Company Debit Card not accepted on all sites?

[MPwannadecentincome]

Are some sites detecting a company bank account visa card and preventing purchases?

I buy a bus season ticket online (arrivabus.co.uk), but it never accepts my Cater Allen payment /visa card saying I should contact the bank. When I called them all I was told is that no request was received from the payment processor.

Using the same card to purchase PCG membership was no problem.

[MPwannadecentincome]

must be stupid Arriva's website - it doesn't even accept my personal debit card, ended up using a credit card!

[northernladuk]

That was the quickest question and answer thread yet!

... with least number of contributors to the solution

[MPwannadecentincome]

That was the quickest question and answer thread yet!

... with least number of contributors to the solution

Well not sure I have a solution other than "Arriva don't seem to accept debit cards but don't tell you that on the payment page" and when the error page comes up it says to call customer services on their phone number which being only open during office hours will put off a lot of people booking tickets at night from bothering to tell them how stupid their site is!

[craig1]

The card is probably falling into the same trap as some other bank cards that were originally Visa Electron and haven't been reclassified on the Visa system as standard Visa debit. It mainly affects the smaller banks and basic bank accounts. A number of places just don't accept cards that are flagged as Electron, mainly pay-at-pump fuel and other kiosk style things but a few online sites could still be running software that discriminates against Electron.

[Old Greg]

Cater Allen is a private bank and therefore does not allow its payment cards to be used for a bus season ticket.

[SueEllen]

The card is probably falling into the same trap as some other bank cards that were originally Visa Electron and haven't been reclassified on the Visa system as standard Visa debit. It mainly affects the smaller banks and basic bank accounts. A number of places just don't accept cards that are flagged as Electron, mainly pay-at-pump fuel and other kiosk style things but a few online sites could still be running software that discriminates against Electron.

Some retailers don't accept some banks' card numbers as they don't recognise the bank as existing. This happens on websites, in automated machines and even in shops.

I have a Mastercard that currently falls into this trap and my Nationwide debit card was like this for the first 3 years I had it.

Either have more than one payment card or be willing to tell the retailer they have lost a sale.

[andyc2000]

In some cases I have found that you have to tell the website it's a credit card, rather than a debit and then the sale goes through. Weird.

[GazCol]

In some cases I have found that you have to tell the website it's a credit card, rather than a debit and then the sale goes through. Weird.

It's due to the way the algorithim works on a merchant's cardlookup field on their website or if they have a PDQ machine that hasn't had a firmware update in a while. IIN's are regularly updated and new batches are released on a monthly (from memory) basis; therefore if it's a particularly long time since the merchant updated their BIN/IIN ranges or updated their PDQ machines your card details are not recognised and an attempt isn't made to contact the issuer, some generic failed payment message is given.

Sometimes you can get around that by attempting to select a different card type, but that only works if you're lucky enough to have a new card that has an IIN that was previously used as something else and then decommissioned. This obviously doesn't work on a PDQ machine.

Northern rail are also particuarly good at not doing this.

[MPwannadecentincome]

It's due to the way the algorithim works on a merchant's cardlookup field on their website or if they have a PDQ machine that hasn't had a firmware update in a while. IIN's are regularly updated and new batches are released on a monthly (from memory) basis; therefore if it's a particularly long time since the merchant updated their BIN/IIN ranges or updated their PDQ machines your card details are not recognised and an attempt isn't made to contact the issuer, some generic failed payment message is given.

Sometimes you can get around that by attempting to select a different card type, but that only works if you're lucky enough to have a new card that has an IIN that was previously used as something else and then decommissioned. This obviously doesn't work on a PDQ machine.

Northern rail are also particuarly good at not doing this.

The payment processor is Data Cash which is a master card company - they probably don't care about VISA BIN/IIN ranges upto date.

Last night after that card failed I tried my personal debit card, that also failed, then today the bank phoned me up asking about a fraudulent transaction!