joepatr

About an hour ago I to book a flight with American Airlines (UK site, and charged in GBP) but the card kept declining. When I called up to enquire why, they said that as a result of recent fraud they have blocked all transactions processed by American companies on the Amex card that involve some sort of "tester payment," in response to the fraud this thread refers to. The guy told me that my Mastercard would work fine, but I decided to use my (non-Lloyds) Amex card. He also mentioned that he had dealt with customers in the past few weeks that have been blocked by a number of USA websites that put through these small "tester payments" (his words not mine) including the USA Amazon site. Apparently this is a temporary measure (I hope so, as I'm off to the states next summer!) but he couldn't give me any sort of indication as to how long it would last.

I had my card declined two weeks ago, in a number of different shops, but had no communications to advise me of this. When I called them they sent me a replacement card and advised that someone tried to do an online transaction for 77p with Braintree Payments. The payment never went through and didn't appear on my statement, so I didn't have to ask for a refund.

MSPeconomist

It sounds like someone was testing your card.

Globaliser

77p is a strange number, but I believe that its USD equivalent ($1.00) is commonly used for genuine testing authorisations.

The_Bouncer

Mine has been "compromised" too. It doesn't look like anything has been spent, but my card was declined when trying to book accommodation in South Africa via hotels.com.

Part of the story (eventually) came out during my subsequent three phone calls to Lloyds. First I was told that "a company where card details are stored" had suffered a data breach. Right away I suspected Uber, but this turned out not to be the case.

The third agent I spoke with eventually admitted that it was a widespread problem with Lloyds Amex cards, but deflected this onto Amex. She stated that it was a "business decision" to cancel cards.

It is now crystal clear that there is a massive data breach somewhere along the supply chain.

:D!

I seem to be quite lucky or at least the exception then. I departed on a 2-week trip at the time this started happening and was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to use it at all just at the time I really wanted to use it lots. But my card hasn't been declined once throughout my trip. If it had been then I would be seeking the points I had missed out on.

ahmetdouas

Hi guys, I got my replacement cards from Lloyds and I notice that the expiry date is the same as the old card (as in 3/18). Do you think the reason for this is that the collaboration may end and the card will be different once they expire?


Thanks for letting me know.

nbevan

MBNA has just scraped its frequent flyer rewards cards in response to legislation limiting the amount credit card companies can charge shops and merchants to process a transaction at 0.3 per cent. The This is Money article speculates that the Lloyds cards may go the same way ...

The_Bouncer

Depends what happens with Brexit. This is EU-wide legislation and has seriously frustrated my attempts to get a decent rewards card in Germany or Austria.

popmagnet

My replacement card has a 2021 expiry date on it, but then the card that was compromised was due to expire in November anyway.

Jetstreamer

Has anyone hit by this fraud had a transaction made on their cancelled card number successfully refunded to their account?

I've had a couple of refunds due to my card over the past few weeks and none of them have been credited to my account. I called Lloyds and they said that refunds to the cancelled card would likely be bounded back to the retailer as the original card number had been completely cancelled off their system to prevent further fraud. They advised me to contact the retailers in question and give them updated card details (which surely the retailers wouldn't do under their own fraud prevention measures) and failing that initiate a charge back on the original transaction.

One of the retailers is BA and I really don't fancy having to explain this to them!

ahmetdouas

Ok thanks for that, let's hope the card lasts for a while yet as its a nice card with no FX fees and the 1.25 points per avios. I have an Amex Credit Card, but it has 2.99% FX and only 1 point per avios, and the Lloyds one comes in handy when there is no Amex accepted to use the backup Mastercard!

ahmetdouas

Isn't the best way to issue a charge back saying you never did these transactions anyway?

Jetstreamer

But I did make the transactions! I am referring to genuine transactions I made prior to the card being cancelled e.g. BA flight that have since been cancelled by me. I am not referring the fraudulent transactions which have long since been refunded by Lloyds. None of these genuine purchases which I have since cancelled for a refund have gone back onto my account yet after a few weeks. Lloyds say I won't get the funds back on my account as any refunds will be bounced back to the retailer as they are trying to refund a cancelled account. The charge back was Lloyds suggested remedy!

So my question was has anyone had a genuine transaction they made on their old card, but since had to cancel, refunded successfully back to their account?

Virazuno

This is really silly.

Amex (vanilla Amex) will apply refunds made to cancelled card numbers to the customer's account automatically. You don't need to do anything manual at all.

I would be telling Lloyd's to do their job. Chasing companies and giving them new card numbers really isn't something you should be having to do yourself.

wyvern

My Lloyds Avios Amex cards have been working for card present transactions but seem to be being declined for US internet transactions - possibly all cardholder not present transactions, possibly all non-UK or US CNP, possibly all non-UK internet transactions (there is no way of knowing which, as the cards were working for UK internet transactions and overseas cardholder present transactions during this period, and I only discovered the issue when some US-based websites tried to debit recurring charges).

I called Lloyds and they said the cards had been blocked as a precaution due to the data breach, which they said was a breach by American Express a few months ago. They said they have now unblocked the cards.

However, the cards still don't work at the same US websites (which include ExpertFlyer). Lloyds say they don't know why this would be, as the cards are no longer blocked. They are seeing the transactions presented to them but the transactions are failing due to a processing error, and not due to a block they have set. They suggested that perhaps American Express are blocking the cards, but they don't know.

The issue seems to be with Lloyds-issued Amex cards, as a test transaction on one of the sites worked fine with a BA Amex - though this is not a permanent solution, as the BA Amex charges a fee for non-sterling transactions.

I could understand Lloyds temporarily blocking affected cards or all cards, or replacing affected cards or even all cards with new ones - though they should have told affected cardholders in the event of any of these scenarios. However I can't understand them saying that they don't know if someone else is blocking the cards and that they don't know if issuing replacement card numbers would solve the issue or not.

There is little point in Lloyds issuing the Amex Avios card alongside the MasterCard if there is no guarantee if it will be accepted, and if a Lloyds-issued Amex card is not accepted when an Amex-issued one is not, this would suggest that either Lloyds is still blocking the card (which they say they are not) or Amex is blocking some or all Lloyds-issued Amex cards without telling Lloyds.

​​​​​​​Has anyone else experienced this?