Florist News

Hi everyone

I am so so annoyed with my bank- arrrggghhhh!! Have any of you come across this situation before............

Valentines day I take an order over the phone for £97.50. Guy pays with credit card. I take all the details neccessary to process the payment and the card is authorised. So far so good!

3 weeks later I recieve a letter from my bnk saying that these card details were stolen and they will be taking that money back from my account. I have called to complain and been told twice there is nothing I can do about it as it states in the Visa and Mastercard terms and conditions that card payments taken over the phone are entirely at my own risk. The authorisation that the PDQ machine gives you is only telling you that the card has not been reported lost or stolen and there are sufficient funds in the account.

I have reported this to the police and seeked further advise from my accountant who has advised me to go to town with this one and kick up a stink with my business bank manager.

Imagine if you took payment from a last minute, laid back bride over the phone for say £1000. You deliver the flowers, the bride dissapears and 3 weeks later you get a letter to say 'sorry.....you cant have that money'. It just cannot be right, can it??? What do you all think??
So annoyed : (

Yep, happened to me last Vals, for just over 100 quid, nothing you can do I'm afraid.


This year i got a call on Vals at 5.30 asking for a delivery, i said no, you can come collect though, ok he says, I ask how much do you want to spend, he say oh about 200......soi said no, im not taking the order if i cannot see the card in your posession, so he says well how much can i spend without you wanting to see the card......errr, nothing now i said, I dont want the order. He also wanted to send a taxi to collect the stuff, thats the dead giveaway.

You kinda get a feeling for them after youve been done once. They always spend a big amount and send a taxi to collect the goods so they cannot be traced. Also seem to crawl out of the woodwork at the peaks though.

Excuse me if I am having a thick moment. Can the police not trace this person through who the flowers were sent to, they must have known the person that sent them

the police have said that they will visit the delivery address, but.........it was a restaurant where the recipient 'apparently' worked. I think it will be a bit of a dead end, but the police said they will make a visit!

Me too you're lucky your bank let you know so promptly the two I had charged back dated from November they didn't let me know till after Christmas with the first one and only a couple of weeks ago for the second took ages to locate the paperwork though why I bothered is beyond me as you say we have no protection you pay them for the terminal and each transaction and have no protection at all when things go tits up

Its so unfair, that you have no comeback for this amount, its a lot to lose.
There are so many scams around these days, its hard to keep up with whats coming next.

Yeah was ages before they notified me also... due to the fact the "owner of the Card" hadnt checked his statement..... which is bollox...... .....

Nowt u can do about it though just another kick in the teeth.

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I got one from Valentine's last week for £30.

Was really annoyed because minions should have picked up it being dodgy because:

1) postcode given made no sense
2) card message was from a different name to who placed the order
3) customers phone number had too many digits

Minions said they didn't really understand that they should expect a full match response from the PDQ and thought just the sec code matching would be fine, so not entirely their fault - had I explained this better to them they'd have picked up it quicker.

Risky business credit cards...and the pity is that less and less people are choosing to pay in cash! We have had same probs too on occasion and again is stated that even if the PDQ machine does OK the transaction we as the business don't have much of a leg to stand on if the payment is fraudulent...

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FAUN TO BE WILD...!!!

i know its terrible isnt it, unforunately we only have 2 options about taking a carholder not present transaction. Either you stop taking them altogether, which for most small businesses isnt really an option, or you take the risk of not getting the money at the end of the day. If it is a large sum and think it might be dodgy then you could always phone up streamline or whoever you are with and do a code 10 (thats for streamline anyway). That saved my skin once when I was suspicious about an order and the machine was taking the card fine. So I rang and said I had a code 10 and it turned out the card was cloned. I have no idea how the streamline man knew that and the machine didnt. Maybe for transactions over say 70 or 80 quid you could do a code 10 anyway, they ask you why you think its dodgy and you could say cause its for an unusually large amount. Oh did I just say a 3rd option, anyway im waffling again