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Problems with online credit card purchases in Europe?

Posted by (Monterey County, CA (formerly Verbania Italy-Lago Maggiore)) on

I thought I'd post this as I'm sure others end up with similar issues. We've lived in Italy for over a year, and while both our Chase and Capital One Venture cards work most of the time, we've had issues on occasion with on line purchases.

This week I had problem with Colosseum tickets and Borghese Gallery tickets two days in a row. As you go complete the form and submit for payment, you may see a "Verified by Visa" screen pop up telling you to not hit your back button, or refresh your screen. With the Colosseum tickets, after the Verified by Visa/Chase screen, a message came up saying payment was not successful, check your card number and try again. Tried again, repeat performance. So I called Chase, they said that they did not see any attempts and to try later. I told them I had this problem previously and would like to be transferred to Verify by Visa, so was transferred, where my identity was verified, sent me a text with code, which I read back. Verify by Visa confirmed that the transaction was attempted twice and blocked. So while they were on the phone, I tried again and purchase successfully went through. Even though I'd signed up for Chase's travel alert with various countries, Verified by Visa did not have any travel notifications for me, so gave them countries for 1 year. I told them I would be purchasing additional tickets from other merchants, and said they'd authorize transactions for 24 hours. Made several other online purchases for tickets (Vatican, and Italo train tickets) without issue.

The following day, when the Borghese Gallery tickets became available, I attempted to purchase. In this case it appeared the charge went through, but then there was one more screen to confirm purchase, and when I did that, the card didn't go through. Again says try again. Call Chase back (no attempt visible on their end), ask for Verified by Visa, waited on hold, order expired, so had to start from scratch again. This time the verify text didn't go through, so I verified myself by answering a couple questions relating to last job, mortgage company, and mortgage payment to verify my identity. Again, while they were on the phone, I successfully made the purchase, said I'd make a second one for the exact amount in the next 5-10 minutes, and they again gave me a 24 hour window. 2nd purchase went through without a problem.

Kind of a pain, and only seems to be an issue with some, but not all on line purchases.

Previously we had same issue with Capital One card, but when CO asked if there was a "verified by visa" screen (there was not) the person I spoke with said Capital One did not subscribe to "Verify by visa" so there was no way for Capital One to approve the transaction they couldn't see. When I tried the same purchase with Chase, I did get the "verified by visa" and had to call, same as above, to get purchase approved.

Hope this helps others.

Posted by
8916 posts

Karen, thanks for this. So am I interpreting correctly that if you have Verified by Visa (which is voluntary, right?), you have to give them advance notice of foreign transactions, as well as your card provider? And the window they allow is only 24 hours? Seems like this is not exactly taking care of the customer.

It would be interesting to hear what other people have experienced.

Posted by
7891 posts

We have a Chase Visa card, and were never presented with an offer to volunteer for Verified By Visa. First encounter with Verified By Visa was actually at home in Colorado, attempting to pay for something in Europe - don’t remember if it was a flight, car rental deposit, tour, lodging, or what - but it was a surprise and I believe it took at least two phone calls and some stressful uncertainty, fairly late at night, that the transaction would go through. It did, eventually, and doesn’t always happen with purchases. Not sure I’ve run into it when out of the USA.

Posted by
1638 posts

No, we've never signed up nor been asked to "join" verified by visa. It just happens on some purchases, and doesn't always get blocked. Probably an algorithm that flags a purchase being out of the norm (on online).

But, if one didn't know to ask your credit card company to ask to speak to someone with Verify by visa (they answer phone as fraud department), you might give up. Of the multiple times this happened, only did Chase once say let me transfer you. I asked the other times.

Posted by
3522 posts

When Verified by Visa started, you the cardholder were to sign up for the service. It offered all kinds of nice alerting as well as helping get your transactions approved. That all changed and now it is the card issuer who signs up for it so every card of theirs is part of the program. At least that was the plan. Several card issuers, Capital One is first among them, decided to opt out. (Which I feel was a bad business decision by Capital One even though it does cost them money to join.)

What does this mean to you? A lot of online purchases don't work. There is nothing you as an individual can do to fix the problem except yell at your card issuer to join the program. Or move to a different issuer who is a member. Those who do participate seem to have a disconnect between them and the Verified by Visa system that really needs to be corrected as shown in this example.

Posted by
16895 posts

On the side of the web sites, too, this is a choice they elect - whether to process transactions through a "3D Secure" system or another brand. Those that do will display the logo for 3D Secure, Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode, or all of those. That logo is your warning that your US credit card may not work, unless you know you have the program, or have experience of your card working with it, or have a true chip--and-PIN card, as Europeans have (not chip and signature). If you don't have it, then a second approval screen never pops up - the one that would send the request to your bank. Hopefully, US credit card issuers will catch up to Europe's technology choice/standard soon.

Posted by
7101 posts

I had the same issue with my Capital One card trying to buy train tickets from Spain national railway Renfe. The 1st transaction went through fine, but I got the same message as you when trying to purchase another set of tickets. I was able to buy the 2nd using my Citi Bank card, but made the purchase when a Citi representative was on the phone with me. A 3rd purchase worked with a 3rd card, but at least it worked like it was supposed to.

Posted by
470 posts

For what it’s worth, 3D Secure will become much more common on September 14 as strong customer authentication becomes mandatory in the EU with the PSD2 directive. In theory, it only applies to EU businesses and EU banks but implementations might vary in practice.

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