Hey.. it's a day of 'issues' for me today.

My flatmate has a Uk bank account which she logs into with internet banking, can do everything she likes with it (transfer funds, pay accounts etc) but the one thing she can't do is pay her credit card (it's a simple fund transfer from one account to another). I told her it was probably some IE fault and use a different browser - so she tried firefox.. no go. The page just times out every time and the transfer never happens.

Then I said well it's probably a PC thing, but after trying on my iBook and Powermac and a MacBook... still no go.

After all this, she can go to any internet access point (libraries, internet cafe's etc) and it works first go every go. It has been like this every month for the last 6 months and she's getting annoyed because it's the one payment she really needs to make every month and it's the only one that won't work.

Anyone got any ideas? I've been all through her preferences and made her bank site a trusted site etc, even turned off all security options at one point and it still didn't make a difference. She's using a PC, but since it won't work on a Mac either I thought I'd pester you all!

Just a thought, but might her location in Australia have something to do with the UK site not letting her do that particular thing? It would be odd if it let her do other things but not that - but you never know. Of course, if she's been able to do it previously and it only recently stopped her doing it then it suggests the problem may be elsewhere ...

Well it's only been the last 6 months there has been an issue.. and she can try and do it at home and it won't work, but she can go to an internet cafe' 5 mins away and do it immediately... so basically it works everywhere but here at home...

I thought about location being a problem but she can transfer it in Australia.

I can't think of a reasonable explaination that doesn't involve our internet connection some how... but I can't for the life of me imagine what it is!

A transparent proxy issue with a certain URL, hence the timeout? Identify the url that times out and ask your ISP if the proxy if any will support its use...

Is the URL that times out got some non standard port or something?

I don't think so, she can do everything else with her account at home. Transfer funds from one account of hers to another, transfer funds to another account at another institution, pay off her debit card, everything you can imagine, just not pay off her credit card.

So, unless paying her credit card takes her elsewhere (which it doesn't seem to be any different in the address bar) then my guess is that it's not an issue with the URL.

I will give the ISP a buzz and see what they think... weird huh?

When you tried from your mac, etc you were using the same internet connection as her? That being the case, and that it works fine from elsewhere, to me says it has to be a connection/ISP thing. Just cause you can’t see the URL change doesn't mean it isn't trying to access some other website/service in order to process the payment.

Perhaps try changing the DNS servers? Failing that, you need to discover the particular stage of the process that is failing. I would imagine you'll need to get in touch with your ISP and work through what's being requested, or if you want, attempt to trace things yourself. I would assume the packets etc are encrypted so capturing them won’t be of any use.

Contact the bank in the UK, that's the best option. If she can do everything else but do that transfer, there might be an issue with their internet banking service.