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My curve card is blocked after a series of frustrating transactions. Curve support are not responding other than “we’re working on it”
I had a refund of £1400 due from Octopus that I requested to my bank account. They did not do this, instead they refunded to by Curve card (where the original payment came from). They did not refund one sum, but 4 : £1000, £75, £125 and £200.
The 3 smaller transactions passed through Curve and credited the underlying Visa card OK; the £1000 was placed by Curve in my cash account (!). This was last Tuesday and my Visa bill was due yesterday. I exchanged multiple messages with Curve last week up until Friday, but no joy.
As we hit the weekend I had to do something; so I used PayPal between me and my wife to move the money. As we were first time PayPal users, we were restricted to £40 max value per transaction. I therefore made 25 separate movements out of the cash account. It all worked OK and I paid my Visa bill
At the end of Saturday it became apparent that my Curve card is blocked. Onto Curve support, but no resolution yet.
One thought I had is that multiple small transactions may have triggered a fraud alert (?) and they placed a precautionary hold on the card.
Anyone else experienced this, or any other suggestions what might have gone wrong? If relevant I have a relatively high amount going through Curve each month (always in excess of £5k)
Thanks all!
Steve
If you’re asking are 25 identical £40 transactions suspicious, I would say Yes absolutely. I’m surprised PayPal haven’t objected as well.
@scwadman – Curve would normally put the £1000 into Curve Cash because they can’t identify the original transaction to which the refund relates. If you tell them, they should be able to put it back onto the underlying card. Ordinarily it wouldn’t matter as you can just spend that ‘credit’ until exhausted but if you need the cash to pay off the card, that’s more problematic although a credit in a different statement period isn’t always treated as a payment towards the last period’s balance.
As @AndrewT says, the 25 x £40 charges were a high risk resolution route; actually quite surprising they allowed so many transactions.
At least you got the money out before the card was blocked.
Lots of people here with Curve cards blocked recently (including myself). Nothing you can do really, they seem to either solve issues within a couple of days or never.
Try to make an official complaint. Do it via Resolver.co.ukFirst forum post and a litany of provocative content.
Shoestring, is that you? 🎣😂
I got my card finally unblocked only after raising a formal complaint… which took 3 weeks to respond to. So only the six weeks to get a response to something a normal card issuer can do instantly..!!
Is this another in the long run of first time posters asking questions that seem completely ridiculous. E.G.:
@scwadman – Curve would normally put the £1000 into Curve Cash because they can’t identify the original transaction to which the refund relates. If you tell them, they should be able to put it back onto the underlying card. Ordinarily it wouldn’t matter as you can just spend that ‘credit’ until exhausted but if you need the cash to pay off the card, that’s more problematic although a credit in a different statement period isn’t always treated as a payment towards the last period’s balance.
As @AndrewT says, the 25 x £40 charges were a high risk resolution route; actually quite surprising they allowed so many transactions.
Yes, that was my asumption. But I cannot confirm it as curve are non-responsive
At least you got the money out before the card was blocked.
Lots of people here with Curve cards blocked recently (including myself). Nothing you can do really, they seem to either solve issues within a couple of days or never.
Try to make an official complaint. Do it via Resolver.co.ukI have logged with Resolver. My preference would be to talk to someone at Curve, but that seems impossible
@scwadman – Curve would normally put the £1000 into Curve Cash because they can’t identify the original transaction to which the refund relates. If you tell them, they should be able to put it back onto the underlying card. Ordinarily it wouldn’t matter as you can just spend that ‘credit’ until exhausted but if you need the cash to pay off the card, that’s more problematic although a credit in a different statement period isn’t always treated as a payment towards the last period’s balance.
As @AndrewT says, the 25 x £40 charges were a high risk resolution route; actually quite surprising they allowed so many transactions.
Yes, that was my asumption. But I cannot confirm it as curve are non-responsive
Is this another in the long run of first time posters asking questions that seem completely ridiculous. E.G.:
It is not a deliberately provocative topic. Just a statement of fact, followed by a request for help from anyone with more experience of Curve than me.
Does anyone know how to talk to Curve to speak to a human being?
I am amazed at this. How could you think making 25 identical transactions at the max allowed would not trigger issues? It is what fraudsters would do to empty an account as quickly as possible (in fact, they would probably vary so as not to trigger this issue…).
I would fully expect a full KYC check where you have to prove all of this was you, and the provenance of the funds. I would strongly advise to be totally honest with this. At the end of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if curve (and Paypal for that matter) closed your account.Remember Reaolver is only a site that that helps you make a complaint and to keep all communication in one place about your case.
You’re still dealing with the company you’re complaining about and if they don’t want to talk to you and only deal with emails then Reaolver can’t make them.
Yes, I have used Resolver before.
My strong preference is to talk to someone at Curve, but I have no clue how to! I leave messages on the phone number, but no-one calls back and no-one responds to emails to support, not to chat sessions in the app.
I cannot find them on X either!
Any suggestions will be taken on board!
I am amazed at this. How could you think making 25 identical transactions at the max allowed would not trigger issues? It is what fraudsters would do to empty an account as quickly as possible (in fact, they would probably vary so as not to trigger this issue…).
I would fully expect a full KYC check where you have to prove all of this was you, and the provenance of the funds. I would strongly advise to be totally honest with this. At the end of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if curve (and Paypal for that matter) closed your account.Yes, I have explained to them what happened in writing and have included screenshots. The short version is that my credit of £1,000 went to cash instead of matching the £1,000 payment on Visa. I had 2 days to access it before my Visa payment was due, but Curve was non-responsive.
I sought multiple ways to access my cash and the PayPal seemed the best. I was constrained by a £40 per transaction limit, so the only way I could access my cash in time was to make the transfers.
All this was a genuine, above-board way to get access to my money that Curve put in the wrong place. PayPal was used for its intended purpose and Curve authorised all the transactions.
Only subsequently did they block my card. They have not told me why, but a fair assumption is that I triggered one of the fraud alerts. I would simply like this confirmed and for them to read all the material I have sent them proving that my actions were a direct consequence of them putting my refund in the wrong place and then not responding to my requests for help
Too late now but could you not have paid the Visa bill with your Curve card? When I have Curve Cash I use it to pay credit card bills or pay into savings accounts.
Too late now but could you not have paid the Visa bill with your Curve card? When I have Curve Cash I use it to pay credit card bills or pay into savings accounts.
Tried that. The Visa card is under Curve so rejected
1) Octopus was always going to refund to the original source.
2) You could’ve gone to a cash machine and withdrew £500 x2 and deposited that into your bank account.
3) curve chat isn’t live they do respond but takes a while and isn’t always obvious they have.
4) so you could send your wife 25x£40 and she could withdraw it that quickly to her bank account without any verification amount to the bank account or PayPal getting suspicious 🤣
scwadman 8 posts
Too late now but could you not have paid the Visa bill with your Curve card? When I have Curve Cash I use it to pay credit card bills or pay into savings accounts.Tried that. The Visa card is under Curve so rejected
I don’t understand if the Visa issuer blocked the payment from Curve or Curve blocked it.
I had Aqua MasterCard in my Curve wallet and could use Curve cash to pay the Aqua bill.
@scwadman – Curve, in common with many fintechs and internet based companies don’t really want to offer human contact and if you were to be able to speak to one, you might be equally dissatisfied. It feels a bit rich to pin all this on Curve. You waited until the very last minute to pay your Visa bill, hoping to do so from a refund that many cards actually wouldn’t anyway apply to repay the last month’s balance. Octopus correctly refunded your card (many firms have wised up to being paid by card and then being asked for cash refunds). There was no certainty as to when that refund would be forthcoming and Curve would apply a refund directly to your underlying, but not if they can’t automatically match the refund to the original transaction. You then proceeded to carry out a remarkable number of transactions in order to pay off your Visa card through borrowing.
It seems rather harsh to say that this sequence of events is a “direct consequence of them putting my refund in the wrong place and then not responding to my requests for help”. It just isn’t. Firms do make errors, but customers also need to take responsibility for their own actions.
All this was a genuine, above-board way to get access to my money that Curve put in the wrong place. PayPal was used for its intended purpose and Curve authorised all the transactions.
It may have felt like that to you but as we see here on a regular basis various financial, airline and hotel institutions don’t always share that view leading to closed accounts etc etc.a
@scwadman – Curve, in common with many fintechs and internet based companies don’t really want to offer human contact and if you were to be able to speak to one, you might be equally dissatisfied. It feels a bit rich to pin all this on Curve. You waited until the very last minute to pay your Visa bill, hoping to do so from a refund that many cards actually wouldn’t anyway apply to repay the last month’s balance. Octopus correctly refunded your card (many firms have wised up to being paid by card and then being asked for cash refunds). There was no certainty as to when that refund would be forthcoming and Curve would apply a refund directly to your underlying, but not if they can’t automatically match the refund to the original transaction. You then proceeded to carry out a remarkable number of transactions in order to pay off your Visa card through borrowing.
It seems rather harsh to say that this sequence of events is a “direct consequence of them putting my refund in the wrong place and then not responding to my requests for help”. It just isn’t. Firms do make errors, but customers also need to take responsibility for their own actions.
You have not understood what I have said. There was a payment of £1000 to Octopus that Curve should have matched to. They did not do that for the £1000, but did do it for the 3 smaller paymants.
I did not wait until the last minute. I always pay my Visa bill in full a few days before it’s due. I requested the refund weeks in advance of this and the ones that went to the right place did so within 24 hours.
I did not fund the Visa payment from borrowing. I used my cash that Curve put in the wrong place.
I fully accept that what I did could possibly trigger a fraud alert which resulted in my card being blocked. I do not accept that they are uncontactable and refusing to answer messages in any medium I use.
Too late now but could you not have paid the Visa bill with your Curve card? When I have Curve Cash I use it to pay credit card bills or pay into savings accounts.
Tried that. The Visa card is under Curve so rejected
In case anyone’s following this. Card now unblocked. No information on what the problem was or what I have to do to prevent a recurrence.
I still suspect the multiple small transactions triggered something, but it would have been nice to have that confirmed. They probably don’t want to confirm/deny any fraud protection measures they have in place. Which makes sense. But is not helpful!
Glad you got it sorted.
Yeah, they will never disclose what caused an anti-fraud trigger, else people would know what to do to circumvent it!
I think a lot of financial organisations will play it safe and block/flag accounts for anything that looks suspicious which is fair enough. However it’s frustrating when it’s a massive upheaval to get things resolved in genuine cases
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