Hello all,
I have recently run into a problem that might be of interest to people here.
I was buying a rifle not so long ago and tried to pay via apple pay on my phone from a Co-op account. The payment was blocked, no surprise there I thought as it was a lot of money and I have recently re-entered the country so thought it might be travel related.
So, I called the bank, the person on the phone was very polite and helpful. They could see the payments were blocked under a generic fraud reason. He verified I was the true owner of the card and then unblocked the card, he even stayed on the line as i re tried the payment. No luck, still blocked. He did not understand why so went off to speak to his supervisor. Upon his return he asked be what kind of shop I was trying to make a purchase at (silly question as I assume he could see the shop name in the transactions). I told him it was a firearms dealership.
Here is the interesting part, he then explained to me that essentially it was standard procedure to block all payments to "those kinds of shops as they present a high fraud risk". Surprising news to me as nearly all sales at firearm dealers a recorded in some way. Upon further probing he repeated the same fraud line but pointed out/ encouraged me to read between the lines that this was in fact not a fraud policy but to do with their ethical bank status. He did not directly say this so I don’t know if his supervisor was on the call also but he definitely made it seem he thought the policy was a dumb one.
Despite the lengthy phone call, he could not unblock the payment to that shop which serves me right for not using cash I suppose. (while i didn't have my card on me the gentleman on the phone seemed to think that wouldn't remedy the situation wither as it was a fraud block by the bank and not apple pay related). So, I left without buying the rifle (fear not I am about to return to the shop to buy the rifle). I tried another shop to check the card was working and it went though at regular shops just fine.
So, this thread is really just me complaining about the Co-Op bank and wondering if anyone else has had similar issues with this bank or others.
-Shrike
I have recently run into a problem that might be of interest to people here.
I was buying a rifle not so long ago and tried to pay via apple pay on my phone from a Co-op account. The payment was blocked, no surprise there I thought as it was a lot of money and I have recently re-entered the country so thought it might be travel related.
So, I called the bank, the person on the phone was very polite and helpful. They could see the payments were blocked under a generic fraud reason. He verified I was the true owner of the card and then unblocked the card, he even stayed on the line as i re tried the payment. No luck, still blocked. He did not understand why so went off to speak to his supervisor. Upon his return he asked be what kind of shop I was trying to make a purchase at (silly question as I assume he could see the shop name in the transactions). I told him it was a firearms dealership.
Here is the interesting part, he then explained to me that essentially it was standard procedure to block all payments to "those kinds of shops as they present a high fraud risk". Surprising news to me as nearly all sales at firearm dealers a recorded in some way. Upon further probing he repeated the same fraud line but pointed out/ encouraged me to read between the lines that this was in fact not a fraud policy but to do with their ethical bank status. He did not directly say this so I don’t know if his supervisor was on the call also but he definitely made it seem he thought the policy was a dumb one.
Despite the lengthy phone call, he could not unblock the payment to that shop which serves me right for not using cash I suppose. (while i didn't have my card on me the gentleman on the phone seemed to think that wouldn't remedy the situation wither as it was a fraud block by the bank and not apple pay related). So, I left without buying the rifle (fear not I am about to return to the shop to buy the rifle). I tried another shop to check the card was working and it went though at regular shops just fine.
So, this thread is really just me complaining about the Co-Op bank and wondering if anyone else has had similar issues with this bank or others.
-Shrike
