Another Barclays story - daughter stranded abroad

mbriody

Last week my 18 year old daughter was completely stranded whilst backpacking in Thailand after Barclays automated fraud detection system decided to lock her account. This was despite her telling them in advance of her travel plans and dates.

I won't go into all the details (there's 4 pages of it in my complaint letter to them) but the gist is she used all her PAYG credit trying to resolve the issue over the phone and her credit ran out with the issue unresolved. She then used the last of her cash to buy a calling card and tried again but with a similar result. Finally in desperation she borrowed a phone off someone (a friend about to leave the country) and rang us, sobbing. Believe me this is not a call any parent wants to receive when their child is thousands of miles away in strange country on their own.

Anyway after we'd calmed her a little and understood the problem we said we would try to resolve the issue. After hanging up though we had no further means of contacting her, which was very disconcerting. We couldn't call her own phone because PAYG needs to have credit to receive calls abroad. My wife and I are temporarily based in Australia so our credit and debit cards would not top up her UK PAYG phone either.

Of course we were understandably very worried but Barclays call centre staff were useless and couldn't have cared less. After initially getting an indian call centre they could not even understand the issue so we demanded to be put through to the UK.

The UK staff were just as bad. They simply would not take on board the seriousness of the situation and stated that they could do nothing. In addition they directly lied to me at least twice, finally fobbing me off by giving me a 'reverse charge' number direct to the fraud department (which was currently closed) to pass on. This was despite me telling them I had no way to relay the information to my daughter. My suggestion of a temporary release of a small amount of funds to at least allow her to top up her phone was also dismissed. Having been on hold and talking for well over an hour I finally gave up.

In the end I had to get a friend in the UK out of bed to go and top up my daughter's phone. Then we waited overnight for the fraud centre to open. I then tried the 'reverse charge' number myself and found it was nothing of the sort, it simply put you in the normal queue :wall:

After another 20 minutes on hold I eventually got through, explained the situation and pleaded with them to call her directly rather than making her go through the interminable 'on hold' system and the risk of her credit running out again. Finally they agreed and eventually some time later the block was removed.

I am absolutely appalled that they can behave in this way, potentially putting my daughter in harm's way through no fault of her own and with no way for her to resolve the problem without outside intervention.

Then of course there's the £90 of PAYG credit wasted on incoming and outgoing calls, my costs of reimbursing my friend in the UK plus my own telephone bill of around $100 AUD. All costs we have incurred due to their policies.

Among the questions I'd like addressed are:

1.Why in such cases, is the first response not to call, text or email the account owner and verify the potentially fraudulent transactions instantly with them or at least make them aware there is a problem?
2.Why do they not provide a true reverse charge number for international cases, such as is provided by all the major credit card companies and many other banks?
3.Why is there not somebody available 24/7/365 to deal with international fraud cases? My daughter had to sleep rough (and we did not seleep at all) because no-one was available in the UK to deal with the problem at the time it occurred.
4.Why did they ignore the advice about my daughter’s travel plans and not take this into account before deciding to freeze her account?
5.Why do they not offer a system whereby a parent or trusted person can be set up as a proxy to act for someone travelling abroad?
6.Why did their customer service team give, at best, incorrect and at worst deliberately misleading information about the phone contact number when dealing with this case?

If you are travelling abroad and are with Barclays then beware. I just hope that no young person comes to actual harm in the future as a result of one of these incidents.

Poolie

There is a way to setup access to someone else account. This called Power of Attorney. This requires a solictor to setup the paperwork and some companies take it that the original account holder can then not access their account.

noh

The experience of your daughter highlights the neccestity of having more than one means of payment when travelling.

CLAPTON

Barcalys are totally unsuited for travellers as they will only allow you to specify a maximum of two foreign countries at any one time. If you want to go to more (and how unusual is that?) you need to update your list as you go... pretty impractical although I think you can now do it online.


The practical alternative is
-carry two debit cards
-two CCs
-make sure a trusted person (parents) have online access to all the accounts
-hold some cash (US dollars)
-some traveller cheques (US dollars)

simax

The number they gave WOULD have been a reverse charge number if your daughter called the local operator and asked for a reverse charge call to that number.

As it stands, it just goes to show how paranoid the UK banks are at the moment.

johnmoney05

Open a skype account. You can call back to the UK for better price. Can use it on your netbook or internet cafe. I had two occasions that I needed to call the bank in the UK from Germany and China. They sorted out the problem within couple of hours for a 5 mins call.

mbriody

Don't forget she is only 18 - she doesn't have a credit card.. Nationwide wouldn't give her a debit card which is why she went to Barclays.

Online access is out due to Barclays TFA system - you have to physically insert the card into a calculator like device which generates a code to allow you online access.

Next time I think she would take the lot in cash.

CLAPTON wrote: »

The practical alternative is
-carry two debit cards
-two CCs
-make sure a trusted person (parents) have online access to all the accounts
-hold some cash (US dollars)
-some traveller cheques (US dollars)

mbriody

Wrong! I tried that from Oz and the operator said it was not a reverse charge number. If you dial the number it goes straight to a queue. You either need an auomated message which says something like "operator we accept revese charge calls" or a line which is answered immediately by a real person, which this wasn't.

simax wrote: »

The number they gave WOULD have been a reverse charge number if your daughter called the local operator and asked for a reverse charge call to that number.

simax

mbriody wrote: »

Wrong! I tried that from Oz and the operator said it was not a reverse charge number. If you dial the number it goes straight to a queue. You either need an auomated message which says something like "operator we accept revese charge calls" or a line which is answered immediately by a real person, which this wasn't.

Hmmm... how strange. Should work, but hey what do I know? I've only spent 14 years in the telecommunications industry :rolleyes:

simpywimpy

I always send one of my credit cards with my children if they are travelling any distance without me as an emergency measure. Perhaps its something worth thinking about if you have a card you don't need to use .

I now do the same on a UK trip after my son had an accident in London recently and missed the coach home.

missm29

How terrible, i hope she will be closing her account when she returns. I always carry a number of cards, too many times i've been caught with a trolley full of food and my card declined, even though theres money available. Many years ago i had a credit card for my dads credit card account, had to check with him before i used it, and it wasn't allowed for clothes/shoes, can't remember if i was 18 though.