Several websites suddenly not working with Nationwide debit card?

channedTatum

@StewedApple Exactly, my instincts immediately told me this was more of a system/payment platform issue, but at this point I'd say there's enough evidence for it to be at least a solid theory rather than just a hunch (even if it's only effecting VISA, I would argue it's still a system/platform issue).

@pinkdon Thank you for sharing that, I'm sure it's affecting others as well (not necessarily members on the site but people in general) but this is the first wider evidence I've seen that matches, even though it could be a coincidence, but the timing suggests otherwise. Also, I noticed Chase uses a Mastercard based card, so it might really be a solely VISA issue (in the payment system being used on these sites), interesting.

As a general update, the vendor has started using slightly circular logic, based on the fact that 'other card transactions are going through' (hence they started suggesting clearing browser cache's etc [already done of course], using other payment methods and so on), however they didn't specify which cards exactly were still working. So I've asked them if they can determine which cards are working, either by bank or card type (VISA or Mastercard).

Hopefully this will at least help determine if there really is a pattern or if it's more random than that. To clarify again I am arranging an alternative, but I do want to figure out this issue (to the extent that I can) for future reference. If they confirm only Mastercard transactions have been used/successful in the past two weeks, then at least that confirms a pattern.

GeoffTF

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82098761#Comment_82098761

TSB/Santander managed to shoot themselves in the foot quite effectively
in 2018 and nearly destroyed the entire business - in the meantime many
of their customers suffered weeks of pain - I think they were fined
about £50million.

Google AI says this of the 2018 Santander outage:

• Date: November 30, 2018
• Duration: Several hours around midday (resolved by early afternoon)
• Impacted Services: Online banking, mobile apps, and telephone customer service centers

It seems to have been minor and (not surprising) did not involve TSB. I had a Santander account, but was not affected, because I did not try to use online banking or phone them in that short time window. TSB, on the other hand, did have a major outage in 2018 which (not surprisingly) did not affect Santander. I have friend who had a TSB account at the time and she said that she was not significantly affected.

StewedApple

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82100455#Comment_82100455

I'm not really clear what point are you making here. My recommendation to the person experiencing difficulty was to ensure that they attempted to reduce their vulnerability to outages by having more than one payment method - I'm quite happy to stand by that recommendation. Those outages may have any number of root causes - from cyber attack to failed changes, to equipment failure. The alternative payments methods include an additional bank account with another provider or possibly one of the more recent financial innovations. There isn't a binary option here and the individual would be best deciding the best for their circumstances - they might decide to do nothing (that's an option you seem to implicitly favour), they may decide to have another bank account, and/or an additional payment method.

From what they've most recently posted my view is the payment system is experiencing an undetermined intermittent fault which is preventing some payments but not others. The person concerned only has knowledge of their experience so no-one here is in a position to offer definitive advice on its cause - and I suspect those who manage the system are challenged - intermittent faults are often the most difficult to resolve.

It's perfectly possible that the person who posted originally gets another payment method with another provider and still experiences a difficulty. Equally, they may find the other works and this resolves their problem, I don't see a downside to them having alternative payment methods which is why I think they would benefit.

You cite your specific experience of an incident but that experience may differ significantly from others. This is absolutely normal in such a situation - it doesn't "prove" the veracity of anything, its anecdotal - and other equally valid anecdotes from others may include a cascading series of serious failures arising from the same incident.

Both Parliament, and the relevant banking oversight body thought the TSB failure a significant incident and parliament continues to be exercised by potential vulnerabilities within the financial system:-

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2022/december/tsb-fined-for-operational-resilience-failings

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/treasury-committee/news/205611/more-than-one-months-worth-of-it-failures-at-major-banks-and-building-societies-in-the-last-two-years/

Banking is part of a wider issue of infrastructure vulnerability which is now starting to get the sort of attention which I believe it deserves. It's perfectly possible that there is a very significant outage and someone with accounts with 5 separate banking organisations is as affected as someone with 1 - but this does not invalidate the idea of reducing your personal dependence on one organisation.

Successive UK governments have begun the process of better informing the public about how they might reduce the impact of systemic failure (of any system), some European countries are further along this road. The government recognises we have a part to play, if you feel this approach doesn't apply to to you that's ok, my view differs.

This may assist people in assessing how far this applies to their personal circumstances:- https://prepare.campaign.gov.uk/ . This is an ongoing campaign and I suspect it will build in future, my view is banking is one aspect of the benefits of personal resilience - it doesn't mean going all mad-prepper it just means taking practical steps to anticipate and mitigate foreseeable short-term outages. It may be that someone can only take some of these steps, e.g. they are on a low income and cannot afford to have a food store, or don't have internet access, or don't have the storage space others do, or have some vulnerability/capacity issue, such people are likely to need assistance if a scenario arises.

For me it is being pragmatic to anticipate and mitigate, and if I have reduced my vulnerability in advance it means that there is less stress on services to others who genuinely need help - I have assisted my community and the emergency services in advance.

Personally, I will try to avoid being in that body of people who could have done something in advance but didn't - that to me is foolish.

GeoffTF

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82100527#Comment_82100527

I'm not really clear what point are you making here.

I was just pointing out that TSB/Santander did not have a common outage in 2018. There were separate companies at that time, and had separate outages. TSB's was much the more serious outage. I was not commenting on your recommendation. Of course people should have more than one payment method.

StewedApple

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82100730#Comment_82100730

TSB was owned by Banco de Sabadell at the time of the events I referred to - i.e. a different Spanish banking group to the Spanish banking group which now owns it. The significant and sustained outage was as I stated caused by the bank's own actions - i.e. a failure to integrate the legacy IT systems with the new owners. It caused many people serious problems over a sustained period. Whereas, a secondary bank account may have assisted some of these people.

As I'm not writing a PhD thesis (where I might need to verify minor footnotes) but am posting comments in what I regard as the equivalent of a snug bar conversation, and as you didn't seem to be aware of the ownership (or haven't mentioned it) either I do not regard my main point as undermined.

I'm reminded of the second guard who points out that African swallows could potentially carry coconuts - someone so completely lost in minor irrelevance that they have lost sight of the main point.

Enzo_L

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82101443#Comment_82101443

You posted "TSB/Santander managed to shoot themselves in the foot quite effectively in 2018 and nearly destroyed the entire business".

@GeoffTF pointed out that they were completely separate companies at that time and that there was no "TSB/Santander" "entire business" to destroy.

None of the above long-winded politician style answers you have posted are relevant to the fact that you were clearly wrong and that @GeoffTF was right.

channedTatum

Hi all,

Thanks again for all the responses, was interesting to see everyone's feedback and appreciate all of the ideas. I'm having some issues setting up a second bank account but will endeavour to do that (apparently there's a problem picking up my face in video's, sheesh…), however I wanted to give a final positive update to say the issue resolved itself!

No changes from me, same card, same bank account, same computer, my usual browser, usual settings, and even with the VPN enabled, everything is now working as it should, card reader (my banks version of 3D Secure) requested at payment time, and everything working okay as of last night (the fix may have been earlier, I was more focused on selecting and trying to set up the new bank account for a few days).

So, to leave some final notes on this in the off-chance it might help another user as a reference point going forward, I'll summarize my conclusions thus:

• Given all of the evidence and data points, I consider it confirmed the issue was not with any one website, nor my bank or the VISA debit card itself, but rather with the specific payment platform that the various websites (listed on the first page) were using (Kinguin, MeLe PC company, Shark/Ninja company).
  Also, based on the helpful comments of others here, it seems possibly Argos was affected as well.
• Given the time frame, it seems the generic payment platform/system these sites use had an update 2-3 weeks ago that 'broke' compatibility with some (or all?) VISA cards, whereby the 3D Secure call to action was failing to activate/display as expected, leading to a transaction failure at the point of payment attempt (without the bank ever even seeing an attempt being made).
• To be clear: I was never able to confirm if this next point was technically true or widespread definitively, but based on the limited info I do have, it appears to be the case that the bug only affected VISA cards (either some or all, but definitely including Nationwide).
• A later update of the same payment platform appears to have fixed the issue, confirming this was indeed a 'software bug/glitch' in the system, because nothing else has changed.
• Though I do have more than one payment method already available, they all rely on the same card/bank account to be funded, which is a big weak spot, so a good learning experience in that respect.

Hopefully this doesn't happen again to anyone anytime soon, but just goes to show how vulnerable these systems can be to software bugs etc., as it's all just code at the end of the day. You hear the term 'human in the loop' used regarding A.I. all the time and that's important, but I do believe there needs to be more transparency and accountability for ALL important code and software/systems, especially when it comes to transaction infrastructure.

Personally, this is why I favour crypto (Bitcoin etc.), but that's a different conversation for a different day. Cheers!