Purchasing on UK Credit Cards

[Deimos]

I have recently come across a “new problem” using my UK

Credit Card(s).

I have several UK Credit Cards, all registered at my French

address.  I tend to often purchase over the

phone from UK companies for delivery to my French address using my UK cards.

However, over the last few weeks most companies seem to have

started declining to “deliver to France”. 

Reasons given vary (e.g. “warranty issues”, “EU regulations”,

etc.).  When pursued it seems that the

real reason is that these companies are using a 3^rd party to

validate credit card details and this 3^rd party company will now

only validate UK addresses (in fact they need a UK postcode).  This has meant that companies using this

validation service can no longer accept UK cards registered to French addresses

(and thus cannot ship to French addresses, etc.) – and there seem quite a lot

of them.

Does make me wonder sometimes whether UK is really part of

the EU or just a small island drifting westwards pretty quickly.

 

Ian

 

[mascamps.com]

Presumably you'd not be able to purchase with a French card either for the same reason.

There is also a slightly more awkward problem which we've noticed with some UK cards of late - they can't accept them in the shops here. It appears to be specific to HSBC issued cards and to, so far, one or two of the supermarkets (Champion and Shoppi).

 

Arnold

 

[Deimos]

Main reason for ordering some things from the UK is that

there more shops seem to have detailed product info on web sites than do French

ones.  Thus if I want an “xyz”, a Google

search for “xyz” on google.co.uk will give a decent number of places to get it

in the UK, whilst google.fr virtually nowhere.

To be honest, not tried with my French CB card.  Don’t even know what its “international”

capabilities are as I always use my UK credit cards for my occasional visits to

UK.

Last Sept my parents were still signing paper slips when

they used their new UK Chip & PIN cards when visiting me.  I believe some supermarkets are being quite

slow about “upgrading” their systems to accommodate the UK system.  I believe Leclerc also get UK card holders

to sign (but this is as of last Sept so things might have changed)   However, parents never had their cards

rejected, just had to sign rather than  PIN a lot of the time.

Ian

[Iceni]

We have problems with delivery to France - whether using using UK or French cards. One regular problem is an unacceptable address, no house number/name, no street but we can often get around this with "Lieu dit" on line 1 and hamlet name on line 2 which seems to keep the software happy.

More recently Di has been trying German sites, they ought to know France exists - invaded often enough. The only answer seems to be keep on looking till you find someone who really wants yr business.

John

not

 

[mascamps.com]

The machines in most shops now recognise foreign chip cards now and take the pin. The problem I have is with Champion and Shoppi where the machines recognise that it's a chip card but the chip reader then says that the chip is dead, but this only happens on HSBC issued cards.

I'm told that Spanish online ordering is even worse as they ask for more names than people normally have on their credit cards outside Spanish speaking countries. The Spanish standard is forename surname1 surname2 which will work if you have two forenames on your credit card but is rejected if your card only has two names. Same problem if you don't have a street number too.

 

Arnold

 

[Will]

It's not a new problem, and neither is it down to 'third party validators'. As Ian says, it is dealing with French post codes that causes the major difficulty. I have long had difficulties using a British credit card with travel-related web sites if it involves delivering tickets or other documentation to France - French sites being even less flexible, in general, than British. SNCF manages it with no trouble, which is why I almost always do flights, hotels etc as well as trains through that site. Paradoxically, it is dead easy to book flights and hotels, and at a good rate, but booking trains in France via the SNCF site can be a nightmare. But I digress.

I must admit that the first thing I look at on any British sales-based web site is - will they deliver to Europe. If not, then I will take my business to one who will (unless there is no alternative, in which case I will use our English address and arrange delivery for when I am there if necessary). If a company that claims to deliver overseas will not accept the delivery or billing address, then I will phone them, and usually the order can be placed without problem. When there is a problem then, as Ian says, it is down to a third party, and the first party will generally resolve it - it's in their interests after all. It does make for some interesting/stressful conversations at times but generally things can be resolved and the company is grateful for being made aware of a shortcoming in its system - better than than just losing potential business.