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Chip and Pin failure .

I went shopping tonight at my usual supermarket, Morrisons at International Way, International Sports Village, Cardiff Bay, CF11 0JP. I dropped Gail off at the entrance to the store and continued around to buy petrol at their filling station. This filling station has a lovely efficient pay at the pump facility that I use. You insert your Chip and Pin card, enter your pin number and draw the fuel. But tonight the pump would not accept my card, I tried 3 times but it did not want to play. So I selected the option to pay at the kiosk but when I presented my Alliance Leicester Chip and Pin Debit Card it came up as "Transaction Cancelled - Not Authorised". So I asked Mohammed the cashier where we would go from here and he told me to walk over to the cashpoint and come back with some cash. At the cashpoint mounted into the outside wall of the Morrisons supermarket the machine accepted my pin number, printed a balance and dished out my cash. So I walked back to the filling station, paid Mohammed and drove back to the store.

We select our groceries and queue at the check-out. A customer in front of us was paying for his groceries and I spotted his distinctive blue card. He entered his pin number but the transaction failed. So I shouted out for him, the cashier and other shoppers to hear, much to Gail's embarrassment, that I had the same problem with my Alliance Leicester card at the filling station and that he will have to use the cashpoint outside to pay this cashier.

I presented my Alliance Leicester Debit Card to this cashier and it failed with the till receipt declaring "Declined - code 5 - Unable to Authorise". So I paid the cashier with the cash I had withdrawn earlier.

I have never had a problem with Chip and Pin before and because it happened to another customer at the same time means that this is a network problem. Whether this is a problem at Morrisons or Alliance Leicester I will never know for sure. The filling station and the store have different Merchant Numbers, the filling station is 4923520 and the store 4923454. Because I had no problems with the cashpoint I am lead to think the problem is with Morrisons rather than Alliance Leicester.

I shouted out loud to the other customer to reassure him that there was not a problem with his account and he had not been fleeced by internet banking robbers. If any other bloggers have had any problems with their Chip and Pin transactions then please leave a comment on my blog. Happy shopping everyone!