Hold on Citi-Bank Card. WTF?

[stevej37]

Had the 78SC out yesterday...needed gas. Slid my chip Citi-Bank card in and before I could even let go of it...the pump screen said CARD DENIED.
Tried to pull the card out...nope. Two steel pins had dropped down making it impossible to draw it back out.
I pushed the help button on the pump a couple times and it wasn't long before a young lady came jogging out. She tried..no luck. Said she would have to shut the pump down and reset it. She did that twice..no luck.
It was going on 10 minutes since I pulled in and she offered me popcorn and fountain drink..'on the house'
I told her "no thanks...I just want my credit card back".
The third time, she shut the entire island of three pumps down and after powering back up she was able to get into the control screen.

My card is good..with a high credit level. When she finally got my card out, I just left.
I wasn't going to try that pump again.
Later stopped at a diff station...worked fine.

[stevej37]

This was chip-card reader pump...where the card almost disappears, making it easy to trap with the steel pins.

[Rick Lee]

I had a valid Citi card get declined last week, though it was for an online transaction in Germany. PayPal worked though.

[stevej37]

Had the same thing happen with the same card this am at Meijers with the self-checkout.
Thankfully, their readers have no pins to lock the card. I re-inserted the card..it worked.
Something going on?

I know these readers are fast...but both instances happened the same second that I slid the card in.