What would you do about this. 5 July 2010 at 8:49AM in How much have you saved? 10 replies 2.5K views

gewizz

We are in Thailand. LloydsTSB blocked our debit cards. This is how much time i spent ringing LloydsTSB Card services to get our cards unblocked.

Almost 1 hour, ringing the UK using a mobile 'phone. It cost about £30 00. How can we get them to pay us this money back?


1st call at 1 17 p.m. local time, lasted 5 minutes 29 seconds.
Problem not resolved.
2nd call at 3 24 p.m. local time, lasted 2 minutes 29 seconds. Problem not resolved.
3rd call at 3 58 p.m. local time, lasted 5 minutes 10 seconds. Problem not resolved.
4th call at 4 05 p.m. local time, lasted 8 minutes 18 seconds. Problem not resolved.
5th call at 7 46 p.m. local time, lasted 10 minutes 58 seconds. Problem not resolved.
6th call at 9 27 p.m. local time, lasted 23 minutes 39 seconds. Problem solved at last.

nomoneytoday

Why didn't you use a calling card?
It would have been significantly less than £5 then

gewizz

nomoneytoday wrote: »

Why didn't you use a calling card?
It would have been significantly less than £5 then

Hi thanks for your reply.

Never heard of a calling card. Can you tell me what it is.

This could be very useful, as you never know when they are going to block your card.

TheRock

before you go away you should always contact your bank and let them know you plan on using the card in whatever country you are going to. they only block the card for security reasons. in future either tell them, get a prepaid mastercard (there are several on the market) or try santander who dont charge you for using your card abroad. other than that the ammount of time you have spent on the phone trying to resolve this is unacceptable i suggest you copy your phone bill and send it off with a letter of complaint to lloyds, highlighting the amount of time spent on the phone to them. expect a refund of 'goodwill'

gewizz

TheRock wrote: »

before you go away you should always contact your bank and let them know you plan on using the card in whatever country you are going to. they only block the card for security reasons. in future either tell them, get a prepaid mastercard (there are several on the market) or try santander who dont charge you for using your card abroad. other than that the ammount of time you have spent on the phone trying to resolve this is unacceptable i suggest you copy your phone bill and send it off with a letter of complaint to lloyds, highlighting the amount of time spent on the phone to them. expect a refund of 'goodwill'

Hi The Rock. The credit card people knew we were in Thailand. They blocked our cards just under 2 weeks ago, but that was sorted in a few minutes. Have written to the them with details of time spent on the phone, and demanded a refund. If no joy will take it further.

Thanks.

MrsBartolozzi

I would agree with gewizz that telling your bank you are off overseas is useless. We told ours that we were going to Iceland a couple of years ago and still had problems over there, luckily we had a selection of (more expensive to use overseas but nevertheless useful) credit cards to choose from. Would have been hell if we'd not had this option.
To the Op, sorry about your plight, i can't add anything useful but hope you get it sorted soon.

gewizz

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

I would agree with gewizz that telling your bank you are off overseas is useless. We told ours that we were going to Iceland a couple of years ago and still had problems over there, luckily we had a selection of (more expensive to use overseas but nevertheless useful) credit cards to choose from. Would have been hell if we'd not had this option.
To the Op, sorry about your plight, i can't add anything useful but hope you get it sorted soon.

The problem with these Call Centres is they not really bothered. it would be good if you could talk to a Team Leader or a Manager. They knew we were in Thailand.:mad: I think the main problem was: I went to a ATM but it would only allow me to withdraw a small amount of money.(5000 Thai Baht) so i cancelled. This seems to ring alarm bells if you cancel your transaction. Each transaction costs 150 Thai Baht no matter if withdraw 5000 or 20,000. but still going to fight this one.

DaveW007

I know it doesn't help you but I used to work for Lloyds TSB in one of their call centres. I felt so sorry when people used to get cards blocked whilst on holiday.

Lloyds TSB claim it is to try and stop fraudulent transactions. It doesn't help letting them know before hand either. PM me and in the mean time I'll try and dig out some contacts at Llloyds TSB for you in the hope you may be able to get reimbursed for your calls.

Bob_the_Saver

What I'd do is take a pre-paid card as a back-up, this happens all the time with every bank that I know.

Peggy40

Ive been banking with Abbey National since leaving school. Since they were taken over by Sandtander, I've had no end of bother with them cancelling direct debits ? Its happened about 10 times in the space of a year, and now, the only way around it is to debit these amounts myself every month! Not happy! Come back Abbey.

NeverInDebt

Abbey use to be a great bank but over the years they dramatically got worse to be fair I notice Halifax are just as bad

Peggy40 wrote: »

Ive been banking with Abbey National since leaving school. Since they were taken over by Sandtander, I've had no end of bother with them cancelling direct debits ? Its happened about 10 times in the space of a year, and now, the only way around it is to debit these amounts myself every month! Not happy! Come back Abbey.