Algorithm
I slapped my card with an I got all dem monies swagger against the contactless bit of the card machine in the cafe.
Myself and the little dude serving me both waited a moment for that little acknowledging hey everything's cool beep from the machine.
Instead, it made a different kind of beep, one that was darker and full of menace.
The little dude jerked as if his Aunty had just inserted a skinny parsnip up his Jack Sparrow.
Erm, sorry. Your payment has been declined.
What, balderdash! You think to bejazzle me with your words, young feller me jib?
Said I, or words to that effect.
Eh, no mate. It just says Not Authorised.
Hmm, I shall use another more convenient method of payment than this modern folly of contactless
After paying with some good old fashioned paper notes I ventured outside. This had happened to me a few times lately and I was getting a bit narked by it.
I phoned the bank.
After the prerequisite ten minutes navigating through a phone menu sub-system that almost gave me a hernia, I got through to a human.
The conversation was as thus:
Me: I made a contactless payment and for about the third time this week it got declined. Is my card humped? Do I need a new one?
Him: Yeah, that. It's not your card. it's an anti-fraud measure. Your card is ok. If you use it too often without putting in your pin it declines your transactions until you use your pin.
Me: That's a bit rubbish
Him: Yeah. Well, it's anti-fraud. Stops fraudulent use you see?
Me: Ok. How many times can I use it before having to use my PIN? Just so I know. I can plan for it.
Him: Ah. I can't say. It depends.
Me: Depends on what?
Him: It's worked out by an algorithm...
Me: An algorithm?? What's that?
Him: Pardon?
Me: What's an algorithm?
There was a deafening silence.
Eventually:
Him: Erm. I don't know
Me: I guess we are goosed then?
Him: Yeah, I guess so.
These strange algorithms tend to stop the legitimate credit card holder from using their card, however the crooks can use your spoofed card without any issues.
I have the same nonsense happen to me and I have to call my bank to have the card unlocked after around 8 different transactions.
I completely understand your frustration.
It is rather annoying, as you say, the crooks wont be stopped by such simple measures I bet!
Maybe I don't have much time to read these days, but just came to say that I wish you a super cool week.
Lot's of luv Boomz <3
Hey hey potato pie!!! Much love to you too!! Hope everything is alright with you?
All great, closed my exams. Seems I'm smarter than average potato.
Preparing myself for summer, not sure what am I gonna do though.
Probably will work on some project and combine it with steemit.
Have to find more time and read your posts :D
Hehe, posts can wait, summer can't!
Just think of all the fun and adventure ahead!
This happened to me two or three (or four, or five) weeks ago, though with an ATM. I wasn't allowed to withdraw because my card was invalid. So, I phoned the bank, and after twenty minutes (are we in a pissing contest or a pissed off contest?) they told me I needed to go to my home branch, which was two hours away from where I live now. I avoided it like the plague because it was at the ground floor of my first ever corporate job. But, I bit the bullet (broke my tooth, too), and went. After standing in line for what seemed like a little over eternity, I spoke to a seemingly human person and was told that I haven't changed my PIN ever. I told the lady that I not only changed the PIN years ago, I've withdrawn money from the damned thing countless of times. After a few minutes of shoddy detectivity, we discovered that my card was part of an upgrade to a newer version. They disabled my card for so that they could upgrade me to a better version that they have no clue when it's arriving. The solution she told me was to just wait, and if the new card doesn't come, I would have to wait for a few more months.
Did you miss my post-within-post comments??
Hahaha!!
Oh yes indeed I missed them!! Steemit without @jedau is like macaroni without cheese!
They are bastards. Plain and simple. Sometimes I think someone just needs to infect done common sense into them. Forcibly, via a penis or something
Macaroni without cheese sounds awful!
Unfortunately, of all the diseases that needs curing, common sense is the one they got to first. One of the easiest ailments that humans could be cured of in this day and age. Entirely a bad thing.
Common sense... Do people even have that anymore!?! :0F
You know, I've read it in some history books, but I haven't delved on them quite deeply. Must be some ancient philosophy or some sort.
I wonder what it is though? Doesn't sound very useful
Must be a passing thing. If it was any important, there would be ads about it littered across the interwebs.
I have only seen ads for the thing I looked at on Amazon, which is unusual on a pr0n site but I dont question anything anymore
It is annoying when you spend time to pay and then says that "the hots does not answer or error on the chip".
but more annoying is that you call the fucking number of the damned banks to see what happens to help you and to robot that tells you that prions as many options as possible after a while do you want to tell:
"hasta cuándo? este coño e´ Madre me tiene de color verde! ... but you realize that your anger is big , but she does not feel anything!
After he finally takes care of you, it's as if they had not done it because he who speaks to you knows less than you! Que mierda!!
tiempo perdido para nada
Hehe, it is very true! I hate it when the person on the phone is an idiot!
Algorithm!!! Me don't know either, sounds Spanglish to me.
Hehe, thats what he should have said
An algorithm sounds like a musical term, like a 'beat'. What he may have been trying to say was that you had been beaten.
Damn, he was right in more ways than one!!
The guy at the bank was clueless. He probably works in a call centre for the bank in a third world country that doesn't pay him enough to care...
I suspect that is exactly where he works!
Lolol them maths are at the bottom of all that's wrong with the world.
Exactly, what good have they ever done us! :0D
Divide and conquer, erm I mean who didn't love the word problems in school even if they were deceptively named so as to infiltrate our comfort zone with their cipher!
I do like it when they trick you into the learning. They must have stopped doing it!
Not to ruin the fun, but on a very serious note, have you seen the videos of schooling in China with 60 kids to a classroom and the unbelievably advanced math they do in school compared to everywhere else in the world?
I haven't no. I will have to have a look. I thought it was only Japan that was mad for the advanced child teaching
I wish I had some resources but it seems that the Chinese have everyone beat in that regard, South Korea as well.
They will reap the benefits!
I could explain it to you but really can't be bothered haha
Maybe he couldn't either ;0)
He didn't have a clue lol
They rarely do!
"Good god sir, you're ACTUALLY asking me questions related to my job here?!"
The nerve, M.B.
Kind of reminds me of the Hardware Store....go ask the person what a Diddlewhomper wrench is best used for, and he leads you back to the rack, pulls the package down, flips it over, and reads it back to you.
I [!!!!] can do THAT! Matter of fact, I did. Twice! Calling our world a folly is giving it far too much credit sometimes....
Ha, that is one of my pet hates. It's right up there with the doctor googling your symptoms. Which has happened to me twice lately!
Yowza, and Hmm. My doctor used to leave the room to 'get her stethoscope' in the office now and then, when I asked too many ??. I thought she just needed a break. Now I think that is what she was doing. Looking up answers on Google in her office. You CAN'T lose your scope THAT often. Unfortunately, your bad experience is my learning-curve squasher-downer. Sorry about that, Gov, but thanks ( :
Hehe, it's a pleasure to be a learning curve for someone else!!