Sadly, after nearly 30 years as an Insider member I am joining the outsider club (the president is H0 ).

Let me explain why.

When I first joined the insider club, I paid my membership to my local Marklin dealer. Then some years later Marklin decided it would take the payments directly. There was no credit card option at the start, so I needed to make Swift payments. Little did I know that there was a 10 Euro charge at both ends - the Marklin blurb only mentioned 10 Euro at one end. So after the first rejection, I ended up wasting 30 Euro. The next year, I was wiser, but it annoyed me that I was paying an extra 20 Euro on a (I think) 80 Euro transaction.

Anyway, sometime later Marklin decided that they would accept credit card payments. This worked great until this year, when then EU online transaction rules commenced. This meant that payment cards had to support the 3DS 2.0 standard, which is a sort of two factor authentication for online credit card payments. It works like this:
1. You purchase something at an online line store and submit the payment details.
2. Your bank then sends a text message with a one time code.
3. At the same time, your bank opens a webpage and you add the code to the page. (Also known as the Bank's challenge)
4. The transaction is then "authorised".
5. You will see the transaction in your account.

When you change your card details on the Insider page, you see the process in action if your card supports 3DS. My bank tells me that all the cards issued by the four major Australian banks support 3DS v2. My experience with changing my card details on the Insider page confirms this - along with the 2c Australian that they charge to your credit card account every time you make a change. I have racked up 10cents so far playing this game.

This is where the problem starts. The Insider membership is not an online transaction, so there is no way for the bank's challenge to show. I explained this to Marklin, but they keep sending me emails to use a different card. In an email to another Marklin representative, I suggested that they could enable payment from the Marklin store or set up a renewal page within the Club area. The response was that they would not be doing this. The only other option is to go back to the Swift payments - not this little black duck - once bitten, twice shy.

So now I am an Outsider!

I also struggled a bit when I registered my card. but it seems to work now. I used to do a bank transfer.

I find it strange that they don't offer PayPal, when they offer that on their Märklin web shop.

Well done Adrian. I have been a member of the outsiders always except for one year as an inside type when I realised I could get all I wanted without joining and it didnt make me feel special or privilaged.
I did not see anything of any real interest that did not appear on the net and the two insider models I wanted were bought at less than Marklin insiders paid.
I was thinking that we could have an outsider tie or badge which would then make us feel special but then again why waste cash which at the end of the day all goes to buy Marklin and dare I say a few items from other manufacturers.
However I would be happy to be the treasurer for the Outsiders and collect outsiders subscriptions.
PS dont tell Big Daddy as he will think Flash Dave is back.

I join outsider since 2019.

i would recommend using a service like wise.com and you can send/receive money to IBAN/SWIFT BIC and you get a physical credit card and the option to make virtual credit cards to use online.

I find the service very flexible with small fees that I can use it to easily pay German/EuroZone dealers from NZ from my NZ bank account with minimal fees (less than paypal/big banks)

Sorry no, For all purposes I’ve always been an outsider. Wise support the 3DS standard since it’s mandated launch in the EU. However it likely would have the same issue as you describe. Marklin need to sort it out.

However you could use the SWIFT transfer with the minimal fees via wise but I totally understand your current position after all the frustration had