Tried to pay for a lunch today with my Lloyd's TSB debit card. Terminal came up with a message "This transaction requires voice referral". The account was in good standing and has always been in good standing, currently about £2k in credit. The transaction amount
39 quid, and is by no means outwith my normal pattern of use for the card, the location was only 15 miles from home, and the card had not been used since last night at Sainsbury's, where the chip and pin transaction was uneventful.
Rather huffy Maitre "D" dials his contact number and goes through about 3 minutes of call gate menuing, then has to input his merchant ID and my card number on the keypad after another wait gets put through to a call centre in India who asks him to spell out my name, however call centre operatrice is not familiar with the phonology of the English language and mixes up such as "M's" and "N's". Maitre "D" (Who is French) begins to lose his cool and loudly spells out my name using the NATO phonetic alphabet. He gets put on Hold for 4-5 minutes when Indian operatrice asks him for 3 security digits on the back of the card. Gets put back on hold. 4 minutes later call centre lady asks him to ask me for my security details, maitre "D" flatly refuses on security grounds and after a couple of minutes on hold passes phone to me, call centre lady says she works for HSBC, but that she is in contact with my bank who are asking for my date of birth and the first two letters of my mother's maiden name. Anyway I gave her the details and I got put on hold.
5 minutes later the Maitre "D", who has had a family of 5 including a crying infant in a buggy-on-sterooids, queueing to pay for 10 minutes, (and I am tying up both his credit card terminal and his phone) goes ballistic and says don't bother about the bill, I'll trust you, pay it next time.
So we just gave him a different card. :)
30 Minutes later my wife's debit card on the same account worked without problem in Tesco.
What the hell was going on here, and in the days of chip and pin why all the stone-age manual entering of card numbers on (analogue cordless) phone keypads, :(( not to mention the passing of the "security numbers" on the card by voice by third parties ? Surely it's possible to implement all this within the secure terminal. Surely again if voice referral is required it wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to have the call centre operator presented with all the details of the hung transaction once the merchant had identified himself without keying in 16 digit card numbers, and spelling out the card holder's name.
Oh, BTW I never got as far as being asked for a PIN number.
DG