Credit Card company reject Merchant

[BearWithSoreHead]

Are credit card companies allowed to choose who they will accept transactions from if all the normal criteria are being met?

 

I placed an order with a distance seller, who by the nature of the products is a common target for credit card fraud, and immediately received a call from my card company's security centre — at which point I confirmed that it was a genuine transaction and was reassured that everything was fine then.

 

Since then the merchant has attempted to take payment again and been rejected again so I spent a long time talking to the credit card company—over several calls—who ended the conversation with an assurance that if the transaction was presented again it would go through this time.

 

Again the transaction was rejected and so I had another long conversation (well actually I spent most of it on hold) only to have the individual researching the problem come not be able to hear me when he took me off hold.

 

One final call and I was at last informed (both by the foreign call centre staff and also the more local supervisor I was transferred to) that the banking group behind my credit card had stopped accepting transactions from this merchant.

 

As I understand it the transaction is bank to bank so if the merchant banks with a UK bank can they really refuse to accept the transaction if the card holder has confirmed it is genuine?

[Meldrew2]

Yes. Otherwise the card company is open to liability under Section 75 CCA that they don't want to take on.

[legalpickle]

It isn't only s75, and most likely not in this case. It is probably that the merchant is open to fraud and they are not prepared to risk fraudulent transactions and are convinced that they will be fraudulent.

 

 

If they consider it in your best interests, then they can refuse to process a transaction to whoever they want.

[BearWithSoreHead]

Thanks.

 

I think actually the reason for rejecting isn't that this particular merchant is more open to fraud but rather that given that the products they sell are high value and high demand they are more likely to be targetted in the first place.

 

It's almost the reverse of why my car is such a high insurance group - it isn't more likely to be in an accident, the parts are just so expensive if it is.

 

Guess I'll just have to put up with their stance then... already paid with a less picky card anyway so as not to miss out on the deal I was after.