Capital One Mastercards being refused in shops

[BenDToy]

My wife and 2 of our friends have Capital One Mastercards (the power of 4% cashback). They are regularly rejected for no apparent reason. I have a platinum version of the same card and have had no trouble with mine. Has anyone else had similar problems? Perhaps we have just found out how Capital One can be so generous - after all, 4% of nothing is.....not very much! (Sorry if this appears twice - the first attempt seems to have gone missing)

[VillageVicar]

That's interesting to hear. The approval process is seldom through the card company directly, but instead through a portal group such as telecheque services, etc. I know that in some circumstances when cards have a history of exceeding their approved limits, a common 'call' message is tagged to the account which forces the approval portal to transfer the process directly to the card company. This can result in delays or occasionally 'drop outs' where the link time simply failed to complete.

I remember a couple of years ago when I put my card in a cash point in Hing Kong to withdraw some cash. The machine spit out the card with a receipt saying 'my bank had rejected the card.'

In fact, this wasn't the case. It was that the local cashpoint failed to complete the connection to the approval system: but it was easier and a more sound business practice to blame the other bank.

I've used a 'charge card' rather than a credit card for the past eleven years now. Since that time it has been a life-saver as there are no credit limits (per se) associated with the card. Accordingly, there are no 'call tags' attached to the approval portals.

I wish you the best of luck

Fr Bill

[dzug]

I understand it is because Capital One and/or Mastercard have been slow in updating the database of valid card numbers

[RogeDodge]

I think in this case you need to understand exactly why the card has been rejected. Is this in shops or at an ATM? It maybe that the card has been referred by their Fraud system, it is then just a matter of just talking to them and confirming you are the genuine customer and it was your transaction. They should then ensure subsequent transactions are allowed.

Cheers
R

[abstibus]

I've stopped using Mastercard overseas - I was fed up with it being rejected at hotels when I changed cities. It was impossible to get any sense out of the sponsoring bank, then or later, even though I had notified them of my plans and dates well in advance. They came up with some gobbledygook which I still can't figure out.
I use my Nationwide debit card now - no charge on currency transactions,either. Just need to make sure there's enough in the account.

[johndoe1]

I too have a Capital One Mastercard with 4% cashback. We received our cards fairly recently and my wife was also denied when trying to make a purchase in our local Asda in the UK. We have no credit issues and pay off our cards in full at the end of each month. When I called Capital One to identify the reason for the rejected transaction, I was told that the problem was with Mastercard. I told him there wasn't a problem with Mastercard because my with used another Mastercard credit card to pay for the goods (which amounted to approx 70GBP), he then indicated that the problem was between Capital One and Mastercard.
While I'm here, I have to comment on the amount of time it takes for Capital One to process my payments via internet banking. I've had a Morgan Stanley card for a number of years, which was only providing 0.5% cashback - hence my reasoning for taking out a Capital One 4% card. However, it takes 3 days longer for payments to appear on my Capital One account than it does for the Morgan Stanley. The payments are made at the same time through the same internet banking route.
We still have our Morgan Stanley cards thankfully and will happily forego the 4% cashback to save me the hassle.

[dzug]

johndoe1 - Morgan Stanley have had major problems recently - not with acceptance, but in calculating cashback. So not everthing in the garden is rosy.