Verified by Vise is CRAP

[watervole]

 I'm trying to buy some percussion instruments for children, so that we can hand them out to children watching the Morris.

 

I find a website that has the product I want. I try to order it. I run slap bang wallop into Verified by Visa. It rejects my password. I try the option to create a new password. I run into the usual problem – when it says "input your name as it appears on the card" do they actually mean that?

 

My card says: Anonymous Morris JEL Proctor

so, do they want me to put in Anonymous Morris, JEL Proctor, or all of the above? By the time I've tried all the permutations, it's logged me out for too many attempts.

 

I phone the helpline and get the dreaded Indian call centre. All the man there can do is to keep repeating "input your name as it appears on the card". "Yes, but which name?" I ask him. He just repeats the mantra.

 

I try the site again and this time manage to successfully input JEL Proctor (with spaces around JEL) as my name. I input my password. It tells me I can't have password because I've already used it.

 

So why the Frak, did it reject that password when I originally tried to use it!!!

Comments

[damerell]

We've got Kalixa prepay cards. They're a bit vexing to use, because you either pay a fee when loading them, plan a week in advance, or keep money on them losing the interest; but no VbV or the Mastercard equivalent. No connection save satisfied customer, etc.

[crazyscot]

MBNA UK stopped both VbV and Mastercard SecureCode on their cards as of a couple of years ago.

[cdybedahl]

According to acquaintances working in web commerce, Verified by VISA and similar things from others cut sales by more than half.

[watervole]

That's an impressive statistic. I must admit that I will be buying the produce elsewhere in spite of this site having the cheapest price - not least because there is NO way of contacting them by email to ask for help.

[helenex.livejournal.com]

I used to actively avoid using VbyV for exactly that reason but recently they seem to have changed the protocol. I now get asked questions like "Which of these addresses are familiar to you" and one of the 3 is somewhere I have lived.

[coth.livejournal.com]

My pet hate is Tesco's automatic machines. They almost invariably go wrong even for very simple transactions.

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

"Unexpected item in bagging area".

In my case, it's almost inevitably the re-usable Tesco shopping bag...

[coth.livejournal.com]

That, and asking for the Clubcard twice or more often. Or refusing payment with clubcard points. Or having the wrong price for whatever it is and needing to call the one and only person from behind the till with the queue of 10 people waiting....

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

VbV is just another way of card companies trying to deny their liabilities when someone's card is used fraudulently.

Just like Chip and Spin, if your card is used by someone else they'll say "Well the purchaser used your PIN/ Password, so either it was you or you were careless with your secure information, either way, we're not liable".

The fact that there have been cases of scam sites using fake (but entirely plausible) VbV forms which ask you to input enough characters from your Password to let the scammer use your card in a Customer Not Present transation doesn't seem to matter to them, obviously it was *your* fault you didn't realise it was a fake...