The Lemon Fool

Hi Folks,
Mrs B, AKA Brown Owl, now has a debit card for her Brownie a/c. The a/c is with a high st bank on their Business site and is a Charities/Club/Society type of a/c.

As the card is contactless she hasn't used the PIN other than the first time and now can't remember it. She needs the PIN to get cash out. She has a rough idea but has used two of her three 'goes'. We will go into the bank and get it sorted but I wondered if ATMs and shop terminals would treat 'having multiple goes' differently. I know ATMs work on three strikes and your card is retained. Would a shop terminal block the card after three goes, I know the terminal can't retain it.

The other odd thing is that if you put the debit card into a home card reader it says 'Wrong card'. The reader works fine with any other debit card. Are business debit cards different? Also you cannot order replacement debit card or new PIN through the internet banking or the business banking app. My Personal account, with the same bank, allows me to order a new card or PIN from the app.

I know I overthink these things but put it down to my inquiring mind, or nothing better to do depending on your point of view (another can of worms for a later date).

Ray.

The chip and PIN terminals certainly do lock the card after 3 wrong PINs. As far as I know it's the same counter, so you don't get three goes at taking cash out as well as three goes at paying, you just get three goes. The count is kept on the card, and it's the card that checks the PIN. The terminal just supplies the transaction and the PIN, and the card answers. Once the card is locked, it will keep declining even if you supply the right PIN. You can (usually) still change the PIN at an ATM if the card supports that function, even when it's locked, assuming you remember the original PIN.

As to the card reader - the card can support or not support various functions, depending how the bank has programmed it. If it doesn't support generating codes for online banking, the card reader will get an error, and put up "wrong card". It's not a matter of it being a debit or credit card, there are a whole range of functions that it may or may not do, or may do in various ways. It's worth remembering that the "chip " is a fully functional computer with its own onboard memory, and can run whatever code the bank puts on there.

Hi SteelCamel,
Thanks for that, we learn something everyday, if we ask questions. I didn't realise that the card itself is doing all the 'clever' bits and can be coded differently per bank and functionality.
Cheers,
Ray.

I once had a bank ATM retain my debit card when I was in Dublin. I tried the PIN three times but evidently got all three wrong. I knew the PIN but it was extremely difficult to read the screen because of direct sunlight.

This was outside a bank so when the bank opened I went inside and asked a staff member to retrieve my card from the ATM. I never thought they would agree but they did, and the lady returned a few minutes later with my card. Then she did something to make it work again.

Great personalised customer service from a bank. But not in England of course.

Lootman wrote:I once had a bank ATM retain my debit card when I was in Dublin. I tried the PIN three times but evidently got all three wrong. I knew the PIN but it was extremely difficult to read the screen because of direct sunlight.

This was outside a bank so when the bank opened I went inside and asked a staff member to retrieve my card from the ATM. I never thought they would agree but they did, and the lady returned a few minutes later with my card. Then she did something to make it work again.

Great personalised customer service from a bank. But not in England of course.

A similar thing happened to me when I tried to use an ATM in Spain one evening. I used what I thought was my card on a joint account, in fact it was my wife’s. I entered the wrong PIN three times and the card was retained. We went back the next morning and the bank staff opened the machine and gave us back the card.

As I recall, the card worked ok on our return to the UK, but I may have that wrong.

Hi Folks,
Just an update. We'd narrowed the correct PIN down to two possibles. One I had in my password safe, say 4520, and one that Mrs B (Brown Owl) thought it was say 5420. These are not the right numbers obviously.
Mrs B tried it in Poundland self-service, waiting for an item she could legitimately buy for Brownies. Her offering 5420 was rejected but it gave her the option of another go and 4520 worked. That would have been four goes since she got it wrong. I thought three would have blocked the card.
Anyway all is ok which is just as well as when we went to the local branch of the Issuing bank to get it sorted, it was closed for an indefinite time for refurbishment!
Ray.

Glad it worked for you
like others I thought it got blocked at 3 attempts
does it "forget" the first go or two after a week or so ?

A quick bit of research reveals that some block for good and others only block for 24 hours
(not helpful... as how do you know who does and doesn't)