Santander credit card blocked

danco

I just got a Santander Edge credit card and after four transactions (one chip and PIN, one contactless, two online) they have blocked it as they were worried about fraud.

I am glad they are cautious, but this seems excessive. The only thing that could trigger a warning is that the contactless and first online were for slightly less than £20 and the next item was online for about £200. Which is quite common, I would think.

I phoned them on Thursday afternoon when a payment was declined, and had a discussion with them. They could see it was me (call from my registered phone number and identification by voice) and promised to correct it. But the card hasn't been unblocked yet. An online payment to Ocado seems to have gone through (at least Ocado have not told me of an issue) but a contactless payment to a dry-cleaner was later refused.

I am wondering how quickly these things get cleared up and whether the weekend has got in the way. They really should have dealt with things yesterday, though.

At the moment I am thinking that, though this credit card give good cashback, it might be just too much hassle to keep using it rather than my long-established cards. Does anyone have an address to which I can send a complaint? There's no point in complaining to the customer service staff, who seem to be doing their best

eskbanker

https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/customer-support/how-to-complain

GeoffTF

How do you know it is the card blocked rather than a transaction blocked? I expect persistently ringing customer services will fix the problem. Nonetheless, you can expect less trouble from a log established card.

danco

@GeoffTF as I said I phoned them on Thursday afternoon and they confirmed that Santander was concerned about possible fraud. And every transaction I have tried (except, it seems, for an Ocado order) has been refused.The question is how often I have to phone customer service on the same issue. One call should have been enough.

@eskbanker thanks for the link.

km1500

did you try entering you pin when the dry cleaner contactless payment was blocked

GeoffTF

danco said:

@GeoffTF as I said I phoned them on Thursday afternoon and they confirmed that Santander was concerned about possible fraud. And every transaction I have tried (except, it seems, for an Ocado order) has been refused.The question is how often I have to phone customer service on the same issue. One call should have been enough.

I expect that the Ocado payment was allowed because you correctly entered an authentication code. I would have thought that would tell the computer that the card was in the right hands, but it appears not. We cannot really speculate about why Santander suspects fraud. I expect that it will be sorted out in time. In the meantime, you do not really have a problem if you have a card with another bank, which is always a good idea.

danco

No, I didn't enter an authentication code for Ocado. I wasn't asked to try a PIN when the dry cleaner contactless was refused, but an earlier time when that was offered by the terminal it still didn't work.

I' sure Santander will sort it out in time, though I would have expected them to do it by now. My main concern is that they might do this again, as I do have some larger payments in prospect and it's a real waste of time sorting it out. Once is fine, and even occasional transaction declined is acceptable, but if they tend to do this then I would not want to have their card.

GeoffTF

danco said:

No, I didn't enter an authentication code for Ocado. I wasn't asked to try a PIN when the dry cleaner contactless was refused, but an earlier time when that was offered by the terminal it still didn't work.

I' sure Santander will sort it out in time, though I would have expected them to do it by now. My main concern is that they might do this again, as I do have some larger payments in prospect and it's a real waste of time sorting it out. Once is fine, and even occasional transaction declined is acceptable, but if they tend to do this then I would not want to have their card.

It is strange that the Ocado payment was accepted without an authentication code, if Santander suspected fraud. I always have to give an authentication code for online transactions with my Barclaycard Rewards card nowadays. I also have to give an authentication code for my Santander debit card online, but I only use that one for large transactions. When contactless is refused, I always try a PIN, and that has always worked for me. I do not expect there will be an ongoing problem once Santander has sorted it out. I am not having any problems with them, but I am not using one of their credit cards.

born_again

Ocado payment will be a pre auth. As actual value won't be known till items are scanned & ready to be delivered. It could well be at that point that the transaction would be declined.

But odd thing is this is across a range of different transaction methods. As blocks are set on various card usage, not all types. This make me think this is something deeper fraud wise & not just customer spending.

danco

As I mentioned it is a very new card so perhaps they are being extra careful. But no purchase has been large, largest was less than £200, and only four purchases before they started declining it. And they know it is me because I have phoned them, and they can see it is from my registered phone number and they can recognise my voice. And there's quite a bit of money in my Santander bank accounts (Edge, Everyday, and Edge Saver), though admittedly, because of their recent switching offer, I have been moving money in and out of one account and they are all fairly new.

Nobody else has reported trouble with their card, so for the moment I'll regard it as an over-zealous glitch and hope it will be sorted out in the next couple of days.

danco

Santander tell me this morning that my card is active and has no blocks, so I'll just have to wait and see if all is OK. I plan to use it tomorrow but not today.

The situation with Ocado is a bit weird, but that is an Ocado problem, not Santander's. They accepted my order on Saturday and delivered it that day and did not send me any emails or messages to say there was a problem. But when I went to their site this morning I got told that I needed to update my payment method and neither the Santander card nor my other one had been debited. Weird, I would have expected my order to have been refused or told that there was a problem if Santander had still been blocking my card