Let's see what card doesn't decline

[greensinestro]

At Taco Bell the other day, a couple in front of me bought their lunch, which came to around $10. The lady gave the cashier one card, two cards, three cards, and then finally four before she wasn't told by the cashier "card declined". In between the first, second and third cards, this woman told the cashier, "Oh, that can't be right. You need to scan it again."

I've seen this in other threads and I have to ask this question: Why do these people think that if the cashier scans their declined card second time, it no longer will be maxed out or no longer have no money on it? I've also seen this with gift cards. A customer uses one that has, say, $50. They've used $49 of it, then get outraged later when making another purchase that can't be bought with their card. Nine times out of ten, it turns into these people arguing with the cashier, as if it's the cashier's fault that they can't remember how much money they have on their cards, or it's the cashier's fault that they maxed out their credit cards.

And this was only four cards. With the high credit limits people can get these days on one credit card alone, it makes me wonder what one owes on three with the fourth one probably about to be maxed out, too.

[Bright_Star]

Before ever stepping into a store, people ought to know how much of a limit is left on their credit cards. Acting all surprised & getting angry at the cashier cause their card gets declined isn't going to make it magically approved.
A famous saying around here sates that "Failure to plan on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on our part".

[Nohbody]

Having actually had to switch cards (though because the first was locked as a security feature, due to a big purchase I had made on it earlier that day, not because it didn't have the funds; the security lock was cleared after I called the issuer and straightened everything out, no problems), I might, on general principle, be able to understand one card not working. But three of them? *boggle*

[LillFilly]

I've actually had where the machine just decided to stop working. Very random, and not my card's fault at all! But yeah, I'm sure 90% of the time that's not the case. Damn inconvenient when it is though!

[Kiwi]

I have had my cards decline for no reason before, there was more than enough money in the account. Usually the second time it will go through.

I have also had my debit card charged twice for the same purchase and one time it even showed up declined but the money came out of my account anyway!

I never blame the cashier though, I do however ask them to put it through again if I know there is money in the account.

[bainsidhe]

Sometimes our system declines cards saying "Transaction not allowed", but it goes through if you try it again. So sometimes it really is the machine. However, most of the time it means the card is declined. And yes, the customer can sometimes walk over to an ATM and still withdraw money using the same card, yet the bank won't authorize the card at the register. Either way, most people don't even blink when their card is declined. And having a few of them decline....

[fireheart]

In our case, from the cashier's side, I have the following error codes:

Code 1: bank/machine error (usually the latter)
Code 4: lost/stolen card (and it literally will not let me clear it without supervisor's approval)
Code 51: insufficient funds.

Card Over Limit: this will come up for all accounts. (since most accounts have a limit of about $300 a day)
No Chq/Sav account: yes, this has happened several times.
Retry pin: obvious.

[bean]

The most common denials I get:

"Invalid PIN" - I see this 20 or 30 times a day easily.
"Insufficient funds" (on debit only) - few times a day.
"Decline authorization" (on credit)
"Exceeded checks per period" (too many checks written in the past 30 days.. you have to basically write a check every day for a month to get this).
"Exceeded cashback per period" (too many checks written for cashback in the past 30 days).

"Returned check" (duh) - gotten that twice. First time the customer made a pretty big scene about it and store management had to get involved. The second time the customer was pretty relaxed about it, I just showed her what was on my screen, apologized, and told her the register wouldn't let me accept her check. She asked who she needed to call to get it straightened out and I gave her the info to contact our check processor. She then paid with cash instead.

The rarest:
"!!! STOLEN CARD !!!" (which can only be cleared with a manager override)

I've seen stolen card twice. Both times their ID matched the card.. first time I told him it was declined, then he looked confused and went out to his car to get another card... then told me he had lost the first card, reported it lost, and then found it later. Second time the customer told me it was probably fraud protection kicking in on her card, she'd had trouble with it the night before.

The second rarest:
"Authorization system offline. Check cardholder ID." then it automatically approves the card and stores the transaction on the server to be processed whenever the auth system comes back up. Only seen this happen for an hour or so once outside of a power failure (during a power failure it's constant and we can't do debit or EBT at all during that time).

[MrSmiley]

One of my workplaces had two problems with the CC machine through the computer. The first was if too many cashiers were trying to run CCs through at the same time, the last one would probably fail. No queueing. No "please try again". It just gave the same message as other CC problems and was annoying. The second issue was every couple of hours the CC functionality would "reboot" (not entirely accurate... but close enough terminology) to a fresh status. This was fine and dandy except there was a handful of functions that would always fail the first time anyone would try to use them... in this new "fresh state". After it failed and the cashier tried it again, it would be fine until the next time of the day when the CC machines were scheduled to reboot.

[Zippity Doo]

All we get is either "invalid pin","card declined" or "call for authorization." Which is fine with me because then we honestly tell the customer we have no idea what the problem is. The theory is that their financial matter aren't our business which makes sense to me.

[bean]

One of my workplaces had two problems with the CC machine through the computer. The first was if too many cashiers were trying to run CCs through at the same time, the last one would probably fail. No queueing. No "please try again". It just gave the same message as other CC problems and was annoying. The second issue was every couple of hours the CC functionality would "reboot" (not entirely accurate... but close enough terminology) to a fresh status. This was fine and dandy except there was a handful of functions that would always fail the first time anyone would try to use them... in this new "fresh state". After it failed and the cashier tried it again, it would be fine until the next time of the day when the CC machines were scheduled to reboot.

Thankfully, we use a point of sale system designed for high volume stores (NCR's Advanced Checkout Solution, everything from the card readers to the servers is from NCR). It does occasionally hiccup, but when that happens it flashes "System error, try again" on the screen. I've seen that maybe 4 or 5 times in the year and a half I've been a cashier.

Any scheduled maintenance, reboots, updates, backups, etc take place between midnight and 4am (store closes at 10pm, reopens at 8am, no 24/7 stores in the company).

Obviously, this system isn't appropriate for anything except large stores though. And even then, I don't think it would hold a candle to IBM's AS/400 based systems in huuuuuuge stores, NCR's is 100% PC based.

[Horsetuna]

I once accidentally had a card give me BACK money when I made a purchase.

A few days later I went back to sort it out, and they were confused by what I was saying. I did pay twice though.

Also I remember Black Friday a few years ago when the entire Interac system went all wonky. the Safeway down the hill was Cash only, our store would only take MC, the store next door was fine, and the one on the other side could only take debit.

Weird.

[Bramble]

Well actually my card got declined once. But not because it was maxed out. Oh no. They got the payment and it was taken out of my account and the amount due was taken off my card. They just decided to flex their muscles and held it from my card for two weeks. I hate my credit card company.

[Andara Bledin]

I do the credit card processes at my work, being the A/R clerk, and the system we use is Internet based, so we get some interesting problems.

It will rarely give us a reason for a decline. We've had one "stolen" message (card was thought lost, reported stolen, and the buyer was never consulted), a few NSF declines, and one other I can't remember. But most of the time it just says "Declined - Do not honor." and that's it.

I've had it decline for a bad CVV code, a bad expiration date, an incorrect billing address (this one usually doesn't matter at all), and the most common of all, the credit card provider doesn't trust our processing service and just won't work with them without the customer calling them and telling them to let the charge go through. This is particularly common with international customers.

Thankfully, I can't remember any of our customers being nasty to me when I've called for any of this.

^-.-^

[Shalom]

A couple months ago, out of the blue, I get a call at home (in NJ) from my credit card issuer.

'Hi, did you just try to make a purchase at a Home Depot in Delrey, Florida?"

"I've never been in Delrey, Florida in my life."

"Well, someone just tried to charge $250 on your card there, but it was declined for an incorrect expiration date. Is that card still in your possession?"

"Yeah, it is here in my wallet. How'd they get it down there?"

"The numbers were manually keyed, not swiped. Just in case, though, we're going to cancel this card and send you a new one. You should receive it in X days."

"Fine by me..."

Good thing I had other credit cards; I can see being somewhat urinated off if that was my only card. I'd've probably asked them to overnight it had that been the case.

I also remember a case where my card was declined on a local purchase. I called them up on my cell phone to find out what the hell, and they asked me all the usual security questions. Then they told me that there had been a charge on that card in another state earlier that day, and they wanted to make sure that the card hadn't been stolen. I told them that was true, I'd ordered something online, and the charge had gone through in Washington State. You'd think they'd have heard about e-commerce by now.