Visa declined because of nationality
 

Hi all,

Maybe this isn't new to you all.

I've got some travel coming up to the states here and I thought I would place an order with Cigars International and pick it up at a friends place while I was there. No deal. They said they cannot accept a Canadian Visa. Odd since Visa is accepted worldwide you might say huh. I've used this particular Visa throughout Central American, the Caribbean and parts of Asia. And I've especially used it throughout the US.

I called them to discuss the different shipping and billing addresses which is a usual culprit. They said no, they would simply would not accept a Visa from Canada and it didn't matter if the product was staying in the US.

I called Visa and they confirmed that they have no reason to say that. Other than not wanting the business. So while I can understand not wanting to deal with cross border shipments and the like, denying the international agreements of a Visa card is way out of line. Visa agrees as well.

Anyhow. That's my story. Would love to know if anyone else had their Visa declined because of their nationality.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Mine worked just fine at LCDH in Grand Cayman and at a duty free shop in Honduras. Not sure why you are having this problem, I would hope they could at least give you a good reason other than, "we don't wanna".

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

The only thing I can think of that maybe the EXCHANGE RATE is not something that would not favor them... :2

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Their reason was that they could not verify a Canadian Visa to be real and therefore will not accept them. But a quick call to Visa confirmed that not to be the case at all. Visa suggested they said that rather than saying they didn't want my business. Any place worldwide that accepts Visa can accept and verify any Visa regardless of the nationality. It is the key selling point of having a Visa, or a Mastercard for that matter. Visa works worldwide and that is their policy. They make it easy for merchants to accept any Visa quickly and efficiently with security of the transaction. Worst case would be that CI would have to manually call the Visa hotline to confirm the billing/shipping address conflict.

So not wanting to ship abroad, fine. I have no issues with that. Not wanting to accept a Visa because of my nationality not cool at all.

To give you an idea of how not cool. We have the largest amount of cross border commerce of any two countries in the world. Over 1.5 billion dollars per day. There are 200 million people crossing our borders each year, all using their Visas. There are millions of people with cross border vacation homes, both ways. All using their Visas. I easily could have been asking for a shipment to my vacation home and had it declined. It was a friends place where I will be staying however. Shouldn't matter though.

I can't imagine what sort of stink would brew up if people started declining Visas from people from the other country just because they felt like it not accepting them.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

No exchange issues. They would get their required American funds. And I would actually pay less for a change.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

In the words of Randy Moss, "straight cash homie."

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

In the words of Huy, "my bad, just saw Visa and I thought credit card."

Hahaha

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Maybe I should just start reading threads. Back to my Randy Moss qoute.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Damn viets! Never read!
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Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Thanks Justin! Bao is a racist!

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

I can't enter Canada because I had a DUI 14 years ago. I've never begun to try to figure it out. Maybe the guy who owns CI can't go to Canada, so he chooses not to do business? Heck, I don't know.
My solution has been "don't go to Canada". I'd suggest you don't buy cigars from CI. I don't, and I can. They suck.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

I dont see where this issue of "nationality" enters this equation. :sh Your credit card was declined, which is a banking issue. A retailer has the right to accept whatever credit cards they want in the course of daily business. Its like showing an AmEx card when only Visa or MC is accepted. There could be any number of reasons for the denial, including banking fees and exchange rate. :2

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

That's rough Shilala. I think that one is about as serious as a manslaughter up here now. I got one a few years back for "care and control". Not sure if you have that down there but let me explain for a laugh. Basically if under the influence you are not allowed to be inside your vehicle. Has nothing to do with driving. Having your keys on you is the charge. An upstanding citizen who knew I had been partying saw me go into my vehicle to get a cd and reported it to the police, being the mighty citizen patrol she is, and they came and arrested me. The car didn't move, the motor didn't turn, in fact the keys were in my pocket the whole time. Little did I know that when the cop questioned me that was the charge. I said my keys were in my pocket the entire time and they read me my rights.

Now the punch line. There was some problems with their case, cough cough. The court told me they would they would drop the impaired charge if I accepted a careless driving. So I took a careless driving even though I in fact wasn't driving at all. And even though it cost me 8,000 in lawyers, 1000 dollars in fines, and a 90 day suspension. I got off really easy.

And ya on an apparent side note. I can't deal with CI apparently, but wouldn't try again anyway.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

bobarian, there is no fee or exchange issues with Visa. A Visa is basically international currency, and mine is in good standing, anywhere on the globe. The retailer gets their funds, American funds if that's where they are. Or Euros in Europe or Birr in Ethiopia if that's your game, and I pay with my own currency, thats the end of it. If I were to walk into any US retailer and hand them my Visa they would have no way of even telling it was Canadian. They took my ship to address and order and then they refused me when the realized my home address was in Canada. It is wholly a nationality issue. 100%.

It's nothing like wanting to use Amex where they won't accept it. They take orders for shipment to US addresses with US Visas. They will not take orders shipping to US addresses with a Canadian Visa is what they said. It's basically the same card worldwide though. Visa says the only reason they would have to decline it is not wanting my business. So if that's there position, fine. But the only reason they have to not want my business is because I am Canadian.

I'd love to hear if I am wrong.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

they have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason, welcome to america.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Ya I get that. It's not just an American thing either loki. I think most of the other 6 billion plus people in the world sell to whoever they want to as well. Welcome to Earth.

I'm not gripping. There are lots of places I can buy from. Just curious if anyone else has had situations like that. I thought maybe it was a point for some intelligent discussion. :sh

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Sorry to hear you had "issues" with CI...but on the bright side, there are plenty of other "cigar stores" to buy sticks from. :D

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

I am surprised that a large retailer like that would deny your purchase because it is a VISA card sponsored in Canada. But, retailers are becoming more and more savy of their true costs of taking credit. I'm in this business and it costs them more to accept payments from foreign bank sponsored cards, period. They have to authorize and clear the payment via a Canadian Bank and I'm pretty certain that VISA charges the retailer more for that (called inter-change and it's in addition to the money they make on the spread in currency rates, believe me). As said here, the retailers can choose, just like some won't accept Discover, AE, etc.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

No offense to any CSRs here, but I'm taking a guess that the CSR you spoke to was misinformed or just didn't care/lazy/trying to get out of doing any extra work that involved them getting up out of their chair to find out the real answer. Once again, no offense to any CSRs who may read this post, but we all know there are some of those types out there.

I'm probably wrong though, CI may have an actual policy that they don't accept Canadian issued Visa cards.

Was the card actually declined, or did the CSR just tell you that they don't accept Canadian issued Visas b/c you told them you were Candian?

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Thanks for chiming in Stevez. I wondered if there was something like that. Visa said there is no reason and no extra fees except a phone call. Maybe they couldn't or didn't want to explain the retailer fee structure with me. I wonder if any other retailer could tell us what sort of fees there is. It can't be much right. Especially for online retailers who do almost all of their business on credit card.

I always thought that Visa was the best way to deal with that stuff. If this is starting to be a common thing I'll probably just drum up a couple pieces of ID and open a US account. Not hard.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Cards good. Order was fine, shipping address was fine. When I gave her my home address she said sorry we have no way of knowing your Visa is authentic. I said sure you do, it's a Visa. It's good worldwide. She said no it's not possible. So I called Visa because this was the first time a Visa retailer ever declined my Visa and the guy actually laughed. He said they just don't want your business.

But you might have a point. Maybe she didn't want to bother. I wonder if her boss would have liked it. I was sending a 700 dollar order.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Sorry I must have missed the part on the CI checkout page where you list your nationality. :rolleyes:

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

It's there, but you gotta look. You have to pick a state in the drawdown box. I haven't got one.

I know. It's weird.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

I've not had my card denied for overseas purchases. Just sayin'.... Sounds like a CI only policy - weird.

CI appears to take p@y-P@l now, which is confusing to me given that online service's disdain for tobacco.

Good luck Polk, hope you find what you're looking while you're down here.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Surprisingly, we have PP here to. It came in along with free will. :r

Thanks for the warm welcome Col. Already done. Orders in, no problem. No issues at all but for the CI try. Always enjoy my time down there greatly too. You guys are really great. Always fun.

Not a big deal in this instance really. But something worth discussing for sure. Probably most didn't see the larger implications here, being a cigar forum and all. But we can look into it deeper. You fellas do more business with us than any other country you deal with. More than China even. And about ten times more than Saudi Arabia. I don't know how many of you know it but we just about double your Saudi imports of oil, you get twice as much from us as you do them. And you haven't had to fight or lose men for any of it. Well since we burned down the Whitehouse anyway. :r

I know, I know. ;s

I wouldn't blame anyone for not knowing this stuff. I've seen CNN and Fox News.
:confused::confused:

And we get lots back. More than just products and dollars too.

So it was surprising that a US retailer would think my business is bad. It's a rare case for sure. And I haven't heard anyone else here, yet anyway. But I was really curious. I'm glad to find out that this isn't common. I hope it doesn't happen the other way either.

Probably best to keep the economies friendly and completely open right. If it were common that we refused business with each other we would have some real economical problems. Something the US doesn't need any more of right now right. It's because we don't have problems that most of us don't know how important the relationship really is. It doesn't make news. Probably why some people looked at this thread and said "WHO CARES". But it's the most important business relationship both countries have. So it deserves some respect. On all levels, from both sides.

Thats it for me. I'm tired. Next time more on smoke I promise.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

bump

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

They don't want your business and don't have balls to say it. They should've offered an alternate solution for you if it was really a "Visa" issue. What BS. I would not business with them from here on in.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

I still say it's not the company, it's the CSR who he spoke with. Bad customer service reps can hurt a business badly.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Having traveled on business all over Europe for a few years I have never had my Visa card denied where Visa is accepted. Hotels, meals, gifts, cigars, you name it. It is definetly up to the merchant if they will accept it or not. Cigars "International" does not seem so international eh?
Im sure with a little looking, whatever they have that you're looking for you can find somewhere else that will be happy to do business with you.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

That's just crazy. Wow.
On the other hand, I hope it's working. I wouldn't put any bets on it, but who knows?

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

One other thought...
Many retailers don't want to take a cc from one place and ship to another. ESPECIALLY if the cc is from one country and shipping is to another.
The opportunity for fraud is huge, and for an American to come and try to find, let alone prosecute a criminal across borders would be just plain impossible.
Heck, with Ppal you can't ship anywhere but your own address.
I can definately see that logic.
If they went to Canadian officials and said "Hey, we sent cigars to somewhere in the US for this Canadian so he could avoid Canadian taxes and skirt Canadian law and this bad man stiffed us by stopping payment after he hauled the smokes across the border", what would the law in Canada say?
CI has absolutely no recourse, not to mention the fact that they've colluded in an illegal act.
If you look at it from that direction, it's simply intelligent business. They'd have to have rocks in their heads to even put themselves in that kind of position, right?
It may be a stretch, but I'm sure it's happened and parties have gotten burned.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

:tpd:
This is what I was thinking when I read the first post.
I'm sure CI doesn't want to tell you on the phone, "we think you might be using a stolen card number." Using a Canadian card to ship to a US address would seem a little fishy to me.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Absolutely. :2

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I would've offered the OP an alternate way of payment than Visa to complete the transaction. It would've made sense if CI said they had policies on shipping to other than the CC address when international, but they did not.

How about a bank wire? Mailed Cert Check? Scan of ID and Credit Card...

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

This. A quality vendor would have found a way to allow a legitimate customer to pay while still covering their backs against fraud, especially since the order in question was for a considerable dollar amount. How they handled it was simply bad business, but that's pretty much how the big boys roll these days; they're so huge and do so much volume that they don't bother taking care of people on an individual basis. Take your business somewhere deserving, there are many smaller vendors in the U.S. that would love your business and have exemplary customer service.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

If you had called visa and added the second ship to address to the allowed list, even for a one time deal, it would have gone through.

I use a company card and ship to other locations other than billing address. Most of the time using a second address will stall or kill the shipping. Just my findings over the years.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Thanks everyone,

Lots of great thoughts. Since this isn't a common issue I really don't care about it very much. If this happened often I would be concerned. And not just in this cigar business. So I'm glad I didn't hear that this happens often.

There are lots of options for me. It's no problem at all. I can have them shipped right to my door if I like. Or obviously physically pick them up in Chicago. Or other retailers will take the order as I planned it. And the retailer has there own options as well of course. Some of the points brought up here enlightened me a little. I had no intentions of fraud or anything. And we are allowed to bring back 50 cigars each duty free, so that isn't an issue either. It perfectly legal. But that's a good point I think.

But still, the truth is that millions of people are doing cross border commerce, something like half a trillion dollars per year. So it's a bit ignorant to assume something fishy. Also the slight fees might be a cross border concern, but I think maybe a tiny one, Still not sure on that. It was probably just a lazy rep. Or more likely an ignorant one.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

I don't know if it is in fact "ignorant" when credit card fraud is also a 9 billion dollar a year problem. Scott raised some interesting points in his post, and being in law enforcement I tend to agree.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

I don't know if this is their logic, but a couple of your assumptions are wrong. First, they have not "colluded in an illegal act" by selling cigars to a Canadian, any more than if we buy CD's, books etc. online. Second, they have no knowledge or responsibility about what the Canadian does after he picks them up in the States. Canadians travel to the US by the millions, we are entitled to purchase legal items and have them shipped to American addresses.
Obviously they can sell to whom they want, but this isn't in any way illegal.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

CI have had this policy for a while. I tried over a year ago with the same result - my Canadian credit card is registered to a Canadian address therefore they will not accept it.

I offered up a US credit card (registered at a US bank) which unfortunately had been reregistered to my new Canadian address (having moved from my previous address Stateside and still wanting to receive statements) and that too was refused. It was not only a credit card but a debit card too, so they could not have been cheated of funds - the money has to be in my account for it to be authorized.

SO, even if you had a US debit card but it is registered to a Canadian address it is unacceptable, according to the two people I spoke to at CI.

I was, like you, going to have my order shipped to a friend in Cali and collect them - as for customs and duty avoidance - we can carry 50 sticks per person back into the country without any tax, so no offence would have been committed.

Still, since that time, Jack Schwartz, Atlantic, and a few other very helpful establishments have benefitted to the tune of a few thousand dollars (I travel a lot). Thank you to the less closed minded vendors.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Strange.... just from a retailers perspective, we take a fairly significant number of orders from Canadian friends who provide us with a US shipping address. As far as the billing and shipping address being different, there are many people who place orders as gifts, and have their order shipped directly to the gift recipient. Sounds like you did get a bad CS rep.

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Every time I've gone to Canada and stopped at the Beer Store I've had to use cash, they don't take American plastic (they took Canadian VISA, but not US.)

Re: Visa declined because of nationality
 

Strange - I've been to liquor store's in BC - on more than one occasion and at more than one store - with friends from the US and from UK and both paid - with UK and US credit cards and there was never even a question.