IT STARTED innocently enough: I was picking up items from the Virgin Megastore in Los Angeles and handed over my credit card to process the transaction.

But what transpired next made me wonder if one credit card can truly be relied on.

The Virgin clerk slid the card through his machine... And repeated it again after 30 seconds. He then handed me back my card and said that the transaction could not go though.

My first thought that afternoon was that I maxed out my limit during the last few days in LA but a few sums in my head confirmed that I was nowhere near the ceiling. The next horrific thought was that somehow, somewhere, my credit card got skimmed and some fraudster was shopping for high-end items on my account.

I immediately asked the staff to give it another shot and he was nice enough to do it. Hey, maybe the photo ID I handed over to verify my identity stated that I was not American, and he definitely would not recgonise the Singapore bank logo on the black card, but I could tell that he recognised the American Express logo and was giving the familiar brand another chance.

A minute later, he twirled his computer monitor over and I could read what he saw on screen during the last two attempts – "Card Rejected. Do Not Honor". To his credit, he did not whip out a pair of scissors on my card. 

This time though, shame overwhelmed me together with the fear that was already there. As I paid for my purchase with another credit card, I flipped over my black card and started dialing the 24-hour Singapore number on the other side. Something was amiss and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. 

It did not matter that it was past 3am in Singapore and I knew I was going to be chalking up a huge overseas bill dialing a local number. But hey, here was another interesting experiment to test - would a 24-hour hotline be busy at 3am (Singapore time)?

Apparently, it was and the reason I know is because the automated voice recording informed me that the line was receiving high call traffic (at 3am Singapore time?) and I had to wait for the first available operator to be available. 

I pressed on and was kept on hold for a good 10 minutes before a live person spoke to me. After explaining my situation, she explained that, at the point of my transaction, the bank was undergoing a system update which prevented my purchase from going through.

"But it only lasted a minute and you can start using your card again," she said.

No apologies were given, and no assurances were provided that my credit card details were safe and no one tried to use them without my knowledge. Because really, isn't that the first thing that pops to mind when your credit card is rejected and you call the hotline?

Naturally I perservered and she finally did a check for me, noting that my last transaction was over 15 hours ago, one that I thankfully recalled making. But surprisingly, the bank lady told me that the details of the transaction were not available and she could not tell me the retailer that I last dealt with. Somehow, the update excluded details of my most recent transaction.

So to sum up: I had a credit card that did not work for less than a minute (or so she said) and when I called up (from overseas) to check, I was put on hold for 10 minutes. When I finally got through, I was given no assurances and had to press on for more details before I could hang up feeling satisfied that my money was safe.

Hey, now that I think about, maybe this was why there was high call traffic then – other card holders were calling asking about the same thing.

Chances are, the window in which my card could not be used was a fluke occurrence, but I think the bank could have done a better job in maintaining its efficiency and more importantly, assure worried card holders that they weren't victims of fraud.

But more importantly for consumers, never ever rely on just one credit card. 

Can you imagine if it stopped working for just one minute?