Wednesday, February 13, 2008

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 So I paid the cashier with the cash I had withdrawn earlier.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!
Comments:
I've had only one problem with chip 'n' pin and it was at the "pay @ pump" at Tesco, Lincoln. As with you, I selected payment in this way though it declined the card. These pay @ pump machines do not ask for a pin number, they trust the barer hasn't stolen it and a limit of £60 per transaction is capped. A Tesco employee told me "oh, they're always doing that, they're very tempramental".

Luckily I had no follow-up problems with my pin number.
 
I used to get that all the time when I tried to use my Yorkshire Bank card in Wickes, I saw other people having the same problem, but only with Yorkshire Bank cards and only in Wickes -it was obviously their system. Since I got fed up with the Yorkshire and changed bank, no problems (at least, not yet).
 
Thanks Graham, at Morrisons you must input your PIN number and I think the limit is £100

Thanks Sheffield Moggy - strange that when I accessed the Alliance Leicester website they were in the process of changing the user ID numbers from 12 digits down to 8 digits. Maybe an IT conflict. Like your photograph of the 52 Crookes in Sheffield - I will look out for those tomorrow and Monday as I drive through in my 49 seater for the company whose name we dare not mention!
 
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