It was my birthday a few months ago, and Lorraine, my wife, brought me a few presents over the internet, using our credit card. As my birthday loomed closer Lorraine started to worry that the presents wouldn’t arrive on time, so she contacted the company to find out what was the problem. It turns out our credit card had been declined! A bit surprised, and feeling a bit worried, Lorraine contacted the credit card company. On talking with them it appears the company she had ordered the goods from was a subsidiary company of another company. This made the credit card company suspicious and they had therefore declined her card. The impact? Not some many birthday presents for Colin! The interesting aspect of this experience for me was to consider the current economic climate and the state of banks on both sides of the pond. With the credit crunch taking more and more of an affect each day, the focus of the banks is naturally to be even more rigorous with fraud. Whilst I understand this, and do not wish for my card to be used fraudulently my challenge is, have the banks and the retailers considered the impact of this on Customers? I have spoken to retailers since who tell cards are being declined a great deal. I would recommend that organisations need to consider the impact of these decision and work with the supply chain to make sure the impact on customers is kept to a minimum.
By COLIN SHAW | Published: JULY 26, 2008