Verified Visa and Securecard: my credit card companies won't play

Lindsay

After three hours in total on the phone to the States, I'm a wee bit frustrated. Seems that Citi USA (as in, behemoth Citibank) has discontinued Securecard for its Mastercard users. No new Securecard PINs! Meanwhile, Bank of America does not allow its users to get verified by Visa. It seems to have been a hush-hush decision, as it took me -- and the Verified by Visa rep who put me on a conference call to my visa card company -- forever to pry the truth out of them. (And the Verified by Visa rep didn't even know the service had been dropped!) Meanwhile, Citibank still has mention of Securecard on its credit card website, but what used to be the link to Securecard (judging by the bolding) is now just plain text -- not clickable. Subtle way to tell your cardholders about this!

Am I the only person here with this problem? And if so, where, oh where, do the other Americans on this forum get their credit cards? And if not, and you got around this mess, please, please tell me how! I searched for other threads but everyone in them seems to have had a happy ending.

(Before somebody recommends cleartrip, I tried them too. Despite their claim that foreign cards won't be asked for pins, every card I tried got stalled out during processing, after being "forwarded" to a verification site.)

I'm sure there's some complicated political issue to account for my credit card companies' lameness (I'm sure Citi and BofA and Capital One and Wachovia -- yes, them too -- are saving money somehow by discontinuing the service). But it's pretty unfortunate for people in India trying to order stuff on the web, like, oh, train and plane tickets.

Anyway, just a warning to folks who haven't gotten to India yet: if you plan on buying anything over the web here, you need to leave your Citicard, Wachovia, Bank of America, and Capital One credit cards at home. (Particularly unfortunate about Capital One -- the only credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees!) Make sure you've got a debit card with a pin that you can use for transactions -- or a credit card that already has a pin attached!

mridula

I can only say that I understand your frustation. Hope someone comes along who knows about the situation you are in.

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Mridula

Travel Tales from India

Lindsay

Thanks, Mridula.

traveller.1

Do you have Amex. That works. When it asks you for PIN, just enter your zip code. That works for me. I hate the verified by VIsa crap

Lindsay

Nope, no Amex. Never occurred to me that an AmEx card would be useful. Ha! Dryly amusing, in retrospect.

capt_mahajan

Dunno if it is connected, but Indian credit cards have an extra layer of security now (another password) since about a month ago for online stuff.

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Outside the machine

Lindsay

Yes, it's absolutely connected. Basically, now, whenever you try to purchase something off an Indian site, you MUST have a PIN for your credit card to go through; otherwise, the transaction will be declined!

indracal

Have a look at this post: I amaze myself. The poster didn't seem to require the VbV/MC/Secure stuff.

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Did you wear the other person's shoe today?

Lindsay

Yeah, I'm not sure why the IRCTC site hates me so much. After reading that topic, it feels personal!

indracal

Did you try Axis payment gateway? I saw a lot of bookings made from outside India gets successful when AXIS PG is used.

Alternately, you may choose to use makemytrip/yatra/cleartrip etc, but I am not sure how they react about VbV/SecureCode.

EDIT on Oct 6th - by "lot of bookings made from outside India gets successful" I meant the cards issued by Non-Indian Banks/financial institutions.

Lindsay

I had been trying to use the Axis gateway! However, happy news!!! I just managed to book the ticket. I don't know what changed, but suddenly Axis no longer required a Verified by Visa code. Strange -- but I'm not complaining!