How can I stop VISA from blocking my card?

triade

Yesterday I was at my friends and I wanted to purchase a game he showed me. I tried to purchase it on the app and it didn't go through. I normally buy from them on the website so this is the first time trying the app and assumed it was bad (the steam apps are notoriously badly made).  Later on, I tried to buy movie tickets and found that it was declined, which is weird because I had money and I buy from odeon regularly.   I definitely have plenty of money in my account and I double checked in the nationwide app and saw nothing was up, but my card kept getting declined.

I had to phone them up and wait in hold for at least 10 minutes only to find out VISA had blocked my card for some reason. Apparently they thought something was suspicious, but I was doing perfectly legitimate things that I do reasonably regularly.  I don't feel like this is a good thing as I have no clue when this could happen again and leave me having to phone them up in the middle of my day. There's being cautious and then this is way too much and definitely very inconvenient.  What can I do to prevent this from happening again? This has never happened with any other bank in the past and it's tempting to just go back to another bank, but I would rather a more sensible solution.

born_again

It is not VISA that block your card. It is your card provider & their security system.

Where you normally spend has nothing to do with fraud checks, they are based on fraudulent spending patterns.
Odeon & gaming sites are very popular with fraudsters.

All banks have to have security systems. So there is no solution.

triade

born_again said:

It is not VISA that block your card. It is your card provider & their security system.

They told me it was VISA. They were very clear about that.

born_again

triade said:

born_again said:

It is not VISA that block your card. It is your card provider & their security system.

They told me it was VISA. They were very clear about that.

Was that the retailer?

triade

born_again said:

Was that the retailer?

I didn't phone the retailer, why would  I phone the retailer? They don't control my bank card.

triade said:

 I double checked in the nationwide app and saw nothing was up, but my card kept getting declined.

I had to phone them up and wait in hold for at least 10 minutes only to find out VISA had blocked my card for some reason.

born_again

Many people do. & getting the answer visa blocking card.
Clearly the person @ bank needs some training around their security systems & who runs them.

So did they clear the security check?

VISA do not interact with customers.

triade

yes, they removed the block. I was then asking her how do I prevent this happening and she said I needed to go online and change some setting with VISA. I think she might have been referring to 'verified by visa' as I read it can be over sensitive. I can't find any options for this in my banking app though.

Bridlington1

There's nothing you or the individual member of staff can do to prevent you getting your card blocked. They can't put a notice on their systems or anything like that to prevent payments getting flagged in the first place due to the security measures they have in place. It's the same with all of the banks I've used (which is most of the banks in Britain). 

All I can suggest is trying to reduce the impact that a blocked card can have on you. One way to do this is by making sure you have a spare current account/credit card somewhere else that you can use as a spare if your debit card gets blocked. Quite often if one of your cards gets blocked you can still make the payment with another so it's handy as a backup option (plus if they freeze your account for whatever reason as all banks can do, you will still have access to some money).

triade

Bridlington1 said:

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All I can suggest is trying to reduce the impact that a blocked card can have on you. One way to do this is by making sure you have a spare current account/credit card somewhere else that you can use as a spare if your debit card gets blocked. Quite often if one of your cards gets blocked you can still make the payment with another so it's handy as a backup option (plus if they freeze your account for whatever reason as all banks can do, you will still have access to some money).

Thanks, this is good advice. I did actually take steps earlier this afternoon to that effect. I paid off a bit more of my credit card bill than I normally would to give myself a higher leeway on there and a better option for alternate payments.

born_again

As well as the above.
Security checks can vary between Debit & credit cards, as well as Visa, Mastercard. As fraud patterns are different between them all.

400ixl

Do you have their online banking app installed? Usually (certainly all the banks I use) will send an authorisation request to the app if it needs to check it is you making the payment.