I'll verify with Visa … it's impossible­ to pay my bill

I attempted to renew my home insurance with Aviva by credit card. It was straightforward until Verification by Visa (Visa's extra layer of security) came into play. It kept rejecting my applications. I phoned my bank, First Direct, who told me that my payment had been approved six times. Aviva returned the five unnecessary payments and First Direct refunded the interest charged on the credit card. Verification by Visa sent me a tenner for my troubles.­ Should I tug my forelock and say thanks? There must be something fundamentally wrong with a system that allows payments to go through while indicating failure. GB, London Visa says this is an issue with your bank but First Direct says it isn't. Aviva agreed to investigate but, four months later, is still unable to work out why the bank's system authorised payments with incorrect ID. It held meetings with HSBC which handles its card processing­ and reran your experience but each time its computer prevented multiple payment submissions, as it should. HSBC says you entered the correct­ password the first time, and the transaction­ was immediately processed.­ You then attempted the other five but using incorrect passwords. Payments­ with the wrong password clearly should not go through, but these did. You would not have kept trying if your computer screen had told you that the first transaction was successful. It said you had failed, so you assumed you had written the password wrongly and tried others. Aviva's technical guys tried again to discover what went wrong, but say this has never happened before, or since, and put it down to an inexplicable one-off occurrence. • Email Margaret Dibben at [email protected] or write to Margaret Dibben, Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU and include a telephone number. Do not enclose SAEs or original documents. Letters are selected for publication and we cannot give personal replies. The newspaper accepts no legal responsibility for advice.