Credit card declined

[bailey]

Why are people suddenly surprised when their credit cards are declined? These people will ask you to run the card again because there must be some mistake. As if running the same card three or four times will magically make money appear on their account. Do these people not realize that everywhere you go there is a minimum amount held on your card. Perhaps your card was declined because the gas station is holding 100 dollars, the car rental company is holding a 300 dollar deposit - etc. By the time you arrive to checkin your card has 10 bucks on it.

This happens more than you know.

The worst is having to stand behind them in line. The cashier keeps trying over and over to tell them that the card is no good and they just can't accept it. And then after like 10 minutes they finally give up and leave because they have no cash.

[green55]

Why are people suddenly surprised when their credit cards are declined? These people will ask you to run the card again because there must be some mistake. As if running the same card three or four times will magically make money appear on their account. Do these people not realize that everywhere you go there is a minimum amount held on your card. Perhaps your card was declined because the gas station is holding 100 dollars, the car rental company is holding a 300 dollar deposit - etc. By the time you arrive to checkin your card has 10 bucks on it.

This happens more than you know.

Here are the reasons why my card has been declined...
- I preordered (but later canceled, decided to wait till the 2nd round of next gen consoles) a ps4 so my account was frozen. I've seen this a lot when I worked in electronics and around Christmas
- I used an outdated card
- The machine is broken or I swiped it too early

- Another was a woman who moved up to the area after a divorce and didn't tell her credit card company right away. If you use it outside an area like traveling, some companies will flag it. My boyfriend received a call at 2 am from his credit card company asking him if he was purchasing items in New York at a gas station. He was not.

[boringscreenname]

I had mine decline recently. I checked the account balance before we left, then I had my husband drop me and the kids off at the store while he went to an appointment. I went to the café inside to buy lunch and my card was declined. I was completely confused.

It turned out that the car had started acting up on the way to my husband's appointment so he had to buy some stuff at the gas station for it, and that's why my card was declined.

[katzklaw]

There is also a credit union in town that limits how much people can spend with their bank cards in a day. The number of people I get coming in from that credit union, having their cards decline, is almost laughable. While I appreciate the credit union's trying to keep them safe, it seems to me it creates a problem more than anything.

this. i used to work in a bank, and as far as i know, ALL debit and most credit cards (unless it's the platinum card or the black card or whatever the heck card it is that has absolutely no limits whatsoever) have a "daily limit" that is independent of how much money is actually in the account. for most debit cards this is a pretty low amount... anywhere between $400-$800 (sometimes more if you have beau-coup bucks in a "premier account" or something). i work at a campground now, and it's REAL easy for someone to hit that daily limit, especially on a weekend, where the "day" stretches from friday night to monday morning, and these people are buying fuel/food/souvenirs on the trip. sounds like the credit union possibly has a really low limit, though.

[mathnerd]

All banks have limits, but some are higher than others. My POS spending limit is $1800 on one account and $2500 on the other. I never get anywhere close to that, but it does come in handy when paying for vacation packages on priceline.

[starsinthesky]

I hate getting declined cards. Most times I get people that want to know why. I usually have to tell these people that for privacy and legal reasons, the cc company isn't going to tell me why. This one time, this woman wanted met to call Visa for her and "fix it".

[lachesis]

I get calls about debit card limits all the time! Ours is $1000 across the board. I understand how frustrating it is to have a card get declined, but it's probably a lot less frustrating to file a dispute on fraudulent transactions. That is a headache unto itself. I do wish the businesses had a default higher limit just because the reason they're using the card is for their work.

[technopoptart]

I always run them a second time. Sometimes the rejection is a fluke. Other times it pops up a declined message followed by a approved message and a receipt pops out. Sometimes the integrated POS systems are a bit wacky.

[42_42_42]

We have 2 debit cards (1 for the online bank, 1 for the credit union). The only reason I use the one for the credit union is to get cash from the ATM. The only reason I use the other one is b/c it's accepted at a certain store that doesn't accept our credit card (this store takes MC but not Visa).

Everything else, and really so much that we hardly use cash, gets put on the credit card, which we then pay off at the end of the month. It's a no annual fee rewards card, so we use it for everything we can to rack up as much rewards points as possible.

The credit limit on that thing is so crazy high I can't imagine us every coming anywhere close to it since we pay it off every month (seriously, we could put a new car on this thing except that'd be bonkers). We use our equity line at the credit union for any larger single purchases because the interest rate is so low.

So, yeah, if my card gets decline, there's a problem somewhere other than me not having enough money. Fortunately, they'll send my husband a text (we share all accounts) if there is an unusual purchase they want to check out instead of just putting a hold on the card.

We had a credit card with a different bank that put holds on the account all the time for purchases we'd made that just happened to be large. It was very frustrating because we'd just bought a house and so had several large purchases to make (fridge, new furniture, that sort of stuff) and the card kept getting put on hold without them alerting us. Then I'd be at the groc. store and have to write a check because the card wouldn't go through. That's actually the reason we got rid of that card and got one with a different bank!

But I never took it out on the cashier. The bank rep, well, the 3rd or 4th time it happened in that same friggin' month, I wasn't as nice to, I must admit. Didn't help that all the security info was my husband's since he'd added me to the acct when we got married and I didn't know the info yet (what newly wed knows their MIL's maiden name or their hub's SSN?).