Card not working in Europe

[HSB44]

Hi, I keep getting my Amex payment denied on terminals - every time I use the card, tap and insert options dont work, so I end up having to swipe. It asks my pin, and once I enter the pin (which I am pretty sure is correct), the payment is denied and it says something like 'no contract'.
This has happened to me at several stores/merchants, with various Euro values - each time they say they accept amex, but my card doesn't go through.

I tried to use amex chat, and they said they did test charges, and my card should be working fine, and the problem must be with the merchant. Unable to help beyond that, except to suggest using paypal, which wasnt very helpful.

Any ideas what could be going wrong?
Could it be a country specific issue? (Portugal)

 

[theblank]

Any ideas what could be going wrong?
Could it be a country specific issue? (Portugal)

You need to ask AMEX why the authorisation was declined, if they say they never recieved an auth request then nothing you can do, except suck it up and use a different card. Technically the merchant needs to follow up with their provider, but what low level shop assistant is going to want to bother doing that for a random traveller, and more likely they wont even know what to do.

 

[HSB44]

Thanks for the advice.
Yes Amex says that they haven't received any requests.

 

[BCons]

Think Amex is similar to other cards - chip & PIN dont work for many Aust cards in UK/Europe - usually end up signing instead.

 

[ausfox]

I have used mine in Scandinavia and then USA this month and it is inconsistent. Varies from touch ok, chip read sometimes with pin other times requiring signature on a screen .

 

[HSB44]

Thanks for the advice - so far when I ask to pay with Amex I haven't been getting the old fashioned choice on the machine of ' savings/cheque/credit' with the dockets to sign for credit... It's just a swipe of the card, machine asks for pin, then ' error no contract'. Visa seems to work fine - insert, then pin, OK.
Will keep persisting.