Issues when paying fare with a foreign bank card

[Joshua_Harman]

I have a non British bank account and the card from my main account does not feature contactless (so I can't use it as a ticket) but it also doesn't have a chip that can be inserted, and to use it you have to swipe and sign the receipt. When using this card at tvm's it thinks about it and then rejects it with a red error message, and at the counter I'm told "only contactless, no swiping" even though their machines have a strip for swiping and the screen says "tap insert or swipe card".

Has anyone else had any similar issues or could offer some advice as to why the TOC in question don't like swiping?

It works fine literally everywhere else in the UK; I don't know why it doesn't work on the railways..

 

[miklcct]

I have a non British bank account and the card from my main account does not feature contactless (so I can't use it as a ticket) but it also doesn't have a chip that can be inserted, and to use it you have to swipe and sign the receipt. When using this card at tvm's it thinks about it and then rejects it with a red error message, and at the counter I'm told "only contactless, no swiping" even though their machines have a strip for swiping and the screen says "tap insert or swipe card".

Has anyone else had any similar issues or could offer some advice as to why the toc in question dont like swiping?

It works fine literally everywhere else in the UK, idk why it doesn't work on the railways..

Ask your bank for a replacement with chip. Swiping is so outdated that it has been phased out for a decade already.

A lot of machines nowadays are programmed to not to accept swipe cards.

 

[Joshua_Harman]

Ask your bank for a replacement with chip. Swiping is so outdated that it has been phased out for a decade already.

A lot of machines nowadays are programmed to not to accept swipe cards.

I have already tried this and sadly they have said they cannot do it.. Swipe and sign is how it has to be done sadly,

 

[AlterEgo]

Get a Monzo card or something similar.

 

[Merseysider]

I have already tried this and sadly they have said they cannot do it.. Swipe and sign is how it has to be done sadly,

then I’m afraid you will continue to encounter difficulty using that particular card on the railway.

Use cash, a different card, or purchase online to avoid the issue.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No businesses like swiping any more as it leaves the liability for a refused transaction with them. In the UK you need a chip card of some kind.

Why are you using a non-British bank account (US? I can't think who else is still issuing old style magstripe only cards)? If you live here, why not open one? I opened a German one when I lived there for uni, it was a lot less faff.

 

[island]

This is a staff training issue, not a problem with the card (or the machines). The staff members have either not been told how to deal with magstripe cards or have been given incorrect instructions not to honour them. Properly configured card machines will correctly handle the card when it is swiped and prompt for the customer to sign the receipt. The staff just need to follow the instructions on the machine rather than making up rules.

Unattended terminals are allowed to decline non-chip cards where there is no way to verify the cardholder's identity.

A lot of machines nowadays are programmed to not to accept swipe cards.

This one isn't, as the OP indicated...

their machines have a strip for swiping and the screen says "tap insert or swipe card"

No businesses like swiping any more as it leaves the liability for a refused transaction with them.

No, that's only the case if a chip card is swiped. A magstripe only card

Why are you using a non-British bank account (US? I can't think who else is still issuing old style magstripe only cards)?

Israel if I would hazard a guess.

If you live here, why not open one? I opened a German one when I lived there for uni, it was a lot less faff.

People are free to use what accounts they like, though I do agree it's going to be a lot less faff in the long run for the OP to open a British account if he can. Depending on his immigration status that may not be straightforward.

(Germany is a big headache for foreign cards; they are big on EuroCard and Maestro neither of which can be obtained easily/at all in the UK.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

People are free to use what accounts they like, though I do agree it's going to be a lot less faff in the long run for the OP to open a British account if he can. Depending on his immigration status that may not be straightforward.

(Germany is a big headache for foreign cards; they are big on EuroCard and Maestro neither of which can be obtained easily/at all in the UK.)

And even when UK banks did offer "Maestro" it was actually a variant on the old Switch system and so caused issued in other countries. Visa generally worked better.

 

[robbeech]

Ask your bank for a replacement with chip. Swiping is so outdated that it has been phased out for a decade already.

This is inaccurate. Many banks in many countries still use this quite happily. This includes ‘well developed’ areas before we assume otherwise including Australia.

I have already tried this and sadly they have said they
cannot do it.. Swipe and sign is how it has to be done sadly,

This, as Island mentions above is just the railway providing unacceptable customer service.

Get a Monzo card or something similar.

Agreed this is likely one of the easier options but opening these accounts for some people can be problematic. It may not be possible but it’s certainly worth looking at.

then I’m afraid you will continue to encounter difficulty using that particular card on the railway.

Use cash, a different card, or purchase online to avoid the issue.

That’s a very “railway” attitude. The Railway’s fault but the Customer’s problem.

Why are you using a non-British bank account (US? I can't think who else is still issuing old style magstripe only cards)? If you live here, why not open one? I opened a German one when I lived there for uni, it was a lot less faff.

It has been a monumental farce to deal with UK banks in the last 2 years, frankly anyone would think they were closely related to the railway with how they have behaved. I’ve no doubt that someone will have been able to do what they needed and will try to imply that as such there have been no issues but the internet is rife with tales of woe from people who have been unable to perform simple tasks such as opening an account, with the C word and the B word being thrown around as excuses for sheer laziness.

No businesses like swiping any more as it leaves the liability for a refused transaction with them. In the UK you need a chip card of some kind.

But this isn’t a real problem “in the UK” this is just a problem “on the railway”.

People are free to use what accounts they like, though I do agree it's going to be a lot less faff in the long run for the OP to open a British account if he can. Depending on his immigration status that may not be straightforward.

Indeed, UK banks don’t want your custom, much like the railway, so they’ll take any opportunity to avoid opening an account for you and this is a common excuse.

This is a staff training issue, not a problem with the card (or the machines). The staff members have either not been told how to deal with magstripe cards or have been given incorrect instructions not to honour them.

Yes and swipe and sign is how it should be done on the railway, but only at a ticket office. As you say they absolutely have the ability to do this and if they refuse then a complaint to the operator in question needs to be made.


The whole concept of this is utter nonsense. Swipe only cards still exist and are still issued in parts of the world. The UK is one of the largest tourist destinations in the world and whilst here, a large percentage of people use the railway. For it to prohibit so much foreign travel, or at best make it unnecessarily difficult for customers to buy tickets shows the railway up for the clowns they are.

My wife is Australian, she moved here from South Australia in July 2020 but had visited many times before. Her bank (SA) only issued swipe only cards until around 2016 when she finally got one with contactless, but still no chip.
It took weeks of painstaking calls, visits, emails and forms to get a UK bank account opened, as she couldn’t prove where she lived as nobody was working to update any databases due to the C word, and also keeping the bank opening times to 2 afternoons per week provided more challengers, so for quite some time she had to use her bank SA card or cash.
Over the years of her visits and since she moved here permanently she encountered precisely ZERO issues with swiping her card at fuel stations, supermarkets, cafe, restaurants, pubs, book shops, charity shops, museums, UNSTAFFED car parks and many other places. The most she ever got was the odd “crikey we haven’t had to do that in a while”.
I’m also fairly sure she will have used it to buy rail tickets at some point but cannot be sure.

Once again we see the railway just making it difficult for its customers.

 

[Haywain]

I have a non British bank account and the card from my main account does not feature contactless (so I can't use it as a ticket) but it also doesn't have a chip that can be inserted, and to use it you have to swipe and sign the receipt. When using this card at tvm's it thinks about it and then rejects it with a red error message, and at the counter I'm told "only contactless, no swiping" even though their machines have a strip for swiping and the screen says "tap insert or swipe card".

Has anyone else had any similar issues or could offer some advice as to why the toc in question dont like swiping?

It works fine literally everywhere else in the UK, idk why it doesn't work on the railways..

Whilst you should be able to use your card, have you considered linking it to Google Pay or Apple Pay (if you have a smartphone)?

 

[paul1609]

On my heritage railway we can and do accept swipe cards from foreign banks we see a lot of these from our cruise ship passengers. The problem is really staff familiarity. There are UK Bank users who when their Contactless transaction is declined don't know the pin. The machines then say insert or swipe the card. The person then thinks they can swipe the card and sign a receipt but for uk banks on a chip or pin the swipe transaction will be declined on authorisation. This is likely to fluster the staff member, likely a volunteer who may not be that technically minded or may not be able to differentiate between a UK or foreign bankcard. In future they may be reluctant to accept a swipe card especially where they perceive they are under time pressure ie a queue at a ticket office.
Because of our location near to the channel ports we also have the facility to accept cash payments in Euro on our point of sale equipments. We don't keep a Euro float so the change is calculated in £. Some staff have real difficulty understanding this concept so we only tend to advertise its availability locally when the staff member is in the know.

 

[XAM2175]

This is inaccurate. Many banks in many countries still use this quite happily. This includes ‘well developed’ areas before we assume otherwise including Australia.

I can assure you from long personal experience that the vast majority of people using swipe-and-sign in Australia are visitors from the USA. Swipe-and-PIN is still possible, but now very rare.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can assure you from long personal experience that the vast majority of people using swipe-and-sign in Australia are visitors from the USA. Swipe-and-PIN is still possible, but now very rare.

Can UK merchant systems even do swipe-and-PIN? I know the Dutch used to, but didn't that require a different type of verification call?

 

[AlbertBeale]

One combination seems not to have been mentioned here - chip-and-signature cards as opposed to chip and pin (irrespective of whether they're with or without contactless facility).

Ticket machines do seem to accept chip and signature cards without there being any way to sign anything. So why not accept swipe and signature cards?

 

[Bletchleyite]

One combination seems not to have been mentioned here - chip-and-signature cards as opposed to chip and pin (irrespective of whether they're with or without contactless facility).

Ticket machines do seem to accept chip and signature cards without there being any way to sign anything. So why not accept swipe and signature cards?

At a TVM? Because it requires extra kit to read the magstripe when this will involve about 0.00001% of users.

Different argument at a ticket office with a conventional card machine, though.

To be honest the magstripe is a huge fraud risk and is not required in most countries now. My bank allows me to switch it off, and I have, but we really should get rid of it and tell the banks in countries still using it to sort themselves out.

 

[island]

One combination seems not to have been mentioned here - chip-and-signature cards as opposed to chip and pin (irrespective of whether they're with or without contactless facility).

Ticket machines do seem to accept chip and signature cards without there being any way to sign anything. So why not accept swipe and signature cards?

Swipe cards are higher risk as they are much easier to counterfeit.

 

[RT4038]

At a TVM? Because it requires extra kit to read the magstripe when this will involve about 0.00001% of users.

Different argument at a ticket office with a conventional card machine, though.

To be honest the magstripe is a huge fraud risk and is not required in most countries now. My bank allows me to switch it off, and I have, but we really should get rid of it and tell the banks in countries still using it to sort themselves out.

Do ticket offices have 'conventional' card machines though? My local station ticket office has a card machine the size of a small calculator, can certainly do contactless and chip & PIN- don't think it has a card swiping interface...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do ticket offices have 'conventional' card machines though? My local station ticket office has a card machine the size of a small calculator, can certainly do contactless and chip & PIN- don't think it has a card swiping interface...

Most of those devices have a swipe either on top or the side, but I don't know about those specific ones. If they don't, the device they are connected to probably will.

However, I do think, as I say, that the banks need to abolish the magstripe.

 

[island]

Do ticket offices have 'conventional' card machines though? My local station ticket office has a card machine the size of a small calculator, can certainly do contactless and chip & PIN- don't think it has a card swiping interface...

These small machines usually have an unobtrusive swipe slot on the top or bottom.

 

[AlbertBeale]

At a TVM? Because it requires extra kit to read the magstripe when this will involve about 0.00001% of users.

Different argument at a ticket office with a conventional card machine, though.

To be honest the magstripe is a huge fraud risk and is not required in most countries now. My bank allows me to switch it off, and I have, but we really should get rid of it and tell the banks in countries still using it to sort themselves out.

Yes - perhaps many ticket machines don't have a swipe slot. Although you might be right about swipe being less secure, I thought all cards (irrespective of whatever combination of chip/pin/sig/contactless facilities they had) still included a swipe strip as well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes - perhaps many ticket machines don't have a swipe slot. Although you might be right about swipe being less secure, I thought all cards (irrespective of whatever combination of chip/pin/sig/contactless facilities they had) still included a swipe strip as well.

They do, however my bank allows me to turn it off, which means a transaction processed using it will be declined and (if done unauthorised) will not be paid. It offers the option to turn it back on temporarily if necessary.

It's a good anti-fraud measure, as much card fraud is still based on the relatively easy job of copying it and then using in countries where the chip isn't used. The other option, getting the number and expiry date, is near-useless these days with the CVV being needed (not encoded on the stripe) and things like PIN entry online being needed.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Do ticket offices have 'conventional' card machines though? My local station ticket office has a card machine the size of a small calculator, can certainly do contactless and chip & PIN- don't think it has a card swiping interface...

All ticket offices can also cope with chip-and-signature. Since there is a legal right to a chip-and-sig card instead of a chip-and-PIN card, all shops, ticket offices, etc, have to accommodate them. My point earlier was that (perhaps surprisingly) ticket machines also seem happy to accept chip-and-sig when you can't sign anything. Though perhaps that's only up to a limited amount - I have no idea. And it seems that overseas ticket machines also accept chip-and-signature cards even though there's no way to sign anything (but perhaps the legal requirement to also chip-and-sig anywhere that accepts chip-and-PIN is the case in other countries too?).

 

[RT4038]

Most of those devices have a swipe either on top or the side, but I don't know about those specific ones. If they don't, the device they are connected to probably will.

However, I do think, as I say, that the banks need to abolish the magstripe.

As you say, a very niche facility, and hardly worth considering now that tickets are very easily purchased online.

 

[mmh]

At a TVM? Because it requires extra kit to read the magstripe when this

Can't TVMs read magstrips anyway - isn't this how Ticket on Demand works? So there is possibly no extra kit needed.

 

[AlbertBeale]

As you say, a very niche facility, and hardly worth considering now that tickets are very easily purchased online.

Only if you have access to - and can use - appropriate technology. Perhaps people having difficulty with, say, PIN cards would also have difficulty with on-line tickets, and might have no way of displaying them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Can't TVMs read magstrips anyway - isn't this how Ticket on Demand works? So there is possibly no extra kit needed.

I don't know for certain, but I'd be amazed if it didn't go off the chip these days. Certainly I no longer seem to get the faff you used to about it failing to read several times as you didn't pull it out at the exact right speed.

 

[mmh]

things like PIN entry online being needed.

What situations have PINs being entered online? The banks have been telling people for years not to disclose PINs and only use them at machines.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Only if you have access to - and can use - appropriate technology. Perhaps people having difficulty with, say, PIN cards would also have difficulty with on-line tickets, and might have no way of displaying them.

No UK banks issue magstripe only cards, nor any European ones - it's pretty much just the US plus perhaps a few random small Eastern European states. I would be utterly astonished if the intersection of the sets "people who can't use any form of online ticket" and "people who have travelled to the UK alone and will be travelling by rail" was anything other than 0.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==

What situations have PINs being entered online? The banks have been telling people for years not to disclose PINs and only use them at machines.

The implementation of MasterCard SecureCode and whatever Visa call it varies from bank to bank. Some involve an app (e.g. Monzo), some involve a text message, some involve a pre-defined PIN (but not the same one used for cash withdrawal) of which you'd typically be asked maybe two or three digits, some involve other secure personal information or password. I believe it's moving to app or SMS only, though, which some of the RUK Luddites won't like

 

[mmh]

No UK banks issue magstripe only cards, nor any European ones - it's pretty much just the US plus perhaps a few random small Eastern European states. I would be utterly astonished if the intersection of the sets "people who can't use any form of online ticket" and "people who have travelled to the UK alone and will be travelling by rail" was anything other than 0.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2022 ==



The implementation of MasterCard SecureCode and whatever Visa call it varies from bank to bank. Some involve an app (e.g. Monzo), some involve a text message, some involve a pre-defined PIN (but not the same one used for cash withdrawal) of which you'd typically be asked maybe two or three digits, some involve other secure personal information or password. I believe it's moving to app or SMS only, though, which some of the RailUK Forums Luddites won't like

Ah, that stuff, I understand. (Visa's is the imaginatively named "Verified by Visa"

I've never understood the implementation of that, it seems so random and ad-hoc. Many years ago, when it was new, I had to create a number for it - as you say, a different number and I'd be asked for random parts of it, always, as I remember.

I've not been asked for it in years, I have no idea what I used any more. Very rarely, a Verified by Visa dialogue will tell me they're going to text (or call!) me and to enter the code I receive. The vast majority of the time Verified by Visa pops up, says it will do additional verification, disappears without asking me to do anything and the transaction goes through. Strange stuff.

 

[cool110]

Ah, that stuff, I understand. (Visa's is the imaginatively named "Verified by Visa"

I've never understood the implementation of that, it seems so random and ad-hoc. Many years ago, when it was new, I had to create a number for it - as you say, a different number and I'd be asked for random parts of it, always, as I remember.

I've not been asked for it in years, I have no idea what I used any more. Very rarely, a Verified by Visa dialogue will tell me they're going to text (or call!) me and to enter the code I receive. The vast majority of the time Verified by Visa pops up, says it will do additional verification, disappears without asking me to do anything and the transaction goes through. Strange stuff.

Since PSD2 came into effect it has be be proper 2FA (approval in app, code sent by text/call or generated with a card reader), rather than some form of secondary password. As for it appearing and disappearing automatically, that's the bank's fraud systems classifying it as low enough risk to not need additional verification.