# Halifax debit card dosen't work in M&S



## Sal92 (20 Sep 2007)

Embarassing situation at the till last night in M&S. My new visa debit card was refused. I had used it minutes earlier in another shop and I was able to withdraw cash with it after this, so has anyone else had this experience? I only have the card a week I switched my account recently.


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## Towger (20 Sep 2007)

I assume it is an Visa Electron (debit) card. These are not very common in Ireland. M&S don't like cards except their own store cards, and were one of the last large shops to accept credit cards. Not sure if they even accept them in the UK now.


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## gipimann (20 Sep 2007)

As someone who's in the process of switching to halifax, this is interesting and worrying!   Halifax's Debit Card leaflet says the debit card can be used "wherever you see the VISA symbol"....I know M+S take VISA credit cards (have used mine lots of times!), so it doesn't appear to do what it says on the tin!

Maybe a call to halifax to ask why M&S don't take their card?


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## Sal92 (21 Sep 2007)

I sent halifax customer service an email about it yesterday and fair play to them they were on the phone in a couple of hours. M&S have yet to update their system to accept visa debit cards. The only other shops that have to do the same are lidl and aldi. They assured me it shouldn't be a problem for much longer - but its up to the store themselves to update their systems. Won't be a problem - just remember to take out cash b4 you visit m&s, aldi or lidl! Other benefits of the account outway this problem imo.


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## Marica (21 Sep 2007)

*Re: HALIFAX debit card - it's not just M&S...*

I also had my Halifax debit card (not a Visa Electron) refused in M&S Blanchardstown yesterday - but since I got it in July I had successfully used it every couple of weeks in the food part there so I don't know what can have changed.

I have also discovered that NTL and Vodafone will not accept direct debits from a Halifax current account, although they will accept payment by Halifax debit card over the phone or online. Unfortunately neither of them bothered to tell me this when they got my new direct debit instructions and I only found out when Vodafone barred me from making calls and NTL threatened to cut me off for non-payment.

However, a nice interest payment landed in my account today...


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## shanegl (22 Sep 2007)

I've never had any trouble in M&S stores with my Halifax debit card. I pay my vodafone bill by direct debit on the account too.


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## solair (23 Sep 2007)

They're not Visa Electron cards, they're standard Visa Debit cards.

To clarify:
Visa Electron - For electronic transactions only i.e. the terminal must ALWAYS dial up and will never allow you to be overdrawn.
Standard Visa Debit, works like a normal Visa card or a normal Laser card. The terminal doesn't necessarily have to check for funds, so  you can use it online, over the phone etc etc quite easily.

The problem is that M&S system hasn't been set up to recognise the new card numbers issued for Irish Visa Debit i.e. Halifax. It's seeing them as an invalid card number.

You should contact halifax and ask them to sort it out!
M&S advertise that they accept visa, it's unacceptable that they would refuse a perfectly valid visa card.

There's absolutely no issue using any major Credit or Debit card in M&S and they're very high tech and were amongst the first retailers to roll out Chip and PIN in a huge way. It's a software issue on M&S' side, but it's up to Halifax Ireland to hammer the point home!


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## Marica (24 Sep 2007)

shanegl said:


> I've never had any trouble in M&S stores with my Halifax debit card. I pay my vodafone bill by direct debit on the account too.


 
I emailed M&S customer service about this and they say there's no reason why stores in Ireland should be declining Halifax Visa debit cards and will ensure that any misinformation among staff about debit cards is cleared up. It appears to be an issue of wrong information rather than a systems issue - until last week I had used my card in several branches of M&S lots of times without incident.

Vodafone, however, are still refusing to accept payment from my Halifax account by direct debit because "the code doesn't come up".


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## Sal92 (24 Sep 2007)

they are not declining them - the card comes up as "refused" on their system. This has happened to me in m&s in blackrock and liffey valley. So problem is with m&s.


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## shanegl (25 Sep 2007)

Marica said:


> I emailed M&S customer service about this and they say there's no reason why stores in Ireland should be declining Halifax Visa debit cards and will ensure that any misinformation among staff about debit cards is cleared up. It appears to be an issue of wrong information rather than a systems issue - until last week I had used my card in several branches of M&S lots of times without incident.
> 
> Vodafone, however, are still refusing to accept payment from my Halifax account by direct debit because "the code doesn't come up".



That sounds like more misunderstanding on the staff's part. I can assure you it's possible, my vodafone DD was paid yesterday.


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## Almost_Free (26 Sep 2007)

I've recently switched my current account from AIB to Halifax.  Didn't know this at the time but Lidl and Aldi do not accept the Halifax Debit card.  They only accept cards with the Laser symbol.   This was a bit of a dissapointment as I regularly shop at Lidl and I'll now need to carry cash.


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## markpb (16 Oct 2007)

*Re: HALIFAX debit card - it's not just M&S...*



Marica said:


> I have also discovered that NTL and Vodafone will not accept direct debits from a Halifax current account, although they will accept payment by Halifax debit card over the phone or online. Unfortunately neither of them bothered to tell me this when they got my new direct debit instructions and I only found out when Vodafone barred me from making calls and NTL threatened to cut me off for non-payment.



I'm in the process of changing from AIB to Halifax now. Am I likely to have problems paying NTL by DD or has this been cleared up?


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## Marica (16 Oct 2007)

*Re: HALIFAX debit card - it's not just M&S...*



markpb said:


> I'm in the process of changing from AIB to Halifax now. Am I likely to have problems paying NTL by DD or has this been cleared up?


 
Was on to NTL customer service earlier this week and they say they still don't accept direct debits from Halifax current accounts but when the integration with Chorus is complete and they rebrand as UPC they will be accepting them as Chorus already does. They couldn't give a date for this part of the integration to happen though.

You could chance completing a new DD mandate and sending it to them. Halifax told me that some of their customers do actually have DDs to NTL because they were lucky enough that the person who dealt with them knew how to input the code manually and override the system but this appears to be a well-kept secret. 

If you do this keep an eye on it and make sure that the DD gets set up and that your bill is actually paid. I went on holidays and presumed it had gone through ok and didn't know there was a problem until they threatened to cut me off six weeks later. Then when I got my last bill they had charged me an unpaid direct debit fee plus a late payment fee despite telling me they would waive these charges, having admitted they should have informed me earlier that they don't deal with Halifax. The first person I spoke to had no idea that they didn't accept Halifax DDs and took quite a bit of convincing that this was indeed the case, and I then spent 40 minutes explaining the whole thing again from the start to a succession of line managers before they agreed (again) not to charge me the penalty fees. 

NTL and Vodafone aside, everything else with my switch went fine and I've found Halifax customer service very helpful.


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## markpb (8 Nov 2007)

*Re: HALIFAX debit card - it's not just M&S...*

I just changed to Halifax and I'm having problems already. Meteor won't change the direct debit details without the customer requesting and returning a new customer mandate form. The guy on the phone didn't know anything about Halifax notifying them about a change of bank. Got to double check all my other utilities now to make sure there are no more problems.

On the upside, there was less than four hours of a delay from my AIB closing and the balance being transferred to Halifax which is much better than I expected.


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## gipimann (23 Nov 2007)

Just to update this thread...I tried to use my Halifax debit card in Boyer's Dept Store in Dublin today, and the card was refused. Had to use visa credit card (also halifax!) instead.


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