Manual authorization in an automated age?

I recently had some payments to Google fail to go through as my bank (Visa issuer) had implemented some new fraud checks. They said they sent Google a response to the transaction request advising them to call in to do a manual authorization.

This seemed crazy to me on a number of levels. First they should have a profile of where fraud is coming from, I don't think Google is a source of fraud. Second, they should be able to white list merchants that I approve. Third, they should be able to push through automated charges once they have Google and the card holder on the phone saying it's a good charge.

Is "manual authorization" still common or is it on the way out? Have you experienced this as a merchant or a buyer?

 

Surprisingly it is fairly common with card issuers. Some banks completely block transactions from certain types of businesses. They do it saying that they are protecting their cardholders, but in reality they are protecting their own wallet. A little rediculous that banks can actually control what you purchase with your credit card.

As far as getting the bank to let it go through, from my experience the card holder can usually call the bank and tell them to let it go through. I imagine that some banks have some insane procedure that prevents them from allowing it even at the customer's request.

Additionally, calling in to do a manual transaction is a huge pain for the business itself. It normally takes a lot of time, and it costs about $2.50 more per transaction every time they call in to do it.

 

Yes it take a few more minutes but if you are not using VBV / MSC or profiling the merchants through other means, you need to protect your merchant account

 

I can see this for smaller companies when dealing with unknown clients but Google screens those that they sell advertizing to and in my case I have had over 100 transactions with them each transaction is in the $XXX range.

This same credit card company called me at Christmas time to tell me that there were multiple online charges on my card and they were ready to start rejecting. The main concern they had was over some company called Amazon (I think they thought it was related to some river in Africa ).