Nice new Barclaycard, but can’t get it to work for certain transactions
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It seems to be OK in stores, i.e. M & S, Co-op, BA shopping portal, local garden centre, but I am trying to pay the balance of a villa booking which is £1200 pounds, which would be helpful to reach the SUB.
I have spoken to Barclaycard, very nice chap, could hear his kids playing in the background, but sadly he was clueless as to why the payment wouldn’t go through.
He suggested I ring up Villa Plus and try and pay them direct. Tried this but the payment wouldn’t go through, they also couldn’t see why, and anyway they only take payment via their web-site these days – so that great!
Anybody got any ideas or suggestions on this, have I missed anything, I’ve chipped and pinned it etc., apart from I should have read all the problems on here and not applied in the first place.
Are you getting a message about the payment not going through? Do they definitely take credit cards (I know normally MC or Visa is fine, if not Amex, but may be an anomaly?)
Tried a different browser/cleared cookies?
Hi NL, The villa is booked in my other half’s name and the Barclaycard is in mine but the surname is the same.
They definitely take credit cards, Visa and Mastercard though not Amex unfortunately.
I have got another MC we could use, and of course a bank card, just really wanted to put it towards the 3K spend.
Hadn’t thought about a different browser or clearing cookies, will try that later, we’ve still got some days before the balance is due.
Have now spoken to Barclaycard staff three times, I feel for them as they obviously don’t get access to very good training.
@Misty the problem is realistically more likely to be with Villa Plus than Barclaycard. If there were any widespread problem with the card not working we would hear much more about it.
When you talk about “all the problems on here” they were the most tiny minority of cardholders who complained and there were on a number of occasions self inflicted explanations. The card basically works very well every day.
Just as a datapoint, my avios Barclaycard also often randomly declines online transactions when all in person ones go through. I can usually just use my AMEX when this happens so never been particularly bothered about chasing them about it.
Have you done any chip and pin transactions with the new card or are all the payments you’ve made been contactless or online? I found out that my Hilton Barclaycard effectively requires every 5th transaction to be chip and pin – something about Barclaycard processes trying to verify that I still have the card which doesn’t really make sense since contactless still requires me to press the card up against the reader.
How new is the card?
For the first few days upon receiving my own (and my wife had a similar experience with her own card too), I have found there are often issues with payments, adding to PayPal, adding to Apple Wallet, etc. and Barclaycard agents aren’t able to help.
We have found that these issues eventually disappear though without intervention after a few working days.
@JDB this may very well be the case, although I have used villa plus quite a few times over the years amd never had problems paying with a mastercard. I was hoping I was one of those who’s card would work very well for everyday. I intended to use it as my back up to my OH BAPP.
@Joe G re your data point. That’s interesting @ possibly what is happening here, if it wasn’t that I was trying to meet a SUB, I wouldn’t be too bothered.
@AJA Yes I have done 1 chip and pin., 2 contactless and initially put it in an ATM to change my pin from the one allocated to one of my choosing. I’ve also done an online purchase via the BA store and that went though. It’s all a bit baffling.
@RK228 The card is about a week old. The Villa Plus transaction was the first one I did, I’m wondering if that was the issue. I’ve got a bit of time so maybe I shall give it a few days see if it clears, on my statement it shows as ‘pending’ then the figure 0, but some of the other transactions show as pending but with the correct amount of monies next to them.Thanks for all your replies.
Just going through the possibilities, have you checked if you are close to credit limit or if the payment will take you close to credit limit?
Just going through the possibilities, have you checked if you are close to credit limit or if the payment will take you close to credit limit?
No I’ve got about 12k credit left.
I’ve just tried to boost 2000 MR to triple on BAEC site and it was card declined, use another card or talk to your card provider. I added the card to my card list before I did the transaction and it accepted the card.
The above was on chrome, just tried firefox and instead of saying declined it said
‘Pending transaction! Your order is being processed. Please check your email for updates on the transaction status, which may take up to 72 hours’.
So I guess I just need to be patient and hope it clears itself.
@Misty – your new revelation about Villa Plus being your very first transaction almost certainly explains the problem and the process may not even have reached Barclaycard which is why they couldn’t see anything. It looks to the merchant acquirer like a high risk transaction so it blocks it. Similarly, a transaction with an erroneous card number or other details would get blocked before it got to Barclaycard.
The difficulty now is how to get the card back to ‘respectability’ and I don’t of know any certain solutions, although a few chip and PIN transactions might help but won’t be necessary in the future once AI thinks your card is back on the straight and narrow.
Have you done any chip and pin transactions with the new card or are all the payments you’ve made been contactless or online? I found out that my Hilton Barclaycard effectively requires every 5th transaction to be chip and pin – something about Barclaycard processes trying to verify that I still have the card which doesn’t really make sense since contactless still requires me to press the card up against the reader.
Interesting, practically all my transactions with my Hilton barclaycard are online (I do use it at Hiltons occasionally but they just charge it through their e-commerce system). It was also attached to Curve since day 1 of curve, until last November when I stopped using curve after being defrauded. I think the number of times I’ve used the physical card(s) is a single digit except to activate contactless in an ATM by using the PIN upon receiving a new card
@JDB I think you have hit on what it is. I should have done some smaller transitions first.
I will just carry on using it in store, and hope the matter resolves itself, and my card becomes ‘respectable’ again. It’s odd that it had no problem with a purchase I made via the BA store yesterday with QVC. It was because this worked that I had another try with villa plus. Will have to use a different card.
@John and AJA. I’m also wondering if i’m going to be one of those who need to use chip and pin every 5 or so times to make the card operate smoothly, we can use it for supermarket shopping, petrol etc. It is annoying though, I can see it was my mistake to use it for a large bill as my first transaction.@Misty definitely try at least one traditional chip and pin transaction i.e. a physical purchase in a shop – the one using the ATM to change your PIN won’t count.
@AJA I’ll do a couple tomorrow.
Also I’m wondering if I have set up the 2FA security correctly as when OH & I were waiting for the Villa Plus payment to go through, we were ready with phone/email to have to input a 6 digit number, but it didn’t ask us for one. I know you don’t always get 2FA security on transactions, but I would have thought for something costing over 1K and on a new card they would have wanted this.
Totally cheesed off over an hour on the phone to barclaycard (three different people) and it’s ended up with them blocking my card and a promise of a call back within 24 hours. Grhh!
When I rang a couple days ago, I pressed whatever number it was for a callback, and of course it never happened. I wish I had never called, they are a totally useless organisation. I was planning on spending on it tomorrow for holiday shopping. Waste of £20 a month.
Just an update to all of you who kindly tried to help me with this.
JDB helpfully furnished me with the email of the CEO, however I thought I would have one more go at resolving this myself.
I hot footed it to my local branch (30 mins each way), I took my passport, drivers licence, Cheque book (must be the last one on planet to have one of these) a bunch of credit cards & my bank card.
An extremely pleasant customer services adviser took me into a little room and spent 30 mins trying to unlock it.
What is a bit sad is she had to use the same call centre as all of us. At one point when she was getting nowhere she said in an aside to me, ‘I know what I’ll do, I’ll hang up and try again.’ I was staggered that they didn’t have a special hot-line.
She finally got someone who knew what they were doing, I had to talk with them as well, endless security questions and voila she managed to unlock it.
I’ve used it 4 times already.
Very happy, but still feel the call centre should have been able to resolve this.
Make a formal complaint and collect £50
Make a formal complaint and collect £50
Who would I complain to, to get my £50, Barclaycard ?
Never considered doing this even though it was extremely stressful, I was so glad I finally managed to sort it out.
Somewhat ironically, I have had a nice happy clappy email from them this morning telling me that i have earnt 293 Avios this month.
Yes you’d complain to Barclaycard as you were unable to use your card and unable to resolve it, you can of course mention the staff member was kind and tried his best but that the policies clearly let him down. That way you’re hopefully not getting anyone into trouble. It’s the way I usually do it and it always seems to work!
PS — Keep your complaint short and ask for £100
Yes you’d complain to Barclaycard as you were unable to use your card and unable to resolve it, you can of course mention the staff member was kind and tried his best but that the policies clearly let him down. That way you’re hopefully not getting anyone into trouble. It’s the way I usually do it and it always seems to work!
PS — Keep your complaint short and ask for £100
Thank you, I think I was so relieved that it was working as I need to put a clarge spend through, I never thought to complain.
I’m wondering if we complain in a nice way, maybe somebody up high might notice it, and give all the customer services people at the call center some decent training. One thing upset me more than anything else was the blatant lie that they would call beck in 24 hours, I just don’t understand why they would lie like that – it makes me sad.
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