Unexpected payment failure

Have had an email from Plusnet, informing me that they could not take payment for the princely sum of £12.71.

I feel sure this is a glitch, either at Plusnet's end, or with the banking system in general, as I have NOT changed the credit card I always use (yes, yes, I know - I refuse to have a direct debit), it has NOT expired, and I've double checked it's not close to, or indeed over my credit limit, or that I am (accidentally) in arrears - e.g. because an earlier payment failed, or I somehow forgot. Everything is perfectly in order.

I see that I can make a one-off payment manually, but before attempting this, I would like to understand what happened.

If Plusnet become aware that there was some sort of generalised problem with taking payments today - not just me - will they try again?

I don't want to pay twice.

And is there no way I can ask what's wrong, or ask them to re-try it, without hanging on the phone?

I've had the card for more than three years, and it's always been used to settle my Plusnet bill, every month, for all of that time.

It seems highly unlikely it would suddenly register as a suspicious or disputed payment, especially as it's not suddenly an unusually high bill this month.

Edit: Sheesh, they've now emailed me a second time since this morning, and have started to interfere with my browsing to present the "failed payment" message.

This is excessively heavy-handed treatment of a very slightly overdue payment of a very small amount. Not even 24 hours to find out what went wrong and sort it, before they start turning snotty?

Edited by TLM (Thu 14-Apr-16 12:57:06)

You could try checking with your bank as it may be that somehow they have flagged "unusual" activity on your account. I assume no-one in the PlusNet forums is publishing similar issues?

In reply to a post by TLM:

(yes, yes, I know - I refuse to have a direct debit)

Direct Debit is far far far safer for you than a credit card recurring authority. At any point PN can take any amount they desire from your account and there is little you can do about it. You can't even ask your bank to stop future payments. A Direct Debit has lots of rules for your safety and is very easy for you to reclaim if you feel like it, and you can terminate it whenever you like.

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

Direct Debit is far far far safer for you than a credit card recurring authority. At any point PN can take any amount they desire from your account and there is little you can do about it. You can't even ask your bank to stop future payments. A Direct Debit has lots of rules for your safety and is very easy for you to reclaim if you feel like it, and you can terminate it whenever you like.

Seconded, very strange that someone would choose a recurring authority over a direct debit. Having said that, the rules on these have been tightened up over the last couple of years and it is now possible to get them stopped through your card provider.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

Direct Debit is far far far safer for you than a credit card recurring authority. At any point PN can take any amount they desire from your account and there is little you can do about it. You can't even ask your bank to stop future payments. A Direct Debit has lots of rules for your safety and is very easy for you to reclaim if you feel like it, and you can terminate it whenever you like.

Seconded, very strange that someone would choose a recurring authority over a direct debit. Having said that, the rules on these have been tightened up over the last couple of years and it is now possible to get them stopped through your card provider.

That's good to know. It used to be that even closing your credit card account wouldn't stop them, the credit card company would send you a bill *after the account was closed*.

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

That's good to know. It used to be that even closing your credit card account wouldn't stop them, the credit card company would send you a bill *after the account was closed*.

As is their right according to the terms we sign to get a card.

Continuous card authority is very risky and should in my view be banned in the UK as we have Direct Debit.

However in the USA they have no such thing as DD so charging credit cards is the only way to pay for services such as internet, subscription TV etc. They also have no real consumer protection law, you have to sue in court, which is expensive.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-p...

The Financial Conduct Authority has stated banks MUST cancel a continuous payment authority when asked. It also added that if further payments are taken in error after a customer asks for a cancellation, the bank must refund them.

This message is taking a while to get through to the banks.

I didn't ask opinions on Direct Debit. I don't want one, and that's it. I don't agree with them on principle. That's my right, isn't it? I only mentioned it at all, in case the type of card (it's a Mastercard) may happen to shed any light on things.

People might have been aware whether there has been any issue with cc transactions recently - either at PN, or at all.

Apparently, I am not even allowed to browse the forums whilst there's any money owing, as I just keep being bounced back to the stupid "money owing" page.

So I cannot see if anyone is reporting similar, and presumably, they couldn't anyway, unless they have multiple accounts, or ask another member to post on their behalf.

I am not impressed that Plusnet have apparently already restricted access to "some services" - namely the forums - as soon as payment failed.

Particularly unimpressed, as I've not in any way erred. It's not a case of - "Oh gosh, they're right, I completely forgot!". And it's a touch heavy over £12.70, which is not yet 12 hours overdue.

In reply to a post by TLM:

Particularly unimpressed, as I've not in any way erred. It's not a case of - "Oh gosh, they're right, I completely forgot!". And it's a touch heavy over £12.70, which is not yet 12 hours overdue.

I'm surprised they don't charge more for payment by other means than DD; many places do. The costs of doing card payments and the costs of chasing people (and putting in systems to block) are not zero. I would guess PN have moved to a "zero tolerance" mindset, which is similar to many other organisations.

I guess if you want an invoice with 30day payment terms, perhaps a business account would work better than a domestic ?

I agree, they shouldn't be so quick to start removing services.

But, personally I would first contact the bank to see if there is a reason they have bounced a payment - it is possible that PlusNet won't have much more info than "bank refused payment".

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I'm surprised they don't charge more for payment by other means than DD; many places do.

I think they do ... or at least they used to.

Back in the dim and distant past when I first signed up to PN (last century !), payment by credit card was the only option available. This continued for donkey's years until some time relatively recently when they decided to try to force everyone onto DD. I think the terms were along the lines of set up a DD and pay the same amount or continue using a card but have a £1.50/m charge added for the privilege.

I too dislike DD's with a vengeance TBH and avoid them wherever possible but I went along with it in this case because it was always going to be a fixed amount. It's still my only DD

As for card payments mysteriously being declined ... it sometimes just happens for reason or reasons unknown and no one ever takes any responsibility for it ! Usually just ends up as a case of retailer claims bank declined payment and bank claims they know nothing about any payment request being made :rolleyes:

Edited by ambrougham (Thu 14-Apr-16 12:34:05)

They do charge extra - I'm not bothered. And that is not what I started this thread about.

I'm happy with the way I pay, and what I pay for it. I don't want to switch to DD, and no, I don't want or need a business account.

I've been paying this way, with this card, for almost four years. The only thing I'm unhappy about is that it unaccountably (no pun intended) didn't work today.

So have you contacted your credit card supplier and asked them why they bounced the payment? That is where I would start. If they have not seen the request then you can go back to PlusNet and ask them to retry as it is then obviously a problem on their end.

In reply to a post by TLM:

I didn't ask opinions on Direct Debit. I don't want one, and that's it. I don't agree with them on principle. That's my right, isn't it? I only mentioned it at all, in case the type of card (it's a Mastercard) may happen to shed any light on things.

People might have been aware whether there has been any issue with cc transactions recently - either at PN, or at all.

Calm down, people just wondering why you use a card and not direct debit.
I am not a fan about direct debit, but to be honest in all the years I have been using them the only problems I had was my own and that when I did not have enough money in the bank and the charges was over the top, better now.

I am surprised that Plusnet allows payment by card, I do nto think that was a option when I joined last year.

Anyway, the chance of anyone on here paying the same is pretty slim, so the chance of you getting a answer to your question is pretty slim. best to phone up plusnet to be honest.

Yes, I've sent them (the cc company) a secure message, asking if they know why.

It was definitely working fine at least as recently as yesterday afternoon, when I used it for a rail ticket, and no odd, out-of-character, or especially large purchases since then - in fact, no purchases at all.

Well, considering I do not have an income, the possibility of "not having enough money in the bank" one time is one reason to avoid DD (apart from never agreeing with them anyway).

I do have enough money overall, but it doesn't come into my current account each month by magic - I have to check how much is needed, and transfer it from elsewhere. That means that if I forgot or was late one time (not impossible, as I have a serious and unpredictable illness), DDs would start failing.

If payments go on the credit card, nothing will ever bounce because I was a bit poorly or disorganised one month. I also get loyalty points on the credit card (though they've recently become much less generous), so it's been my habit to put absolutely everything through it - even down to a single loaf of bread.

The only things I don't use cc for are things that still won't take it - like bus fares. In fact, I would say bus fares are my single biggest expenditure that's NOT met by credit card.

In reply to a post by TLM:

Apparently, I am not even allowed to browse the forums whilst there's any money owing, as I just keep being bounced back to the stupid "money owing" page.

I'm not sure why this is as I'm not even with Plusnet and I can use their forums fine.

Perhaps that is my mistake, and I should try when NOT logged in.

When I'm logged in, and try to visit the forums, I'm simply told there's money owing, and that to continue to enjoy unlimited browsing (by which I assume they mean including all areas of their website), I must pay it.

This is particularly barmy if the reason you want to visit the forum is about a problem with them collecting payment.

They've also interrupted my normal browsing (i.e. of everything) to force me to tick an acknowledgement box about the "overdue" payment - the one that isn't my fault in the first place!

They are seriously hacking me off today. Customer in good standing for literally years, ONE very small late payment - not yet 24 hours overdue - and they're already getting like this! I realise they have no way of knowing it's not my fault, and it's either their systems or Mastercard's systems, but it all seems a bit disproportionate.

Even the cc companies themselves don't get this heavy, this quickly, the same day a payment is missed. Admittedly, they will charge you for the privilege of being slow/forgetful, but if you've got a pretty unblemished record, they won't be hassling you about it three or four times on the day it happened!

I've now had two emails about it, one suspended browsing, and loss of access to the forums.

It does sound heavy handed, but I think you need to call them. This forum of course is not part of PN support and is a peer-to-peer discussion. Not actually sure why you raised the topic if you're upset about people debating the pros and cons of payment methods.

In reply to a post by TLM:

The only things I don't use cc for are things that still won't take it - like bus fares. In fact, I would say bus fares are my single biggest expenditure that's NOT met by credit card.

All my bus fares are paid by credit card using a mobile phone app - it's cheaper than paying on the bus! I appreciate that's of no use to you if your bus company doesn't offer it.

I too don't have an income but paying by DD is safer. I try and pay my credit card off every month but sometimes due to bank holidays the payment is a day late and I then have to pay interest. If I get run over by a bus then interest will accrue but we can't keep thinking about what might happen and just get on with life.

If you have the cash to pay off you CC then set up a transfer from savings to current account to pay any DDs.

Being aggressive to others giving advice is not helpful.

You've posted about a situation that only YOU can sort out by asking questions to your ISP and/or card issuer.

Don't think they offer it. Pretty sure I could buy a season ticket by cc, but as my bus travel is ad hoc, rather than daily (e.g. to work), I wouldn't save money by getting a season ticket.

I make a regular trip just once a week, to college, but even that is only September to April.

Has your credit card company confirmed they refused payment, and if so - why? Or did they not get a request for payment?

I am only upset when others give unsolicited advice which is not about the matter at hand. If I wanted to debate and defend my chosen payment method, I'd have said so.

If people don't have any info about the actual problem, I don't want to trawl through a load of posts about unrelated matters.

I was just hoping somebody might respond: "Yes, PN have had a problem processing payments this morning", or: "The Mastercard network was down for a period", or whatever.

Have a read of "What happens if I miss a payment"

http://www.plus.net/help/my-account/paying-your-bill/

http://s30.postimg.org/fqe1mgr1d/PN_Bill_Payment.png


Can't help re. failed CC payment as I use DD.

Even if there was an issue with the processing of payments, and someone on here said so, it doesn't negate the fact that you can't browse successfully.

You need to go to the source and find out why. Then you can proceed accordingly.

They haven't confirmed anything yet - I'm not calling the call centre. I secure messaged them.

There are no odd looking entries in my "recent transactions", but I doubt it would show if one was requested but declined - though that would certainly be useful from a customer point of view, as you could not only see a failed payment, but also see if one was requested that was NOT recognised by you, that could be the source of the problem.

I can browse successfully. It was temporarily suspended to force me to acknowledge a "missed payment" - which they'd already emailed me twice about.

In reply to a post by TLM:

There are no odd looking entries in my "recent transactions", but I doubt it would show if one was requested but declined - though that would certainly be useful from a customer point of view, as you could not only see a failed payment, but also see if one was requested that was NOT recognised by you, that could be the source of the problem.

About the only thing you can usually see apart from actual payments made is 'pending payments' but that's normally only a single figure representing all pending (authorised) payments and isn't itemised. I've always thought that they really ought to document individual pending transactions along with any problematic transactions as well. All the relevant data is obviously available but no doubt intentionally kept hidden away. It's kinda easy to suspect that would be primarily down to retaining the ability to deny all knowledge if/when a problem like this arises and the customer complains about a payment not being authorised for no good reason

Sometimes when I've had a problem like this happen over the years I've been able to find out what probably happened by phoning the card company as they can usually see more detail about pending and failed transactions even if they don't want to give you too much info about them over the phone. However, on most occasions I find everyone denies all responsibility and it's impossible to even guess what actually went wrong, the retailer tries doing the same transaction again using the same details and all is well.

Edited by ambrougham (Thu 14-Apr-16 14:40:30)

I suspect you're completely right, and in the unlikely event they even admit having blocked it, they still won't say why.

I suppose the argument would be that they cannot reveal details of how they flag potentially fraudulent transactions, as that would help criminals bypass it.

Sometimes it's easy to work out why they imposed a block - for example on the odd occasion I've really hammered the card in the course of minutes - nothing sinister, just a concerted effort at paying all the household bills at one sitting. But I'm always a bit surprised they can't recognize the recipient and amount of routine household bills as within expectations.

Other times, it's when I've placed an international order with a company not previously used.

But routine payment of my ISP doesn't seem to fit any of these categories. It was the exact same date as every month, the same payee as every month, and the same amount, within a few pence. It's not a fixed amount, as it obviously depends how much I use the phone, but as a typical month is "hardly at all", or "local calls only", there aren't massive variations in how much is due. Not an exceptional month for phone calls, by any means. Maybe even fewer than usual. Certainly no cause for anyone (or any system) to flag it as odd, and question whether it was legitimate.

If my phone bill went up tenfold one month, I could understand that being flagged as suspicious. I admit myself it would be unlikely, unless I suddenly had a new love interest in Australia! But it's difficult to see what could be odd about about a normal monthly payment. It wasn't even among a cluster of payments that could be construed as anomalous, so it's not frequency monitoring.

seems a bit of an overreaction?

check your online statement, most card providers now have a pending payments section, you can see if anything is pending, also make the payment to get the service unsuspended. If it turns out you paid twice then you chase up both card provider and plusnet to get it refunded.

Mine doesn't show pending (at least, it never has, that I've noticed, and certainly doesn't right now).

Slightly oddly, it doesn't show ANY recent transactions, either. I would have thought a train ticket purchased yesterday with no problems should be showing by now. Other than that (and the missing PN payment) I haven't used the card in the last few days. Payments tend not to appear until the next day, so I would not expect the PN one to show yet, even if it had been successful. The train fare should, though.

They haven't got back to me yet about whether they declined the payment - or even ever received the request. I didn't really want to use the call centre, so I used the secure messaging facility. Slower, but easier, and I'll get a record of what I said and what the answer was, too.

If they say: "Haven't a clue - we haven't turned anything down", it would point to it being PN's problem, but don't suppose I'll ever get to the bottom of it, really.

Some traders automatically try again, after a single failed attempt - PN don't it seems.

Come to think of it, I have had a problem in a shop, recently, where I had to retry several times.

The assistant said: "Don't worry, it isn't you or your card - sometimes it just does this!", but I did think it was a bit strange. Three goes is excessive, but I didn't really think anything of it at the time. Just blamed a dodgy network connection (the shop's, not mine).

It's only writing about it now that I'm reminded of that incident. But I've used the card successfully since, so it's definitely not every time.

Use the Plusnet chat rather than ringing them. You may have to wait but I found it less tedious than using the phone. One reason for failure can be the card expiry date.

Thanks for the tip. Have left it a bit late now, but will give it a go tomorrow. Have never tried the chat, and didn't know it existed.

The card expiry is not 'til 2018, so pretty sure it can't be that. I understand if it was imminent, it might be flagged up as "borderline", but two years still to run can't be the problem.

Edit: gave them a try, as they were still online (thought they quit at nine, but it's ten).

They have absolutely no info about why it failed - they said they weren't provided any.

Edited by TLM (Thu 14-Apr-16 22:04:13)

My sympathy to TLM as I think it is rather heavy handed, but it is probably a computer following a set route rather than a person. If my internet was suddenly stopped then I would be a tad het up. As she can access this forum, I am a little surprised that she can not get to the plusnet system. (see edit)

It does worry me though that increasing the answer to a problem requires access to the internet. This includes may things built into windows including trouble shooters as to why the internet might not be working.

edit: I read in a more recent post that it was temporary till she had clicked something to acknowledge her knowledge or the problem.

Edited by philippercival (Fri 15-Apr-16 00:20:39)

In reply to a post by philippercival:

My sympathy to TLM as I think it is rather heavy handed, but it is probably a computer following a set route rather than a person.

A person set the route.

I'm not certain but I think from what TLM said earlier that it only stopped access until the prompt saying payment had failed had been accepted - presumably they want to make sure someone has actually seen the prompt. I got the impression that the Internet and forums started working again after that - but TLM may correct me if I misunderstood that.

Well, two separate "interventions" to service - one ongoing, the other not.

They prevented me from accessing the community forums from my account, by making it redirect to the "payment failed" notification, every time I tried to go there. This is still like it, although I have since found I can circumvent it by just not logging in at all, and navigating there a different way - i.e. pretending NOT to be a customer, in effect.

But if I'm trying to go to the forums from my account, they've made it so the link won't work. This continues to be the case.

The "one off" interruption was that they disabled my browsing (completely) until I ticked an "acknowledge" box about the payment. Don't acknowledge - no more internet.

So in total, within 12 hours of the payment failing, I was emailed twice, had access to the PN forums restricted, and had my browsing temporarily suspended to force acknowledgement of a third reminder (after the two emails).

This all seemed quite belligerent, within hours of a single missed payment of a small sum. And especially when there's no evidence the customer is trying to evade payment, or has even forgotten to pay! I'm sure it's either a technical glitch, or misdirected fraud detection (still a technical glitch, I suppose), which has incorrectly designated the transaction as suspicious for some reason.

I would have though the software would be sophisticated enough to see that a payment of about the same amount, made every month, to the same people, was very unlikely to be fraudulent, and was obviously a monthly bill. They must know by now the people I pay regularly, so I should have thought all of those should be whitelisted, unless the size of the transaction differs markedly from the norm - which this one didn't.

I see from your first post that at least 36 hours has passed. By now I would be unable to resist the temptation to pick up the phone and talk to the bank and ISP to establish what did happen, why and how to stop it happening again. Maybe you have. Speaker phones are my friend here when Talking or rather trying to with a slow service like PN Customer service, you initiate the call, then just leave it beside you while you get on with something else.

I used online chat to speak to PN - which was easy, but fruitless, as they had no details of why the payment failed. They could only suggest it may have been some sort of random spot-check. The agent confessed that he himself had had something similar recently - didn't seem to be any reason behind it. I suppose a bit like going through "green" at customs - you probably won't get stopped, but they'll have a certain quota for random checks.

Have a "secure message", aka "ticket" logged with the card issuer - still haven't heard back. They said "up to" 72 hours, but I don't know if that's only counting "normal" business hours, or weekends too. They didn't have online chat, disappointingly - I'm finding that far and away the easiest way to sort things, where available.

No queues - or at least, where there are, you can carry on doing whatever you were doing at the computer - such as spamming The Park, no premium rate Nos. for listening to a recorded message saying: "You call is important to us", no language barriers (and I don't just mean foreign - to me, Glaswegian is a language barrier!)

So is it still the case after 3 days that you are still unable to make a payment to PlusNet with your card? If it was me you wouldn't be able to peel me off the phone!

Who is the Credit Card provider - I'd be asking them if they wanted to keep my business and telling them if it wasn't sorted immediately then my next call was going to be to find out how to make a complaint.

If it is giving you grief, you really need to be phoning the CC company. It really is that simple. Yes, you might have to wait on the line (I've found phoning after 7pm best or early on a Sunday morning) but at the stroke of their keyboard, they WILL tell you exactly why your payment failed. Been there, done that. In my case it wasn't even my own CC company that put the block on, it was a 3rd party agent that they used to authenticate payments (based abroad) that did. While I was on the line, they contacted the agent, got the block removed and all was good again. The company got their money and I got my bargain air ticket. Took at most 15mins.

I have used chats and secure messaging over the years but when there is mega grief, the phone is hard to beat. And yes, I am with Plusnet, no problems with payments so far....but then, dare I mention it, I use DD.

Good luck.

The OP hasn't been restricted in their browsing so "no harm - no foul" so far!

In the OP I read "Sheesh, they've now emailed me a second time since this morning, and have started to interfere with my browsing to present the "failed payment" message" and it appears that the problem is ongoing. I wouldn't consider this not to be a problem.

Maybe you should read what the OP says later.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Maybe you should read what the OP says later.

As in, "I can browse successfully."? I can't see anywhere that the blocked Credit Card has been resolved. Perhaps I've missed it. To me an unexplained refused CC payment is serious and after all is the subject of the post.

Yes. What you said, perhaps not what you intended, was that the browsing problem is ongoing. Which it isn't. As you now acknowledge.

The credit card aspect has been queried with the credit card company, who have not yet replied. So far as I know there is no problem with the broadband service.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 18-Apr-16 10:41:01)

The solution to this is simple. You need to contact your credit card company. There is nothing PlusNet can do. All they will no is the card has been declined.

Generally if a shop try's several times the card will be blocked as they CC company will suspect fraud

An earlier poster was quite right - nobody at all has accepted responsibility. The card issuer denies having declined the payment, and Plusnet deny knowing any possible reasons for failure on their side.

The card is and was working normally - except for that one payment. Unless it happens again, and forces a proper investigation (even that might not, unless it was every month), I don't think I'll ever find out what happened, or even which party was responsible.

That's the frustrating thing - not just that things go wrong, and it's inconvenient, but that you NEVER get an answer about why.

cc company apologised for the delay, and, just like Plusnet - denied knowing anything about it. Said they have not declined anything. So it was caused by nothing and nobody, apparently.

Very strange.

Have Plusnet managed to take payment now then?

Yes, I tried it again as soon as the card issuer denied having put a block on, and it went through without a hiccup.

Which it probably would have sooner, but I thought it better to find out first if there was a reason the card company declined it - which they didn't (they say).

With technology, sometimes there is a glitch and nobody can explain it.

As with a previous posting about payment issues, after a few days it is all sorted and everyone can get back to normality with no harm done.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

As you now acknowledge

8^) OK I throw myself upon my sword. As so often happens I understand what I mean, it's the way I say it that causes problems.

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

Direct Debit is far far far safer for you than a credit card recurring authority. At any point PN can take any amount they desire from your account and there is little you can do about it. You can't even ask your bank to stop future payments. A Direct Debit has lots of rules for your safety and is very easy for you to reclaim if you feel like it, and you can terminate it whenever you like.

If you are going to preach about Direct Debits verse Credit Card continuous payment, you should know the rules.
Credit Card continuous payment CAN be cancelled either with the credit card company or with the company taking payment.

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/continuous-payment-autho...

In reply to a post by DavidFinbarr:

Credit Card continuous payment CAN be cancelled either with the credit card company or with the company taking payment.

As I had already posted.

In reply to a post by kasg:

As I had already posted.

I like giving links to info stated, especially when it gives fuller details.