No funnies here I'm afraid.
Apologies for length. It turned out longer than I expected. How nice it is to be able to say that. fnar.

Being an apple fan gurl, and a blind bint to boot, I was orgasmically pleased when the iphone 3gs came out last month. It's the first mobile phone that is accessible to us blind feckers out of the box because it features a screen reader built in. No having to lay out 150 notes for third party software to actually be able to use the phone. Result.

Saddo that I am, I was up at about four am to buy one - and the accompanying 18 month contract - via the O2 website on launch day. I go through all the dross of which one do I want, how would I like to pay, what contract do I want, la la la, get to the credit card payment bit and find that upon entering my verified by visa info my credit card is declined.
"Fuck," me thinks, "Maybe I put it in wrong", knowing full well that I didn't - and as far as I know, you get three goes before they lock you up and I got refused on the first go. The webpage asks me if I would like to try a different card. So I try my debit card instead. Same thing - card declined.
Thinking their crappy website is responsible (wouldn't be the first time), I get on the blower to the customer service droids come eight o' clock when the lines open to do it over the phone. Go all through the shit again - which one do I want, yada yada - get to giving card details, which I damn well know are right, and credit card declined. " Lets try your debit card," says the tele tubby.
Ditto - denied ! - do not pass go, to not drop £200 on a shiny new iphone, you (obviously to them somehow) suspicious scumbag.

Somewhat unnerved now I phone up my bank and explain my tale of woe, expecting to be told it's O2's fault as they have proved totally inept mongoloids in the past. However, I'm told that because every one and their dog wants an iphone 3gs and is obviously prepared to beg, borrow, steal or presumably murder another card holder and fraudulently use their card to get said item, my bank's policy is to decline the transaction for such an item with O2 forthwith without so much as a by-your-leave. To protect me from fraud, they say.
I am then told that it's ok now though - try it again and as we know it's really you wot wants to use your own card to make a perfectly innocent purchase, we'll allow you to. How gracious.
Cue me on the fucking phone to O2 on hold for bloody ages until I get through again. Sigh. All goes through this time though.
"What a stupid bank I have," thinks I.

Two weeks later, fiance wants to get a shiny iphone 3gs too. He's been playing with mine and loves it (my phone, you dirty swines !) He's enraptured because he is also a blind bugger and has to get some of this accessible touch screen action for himself.
Off to the O2 website we go. Go through the gubbins. Get to inputting card details. Input them.
Card declined. Try another one.
Try his debit card.
Declined.
"Bollocks," says he. We're thinking this surely has to be something to do with O2, as he's with a different bank to me and this is too much of a coincidence.
"You could always try Carphone Whorehouse, they've got them too," I chirp.
So we away to the carphone whorehouse website and order from there. And guess what ? Same deal - cards declined.
He phones his bank up, explains issues, and is told that they also have a policy not to let any perfectly financially solvent and sensible people buy an iphone 3gs from anywhere selling one.
Assumedly one now has to phone up the bank to let them know before you want to use your cards to actually buy something for yourself with you own money. It's not like we don't buy gadgets or similar value items often either - in the last year, we've bought a fair few similar value items of electronic trickery over the space of six months. However the iphone 3gs rang all the alarm bells with both our banks and stopped the cards dead. Which is odd because I'm fairly sure I heard that one cannot buy this item for cash in a store - it has to be via card payment. For security reasons.

But when our cards got cloned last year and some shagnasty nerk made fraudulent transactions to the tune of three grand in the space of a few days at online betting sites and airport shops - places such as we have never ever been to ourselves - did our security conscious banks decline said transactions to protect us ?
Of course not.

FFS.
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Wed 22 Jul 2009, 14:30, 3 replies)

Pedantry
Unless your card is in credit, it's not actually your own money you're spending.
(minlan no longer barks at bancleys, Wed 22 Jul 2009, 20:53, closed)

not wishing to argue too much
but I would have thought a touch screen is a fucking nightmare for blind people. I can use my nasty old nokia without looking and I'm not blind. My iphone however is a nightmare (i'm old) even when i'm looking - can never seem to press the right bit of the screen and I'm forever loading the wrong crappy app.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 23 Jul 2009, 9:46, closed)

also
and theres no way to say this without sounding like a bit of cunt, but that reply must have taken you ages. Hope it wasnt on the iphone. Othweipfdois it woflld ahavwip lopke dlijke this
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 23 Jul 2009, 9:51, closed)