On many sites, I can’t pay for things online any more, as Halifax/VISA has decided to make it even harder than ever. It used to be I could generate a new one-time password every time I bought something – now they require me to phone an expensive pay-by-the-second 0800 phone number every time I want to buy stuff.
Any suggestions for a UK bank that *doesn’t* force you to type in a stupid, COMPLETELY INSECURE password every time you want to buy something online?
(this is the VISA “we want all our customers to lose all their money” system, introduced a couple of years ago. So far as I can tell, the only purpose of the system is to make it easier for VISA to refuse to pay out fraud claims when it’s their fault. It has zero consumer benefit)
Obviously, none of the UK banks are smart enough to advertise this as a feature on their websites, so googling hasn’t helped me much :(.
3 replies on “UK bank that *doesn’t* have stupid online verification?”
Ditch halifax.
Most of the time I only get the mastercard/visa securecode thing for using debit cards, I hope you’re not using a debit card to buy stuff on the web!
I always advocate the use of credit cards, you don’t lose any money until YOU give that money to the CC supplier… I’ve only seen fraudulent uses of cards go wrong (no refunds/resolve within 3 days) a few times, and they were with debit cards, and they were with debited (ie. INSTANT LOSS OF YOUR MONEY) transactions over £1k. Not often people can easily cope with 1k coming out of their current account….
FWIW, egg are the best credit card supplier I’ve ever had, they catch fraudulent use of my CC which seems to be every 6 months) before I do, they’re helpful, I don’t wait long on help lines, and I’ve never lost money in 13 years of online shopping.
True on the DC point – I only use this account for a handful of sites I’m completely sure of, but I should probably switch to using CC for everything.
Thanks for the egg recommendation!
I’ve been with egg for years and they seem to have a good balance, although recently I’ve been sent out new cards without warning twice due to “a potential security breach” which sounds a bit weird.
Still, cashback and a good online site are both positives. Customer service has usually been good when I’ve had call to use it.