Goldfish and Amazon

I recently had my Goldfish card declined for a purchase of around 230 from amazon.co.uk, despite having previously made several smaller purchases wituout any problem. Goldfish claimed to have phoned me to check if the purchase was mine rather than fraudulent, but they didn't. I was forced to use a different credit card (Egg - who phoned within 30 minutes to check up on it).

Had Goldfish checked with Amazon, they could have verified that the shipping address was the same as the card address. However they didn't. I've raised with Amazon the fact that (at least for "one click" purchases) they don't ask for the three digit security code on the card. I've also complained to Goldfish. I await a reply from both.

Brian

Reply to
BrianW
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Brian,

Storing the 3-digit security code would not be a good idea security-wise. I'm sure the cardschemes have rules that this should never be "permanently" stored anywhere. Neil Pike Protech Computing Ltd

Reply to
Neil Pike

Thanks. Apparently it was referred not decl "When this happens your card is referred for further authorisation. The merchant, Amazon, is then obliged to call through to their local VISA/MasterCard authorisation centre to obtain this. The problem with online transactions is that they may not have the facility for delayed processing so that they can obtain this.

[I received three notifications that the card had been declined over a period of two hours.]

I apologise for any inconvenience caused.

We cannot agree to call you to verify every transaction that is like this before this is declined due to the merchant not telephoning to gain this further authorisation. As you can appreciate this is not feasible with the amount of cardholders that we have. Our security department will however try to contact you shortly after this to ensure that you are still in possession of your card and the transaction that you attempted was genuine. This is to try to combat fraud."

Well there certailnly wouldn't have been any fraud in this case. LTSB haven't gained in my estimation from this episode IHTS.

Brian

Reply to
BrianW

Without a hint of irony, Neil Pike astounded uk.finance on 13 Dec 2004 by announcing:

What about ebay?

Reply to
Alex

Does ebay's payment mechanism store the CSC code then?

Neil Pike Protech Computing Ltd

Reply to
Neil Pike

Without a hint of irony, Neil Pike astounded uk.finance on 15 Dec 2004 by announcing:

Not sure. When you register as a seller, they ask for all the card information so they can debit it when you list an item. I haven't actually listed anything yet so I don't know if they request it again. Or perhaps they request it the first time just to validate the card and then accept the risk on subsequent transactions.

Reply to
Alex

The latter would be a good compromise - they've identified it's you with the card once, so unless the card details change no great reason to ask you again.

Not ever sold on e-bay, so not seen their system either.

Neil Pike Protech Computing Ltd

Reply to
Neil Pike

A brief follow-up. Two days ago my card was added to the "security list", and referred for every attempted transaction. The first I found out about this was when my card was referred somewhere I go every week, and I had to wait 15 minutes while the merchant tried to contact the authorisation centre - which they couldn't because of "a queue of requests". Eventually I was forced to use another card. Apparently they had phoned me concerning "unuusual spending patterns", but my wife had forgotten to tell me. She had also had two transactions referred. These "unusual spending patterns" included three attempts to buy goods from places where we regularly shop. Pre Christmas paranoia?

Brian

Reply to
BrianW

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