Bank card blocked

FannyHill

My brother has been abroad for a few months in the Philippines. His Abbey National bank card has been blocked even though only he is using it for purchases and cash withdrawals.He has plenty of money in his account.
He sent me an email to take into the local branch asking for the block to be lifted as he now has very little cash,but they said he has to ring a UK number from the Philippines and answer some security questions to have the block lifted. They say they can't do this at the branch.

Is this correct ?


The lady I spoke to said he is supposed to tell the building society before he goes abroad which countries he's going to and for how long otherwise the system might flag his account as having suspicious activity on it and may be blocked.

Again he said to me in his email that he had been going to the Philippines during the winter for a number of years and the card has always worked fine before.

Do you only have to tell the bank or building society if it's certain countries you are going to or does this apply to all countries.
Does this apply to credit cards as well as cashcards ?


When I have gone abroad my cards have always worked fine although I tend to go to the US and Canada.

And to make things worse it seems his credit card has now stopped working.

Any advice appreciated.

bafty_crastard

He will need to call the bank to get the card unblocked.

I had never had any problems using my card abroad until last summer. I had called my credit card company before I went away to tell them I would be in the US and was travelling through a few states. After about a week my credit card was declined when I was paying for petrol. My OH tried his bank card (joint account, same issuing bank) and it was declined too. When I called the next day I was told it looked suspicious as the credit card had been used in 2 different states. They said phoning in advance makes no difference. If the pattern of use is different to normal the card/cards will be blocked.

anotherpaul_2

He may be able to reverse the charges, if he can figure out how to do that from the Philippines.

Some of them want you to tell them in advanve and some of the aren't interested. There seems to be no way to tell without phoning them up and trying to give them the information.

withnell

Abbey blocked my debit card because I added a new external account and made a transfer for 1k - apparently it might be fraudulent when this happens (they never bother to ring though). Once he calls up the fraud number they do unblock the card straight away though.

FannyHill

Thanks for the replies.

So even if you tell them the countries you are going to they might still stop the card.

Many years ago when I visited the US I used to buy Amex travellers cheques in US dollars and just use them as needed.

Perhaps I'll do that next time I visit as a backup for my credit cards.

normanmark

The system that blocks the card is a fully automated one. So if it blocks, it blocks. Telling your card company of any travel plans, just means that if the card blocks & you have to call to unblock it, they don't have to go through a big investigation to establish if you're in a specific country making the transactions.

FannyHill

So it's a program that automatically blocks the card if it thinks there may be suspicious activity.

YIKES.


They always say "this is for the benefit of the customer" so I guess they really have our interests at heart.

Banks and credit card companies are so caring. :rotfl:

normanmark

The system looks at the pattern of spending & where it happens. Its trained to spot fraudulent activity & anything suspicious or out of the ordinary.

Look at it on the other foot, if it wasn't there & someone cleared the account you'd be complaining that the bank wasn't doing enough. Better safe than sorry.

FannyHill

The difficulty I suppose is keeping a happy balance trying to stop fraudulent activity without hampering the customer too much.

Some people have said that in some countries the daily amount you can take out of an ATM has been lowered. They then have to go four times in a week instead of once and the automated program sees this as suspicious and blocks the card.