Great Western Coffee Shop

Whether or no we should or should not buy tickets on trains is not the issue here. Sometimes in fgw land you have to and southern actually have a policy to sell on trains so long as you get to the tm before the rip gets to you. All fine.

I recently changed banks from barclays to nattiest but my bloody debit card is auto declined by the chp and pin.  Happens on all toc's I've tried - southern, fgw and south west.

My account is a natwest advantage gold and natwest have confirmed there is no restriction at all on my card. Should work anywhere - onlineor off.

So i knew that if a card number is entered into the system then it can be blocked if there has been an issue - so I ordered a brand spanking new one. Declined.

Toc's say it the bank, bank says no issue.  Itonically my barclays account which has no funds in it works (I xferred the money to cover test transaction).

I'm now getting to the point where I deliberately use said card. I get asked do I have an alternative means of payment and I insist no. I don't actually but it's ot my problem the card doesn't work.

Any ideas what's going on?

Do you have the blue or purple Natwest card?

In my experience, some staff in Natwest get confused between the terms "Full Service" and "Full Auth" that appear on their system.

Defintely the banks problem.  The card must be marked as no offline transactions.

Blue

But since I have a cheque guarantee and an overdraft I can't see any issue

But it has raised digits so can be done via the old swiper paper thing

The blue card is the full auth card that won't allow offline transactions ... even though it has raised numbers.  You will need to speak to Natwest and ask to be upgraded to the card that allows offline transactions.

I am afraid this is a con on part of the banks.  They are getting rid of the old electron cards which were for online use only and replacing them with debit cards with raised numbers.  However they put markers on the new cards which only allow them to work for an on line transaction. 

Have spoken to natwest - looks like they gave me the wrong card and are issuing me with a new one!  in the mean time I'll continue to use the current one if I have to!

you cant use it as you know it does not work  ???

Since it's my only means of payment and they can phone up
And/or swipe it I
Bloody well can

Oh dear, why did you switch to NatFail Mookie? :o I had a higher opinion of you! :P They are a disgrace of a bank, especially as they're state owned.

Anyway, I thought you hadn't switched to Chip and Pin? ???

In the meantime, I'd suggest switching to a different, competent, bank.

_{I won't tell you about my NatWest woes - it would turn into a long Btline rant thread. ;)}

Its connected to the separation from my ex and the financial settlement with the house screwing up my barclays account and the fact that nat west are the only branch open in portishead on saturdays!

My Amex is not chip and pin - never will be - but you have to have your bank debit card chip and pin to get money out of atm machine

However I've cut up all my credit cards so the nat west card is my only card!  Until Monday when I get the new business account up and running

Wow - you're lucky to have such a good branch. Despite what their adverts say, most NatWest branches are not open on Saturdays.

Just bear in mind that the "helpful" NatWest bank may cancel your card at any moment due to "suspicious behaviour".

*I was buying Scampi and Chips for about ^8 at Paddington station before coming home. My card was rejected, resulting in an embarrassing situation when I got the bill. Bear in mind that I had limited time before the train left. Luckily my credit card worked. Did I receive a phone call from NatWest (who have my mobile no for these reasons)? No, of course not - that would rely on a level of basic competence. After marching into the bank to get answers, I was told that it was suspicious behaviour. Let's just say they won't be doing it again! Leaving aside the fact that buying a cheap dinner for one at 6pm in my country's capital city is blatantly not suspicious (even if I lived in Scotland), as far as I'm aware they are meant to phone you BEFORE cancelling (I was told this by my NatWest bank manager). If I hadn't had a credit card I would have been screwed, and late home. What am I meant to do NatWest? Phone you up to ask whether I can fill up with ^40 petrol at Watford Gap, or must I only use petrol stations within 3m of my "home branch"?

*Watch out if you use iTunes. If you make 3 transactions, worth less than ^3 - they may cancel your card.

Oh dear, I've ranted... Anyway, best of luck with NatFail Mookie - you're going to need it!

Nat west used to be good.  Then they were taken over by a bunch of Scottish jokers and their service has deteriorated ever since.

A friend of mine who works at a High Street bank which shall remain nameless suggested that certain cards need to be used 'online' - i.e. with a real time authorisation from the bank in between 'offline' transactions. Certainly seems to be the case with Thyron chip and pins on board. Passenger bought a ticket from me, transaction went through, went to buy staff off the trolley, card declined, same make of chip and pin but the ticket sale must have left an 'offline' marker on the card.

We have had a TVM at Hanborough for a couple of years now. It is very temperamental as to what cards it will accept and nothing seems to be able to be done to make it more friendly to customers. The worst result is that barrier staff at places like Reading and Paddington think you are a criminal if you cannot present a ticket at the barrier when the machine has not worked and a conductor has not collected fares on the train. The Oxford barrier people are a lot more understanding as they know the problem with the machine.

not wanting to throw more into the mix... but i have a natwest blue and its worked onboard...its a business card tho? i dunno if that makes a differance

I've paid a friends o2 phone bill the last 2 months as o2 doesnt like her santander debit card, yet she has been able to go to a cash machine and withdraw the cash to give me to cover my debit card cost.

Talking to a local guard, he said most standard debit cards reject these days unless the card is for a premium account, Mines a LLoyds Platinum account..

Mookiemoo you state your card is a cheque guarantee card, i can 100% definitly tell you it isn't, as this facility no longer available in the UK, even if the card says it is!

The only cards I ever seem to have problems with are Lloyds and Natwest, only once had a Barclas declined and it was also declined when I phoned up for auth.

You're right about some cards requiring authorisation on every occasion. Some banks issue identical cards for full authorisation and offline authorisation. My understanding was that the first 6 digits of a visa card identify which bank has issued it and there was a look up table on card readers that told it if authorisation was required or not. As a made up example, 4999 98 and 4999 99 might be issued as identical debit cards by the same bank but one of those may need full authorisation.

However I've found a useful explanation below which may contradict this.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2602819

I've read on another forum that Avantix Mobile should accept the same methods of payments as accepted at ticket offices. This is apparently laid down in ATOC's TIS Supplier & Specification Accreditation process.

That's just one post on another forum with no quoted source though.....

If you have a basic bank account, chances are your card will decline unless the card terminal is connected to a phone line.

I DON'T have a basic bank account - thats the point!

What do those banks have in common?  Oh yes the two that are state-owned!

finally after many years of this question being asked .... (unless someone else has already answered it)..... certain cards store the number of offline transactions within the chip and once you reach the limit the card will need authorisation (to go online) ... this is a fraud prevention fail safe built into the card and explains why some people have used a card before with no problems and a few days later had no joy, i believe next time its involved in an online transaction that it resets the chip   

Clearly incorrect as Tickets offices can take electron cards and cannot be used on train

Ahh. Electron Cards possibly not. But 'Electronic Use Only' Visa/Maestro debit cards can be accepted if the TM/Conductor/Guard is willing to phone the relevant 'merchant services' to get authorisation.... Practical? No. Possible? Yes.

i was told by a guard this morning about this issue... on some cards there is deffo a cap on offline transactions ... the chip stores the info, the chip also stores your pin

The chip storing the pin is the reason that the card machine will instantly tell you if you put the wrong pin in, meanwhile takes a while to decline if the  funds aren't available since the machine needs to dial the merchant.

yep... but certain cards will allow a certain number of offline transactions before it auto declines.... its similar to your sky box at home, if the phone line goes down when you want to order a box office event the machine will let you watch a few without connecting and bill you later.... they dont want you to miss out because you cant get online, but there has to be a limit...

  

Not much it seems! :-)

relex is correct - A card activated for off-line use can still decline if the max number of offline transactions has been reached and needs to be used online before it can be used offline again.

Example:  Someone bought a ticket off me - chip + pin accepted.  Same passenger then asked for another ticket for the next day, same card, but declined.

Re: Natwest blue card - this is the full auth card, so this was issued incorrectly to MookieMoo, as the purple one is(was) the one for chq guarantee.

White HSBC cards with the red world map on decline and the silver ones without the chq guarantee on always do too.

I would love to know how much it would really cost to have a sim card connection to dial out for cards requiring authorisation Versus revenue lost/later declined.

Was there not a bloke (may of been a woman) who was using a prepay credit card thing to pay for train travel, and had not "prepaid" but it was being ok'd on the trains. Read this person got away with it for months, receiving 100s or 1000s in unpaid travel, as there was no funds in her prepay card!

Was travelling North this week on Cross Country.  Somewhere North of Derby the girl opposite was asked for her ticket. However she did not have her railcard with her.

The ticket inspector then politely asked her to pay back the discount she had received.  She agreed and proffered a debit card which was refused. The ticket inspector explained this was because of his machine and did she have any other means of payment.  When she said she did not he said he could phone for authorisation.  He did this without actually speaking on his phone so I do not know how it was done, but the payment was taken.  He also gave her a form to claim it back.

He was a model of politeness.

When phoning for authorisation it's sometimes just an automated process, but occasionally will get transferred to an actual person.

The authorisation centres we use at XC are simply a push button service, for small amounts it is a lot easier to swipe the transaction and then call it through at the end of the carriage than to stand in the aisle and do it. You get to know which cards have a habit of 'innocently' declining and when there's something more dodgy going on.