Huge Problems with Online Payments as Banks Demand Customers Authenticate Payments

 Well, this weekend is a bit of a fuck-up for most online retailers.

Last Friday we got a message that all payments done online and over the phone had to be authenticated with Secure Card Authentication.

That's the service where you have a mobile phone and the bank texts you a authorisation code every time you make a payment.

Except... what happens when people don't have a mobile phone and/or computer?

For instance an elderly person that has no need or desire to own such a device?

They are Donald Ducked, because from this weekend they are denied access to online retailers and also from making telephone orders. They will have to be physically in the retailer's premises. Some retailers may be able to enter card details on PDQ card machines, if they have one available by the phone, but for a lot of retailers that don't take calls and only do business online, then a significant proportion of people are currently being denied access.

We have a had hundreds of failed order requests over the weekend, and today things are so bad the payment provider's servers have gone down.

This is indicative of the attitude of the banks to customer's money: they don't think of it as the customers.

I do understand the need for secure payments, but this is really a step too far as it starts to deny people from accessing their own money and services which they should have access to. It also shows a level of incompetence as they can't handle the amount of traffic they themselves created. They also haven't yet provided work arounds, or instructions on how this should all be accomplished by vendors.

I ranted previously on the card providers forcing pay at pump petrol pumps to make a charge of £99 on pay at pump transactions. Some people don't have £99 in their account, so they are denied pay at pump services.

This is not an insignificant issue. It's making a two-tier society: the haves and the have-nots. The people the card providers will willingly do service with and provide a seamless, effortless experience (as long as they comply and have the latest gadget for security) but deny those less fortunate in society that don't have access to smart phones and the like.

It's a similar mentality to PayPal and their statement they were going to fine users for indiscretions on the internet.  They're a fucking payment provider, not an internet Police service. 

They fail to forget it's OUR money we are trusting them with. It's not their money to begrudgingly provide services for us to access. 

My mother tried to send me some money for my Birthday. We bank at different banks and being 90, she deals with cash mostly. So, we walked into my bank branch and asked to deposit some cash into my bank account. She was refused. Now how fucked up is that? A bank that refuses to accept cash into one of their accounts?

Warped priorities or what?

And this is what you get when everything becomes political. When CEOs of companies decide they want top "benefit society" by nudging them in a particular direction. 

It's not up to banks and payment providers to be social engineers. It's their job to allow us to mayke payments effortlessly and seamlessly, no matter what our social standing, no matter how rich or poor we are.

But successive governments and the Bank of England that are supposed to regulate such things are complicit in their failure to push back and tell the banks and payment providers that social engineering is up to the politicians, not them.