This month, Verified by Visa (and/or 3D Secure, I still don’t really understand what the difference/relationship is there) prevented me from making two sizable online purchases.
The first was some First Great Western sleeper tickets to get me to London for a client meeting. I spent quite some time choosing the tickets (it’s a complex business anyway) then working through the checkout process. At the end, I’m pretty sure I briefly saw the Verified by Visa thing appear in a frame only to vanish to be replaced by the page hosting the frame in the frame. How recursive. I got angry then started all over again (yep, my basket was empty) with another card (one with which I’ve always managed to duck around the Verified by Visa thing by carefully clicking the tiny ‘No thanks’ button).
The second purchase was my exciting new Android phone from T-Mobile. Another lengthy checkout process (since it involves a credit check etc.) only to be presented by Verified by Visa. Everything actually appeared to go through this time, although I got no acknowledgement email from T-Mobile. Later that day, they contacted me to say the card verification on the purchase had failed. I phoned them and a nice chap took my details again and pushed everything through. I got the impression that failure at the Verified by Visa step was not uncommon.
I’m clearly not alone in my hatred for it. Plus, it seems as though it fails massively in its attempts to add any security anyway.
So what can we do? As consumers, we need to moan and whine to to the e-commerce businesses we buy from. And they need to moan and whine to the 3D Secure providers to sort out their system and provide better, bullet (and user) proof e-commerce integration. I’ve never had to implement it, but I’m willing to bet that it’s a complete nightmare, with poor documentation and very little support so e-commerce developers rush to fit (using nasty hacky javascript and frame solutions) and forget.
It’s no good spending time and money improving e-commerce to increase sales if a third party payment system mucks it all up for users at the end.
6 Comments
You got it Dan in your comment “it’s a complete nightmare, with poor documentation and very little support” – I’ve had to implement it and it is sometimes “no documentation” in parts.
I’ve tried to avoid nasty JS and iframes for the most part, but it’s generally very horrible, and a cause of major pain and deployment/development/support issues.
I’ve been trying the “no thanks” thing for ages but many sites now it won’t let you buy with that card if you select “no thanks”.
Yesterday I got my password wrong 3 times which apparently locks you out. Thing is, I now have no idea what I have to do. Am I locked out forever? Can I try again? If so when? If not how do I reset?
Am clueless. Googled VbV and got to their site, FAQ answers none of the above questions and has no option to contact them. I briefly saw a window which said something about calling customer services but it vanished too quickly for me to do anything about it. And now the item I wanted is sold out :(
Fail.
Verified by Visa is a pet hate for me – only second to Barclay’s sign in widgemagadget thing. Have given up entirely on the VbV password and plod through the ‘forgot my details’ password reset rigmarole every time.
Good point that we must complain about this stuff loudly and often – but somehow I know I’m going to get a ‘Your security is our first priority’ brushoff.
I came to understand that the so-called VbV password is kept by the bank. Why can’t the bank send me an one-time use PIN to my mobile phone like they did for my online banking logins?
This has pissed me off SO MANY TIMES. I hate it with a passion. At best I have to enter a load of info twice, at worst I am prevented from buying the item, as you found. Mind you, maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to remember my password this time.
I hate Verified by Visa too, at least in the UK. The problem is the petty rules about password length, must contain capital letter, number etc. Then when you forget it it won let you choose something you’ll remember because you’ve used it before! Aaarrgh! In Spain where I also have a bank account, it’s fine strangely, as they just take you to your bank’s normal web log-in page so you don’t need an extra password.