The Art Of Noh

Wile E. Coyote presents Visa Electron

As the somewhat proud owner of a Visa Electron card from a top Romanian bank, I was once struck by the awful idea of trying to use it for purchasing stuff online. After some poking around in obscure corners of the Internet, I found out that, at least in theory, the Visa Electron can be used for e-commerce. Moreover, Amazon.co.uk explicitly lists it as an accepted method of payment.
Hmm, so far so good. I then proceed to place an order on Amazon. I get an 'order received' acknowledgement email, happy happy, joy joy. But wait, not all's well with the universe. A few hours later, I get an 'you didn't provide a valid method of payment' email from Amazon. Hmm.
Ok, I cancel my order and call the bank. 'Ah', the guy at the other end of the line says, 'you need to enrol in our 3-D Secure/Verified by Visa program. That'll make it work.'. Mkay. I look the stuff up on the Internet, but it turns out that Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and pretty much everyone who's anyone don't implement the Verified by Visa authentication protocol.
So I call the bank again. This time a girl answers. 'Oh I see, I don't know if you can use the card for online shopping at stores that don't implement Verified by Visa. You probably can't.'. Hmmm, I probably can't. Worth a shot though.
So I go to the bank. You see, this is how they do it. They could identify your card online, and allow you to activate the service online. But no. You have to go to the bank, and fill in a form, sign it and all that, so that they will activate the 3-D Secure stuff for you. So here I am, completing the form. 'You have to look up the other papers', the girls says, 'the ones you filled in when you requested your card. There's a field there that we'll use an the initial password in the second step of 3-D Secure activation.'. Hmm, how wise. They have all my info, and I could just write an initial password in the form I'm filling right now; but no. They probably get very dizzy looking up the card request form which makes this more secure. I'm also being told that I should wait 2-3 days before trying to activate the service. No reason is being given for this, and they are not going to call me to let me know that they activated the service. I am to try until I can finalize the activation.
Oh well, whatever needs to be done. So I wait a couple of days and try. The page tells me that the card is not in their database. Ok. I wait a couple more days and try again. This time, the card number is in their database, but whatever I do, I can't activate the card. Finally, after 3 failed tries, I get a message that the card is blocked and I'm not allowed to try anymore.
Suspecting I might have mistyped the initial password, I click on the 'Forgot you password?' link. A page pops up, asking me for the initial password. Overlooking this very, very, wise thing, I try to type it in. It types in (in the clear, which means the letters are not replaced by stars, dots or whatever). I click on the 'Ok' or 'Continue' or whatever, and I'm being told that the date should be in 'MM/YYYY' format. The form has no date field; in fact, the only field it does have is the password field described above.
I call the number listed on the bank site. On the site, it says that that is the number to call for exactly these kinds of problems. After the compulsory 10 minutes of piano music and a very stuck-up recorded woman's voice telling me that my call is very important to them and they are real people who want to help me, I get to talk to a confused, live human being. This human being apparently does not know much about online shopping, 3-D Secure and all that crap, and after putting me on hold with what now seemed a very interesting ionian scale on piano, for 10 more minutes, finally gave up and told me I should call the bank unit that issued my card.
So I call those guys. After explaining my problem in detail a couple of times, the lady on the phone asks me if my card got stuck in the ATM. 'Ah no, it's not about an ATM. It's about not being able to activate the 3-D Secure service for my card'. 'Ok', she answers, 'you have to come here personally when you have some time, with your card, ID and bank papers.'. 'But can't this be solved any other way?'. 'No.'.
First thing next morning, I'm at the bank. I explain the situation, I'm being told that they will reset the activation program to allow 3 more tries, and they confirm that the initial password I was using is correct. Ok. Finally things are getting better.
I get to a computer, and punch in all the data. Failed. Hmm, perhaps I spelled something wrong. I try again. Failed. Hmm. I'm not going to have it blocked again. I return to the bank. The lady there tries to talk to the card people by phone. She then comes back with a post-it on which she wrote a phone number. 'You have to call this guy', she says. 'Their machines have technical problems and that's why you can't do this. You need to call this guy and ask him when the problems are going to get fixed.'.
Ok, this is turning into 'Dumb and Dumber', and I don't know who's who anymore. But just because this is too moronic to have an answer for, I don't. I pick up the paper and come back to the office.
I call the guy, who's really perplexed that the bank people had me call him directly. I agree, but still I want to activate my card. He gets the point, asks me for some more detail (I actually gave him the card number and all the card details over the phone, which I'm sure must be very secure, and to a guy I've never met before ahem), and asks me to call him back in 10 minutes. 10 minutes later, I find out that they misread something on the 3-D secure application form and punched in the wrong information in their database. His solution to this is not to correct the wrong information, but to have me use the wrong one in the activation form. I give up and do that, and it finally works.
I then proceed to place the order on Amazon again (remeber they said they accept Visa Electron). A few hours later, I get the card rejected again. I retry lots of times for the next 2 days, but it keeps failing. I ask Amazon what's the problem, but they offer a copy/paste solution saying I wrote the card number or expiration date wrong.
I proceed to ask Romcard (the Romanian card authorization service) if I can use my card with non 3-D Secure sites after 3-D Secure activation. These guys claim on their site that they have 24/7/365 (hmm, what about odd years?) support, but decide to ignore my message completely so I never get a reply from them. I then write the same message to the bank. They also decide to ignore the message. So I guess now I'm stuck with a card that's only activated for online shopping on 3-D Secure enabled sites - 3-D Secure, that, as I said, nobody who's anybody implements.
Oh well, who needs Internet shopping. Going to the bank 3 times was a nice workout, and talking to the people improved my people skills. I can always go to another bank, get another card and start all over again. It's a win-win situation.