lost or stolen and your account does not have a strict limit marked against it.

opps, just pressed thanks to your post

Now what i can remember Visa and MasterCard are very instant that if a card says VISA or MasterCard and the terminal says it takes that card they have to take payment. (Also any shop that says you have to spend x before using a Visa or MasterCard are breaking there contract with them).

The ring-fence only happens for a few days and i know a number of people that have been able to take there accounts overdrawn because the ring-fence clears before the shop takes the money.

Also, what happens if I use my card in some obscure country and they use Carbon Copy's for the payment. They have no way of knowing if the card is a Control card or not.

jonesMUFCforever

I can't answer that unless they telephone for authorisation if they see a card from a foreign country.

Perhaps you could try it out and let us know.