It's a standard "big-corp" thing. I can understand why they'd avoid saying why a credit card transaction was rejected, but they're missing an opportunity to remind the world that their corporation is actually made up of humans.
Perhaps, but it's easier to hide behind the "corporate veil" when you're part of a huge company. You can get away with saying "that's not allowed" at every turn, while the CEO of a 20 person company is much more accessible to help deal with these problems. The reality is that most big companies would be much better off if their CEOs actually knew about issues like this ... I think most of them care about customer satisfaction quite a bit but are insulated from that level of detail.
