Using Metro Bank Account abroad - feedback...

bubieyehyeh

I've been caught out by the reserved charges on a debit card before. Checking into to a Hotel, they swiped my nationwide debit card, checked out a week later and tried to pay the £600 bill with £1000 pound in the account, and it was refused, becuase the Hotel had reserved the full bill on checkin. So I paid with a credit card.

I now only use debit cards abroad for ATM transactions and a credit card for all other purchases.

I have a metro bank card and have had no problems using it at ATMs in France or Switzerland.

But I do think the OP should have left a large buffer of money in the account when abroad, but I probably be called an idiot for saying that

jonesMUFCforever

proeleche wrote: »

I take your point about leaving your balance close to zero, but when we were in Bangkok, my available balance should have been over £100 at that point, so trying to make a transaction for roughly £20 wasn't being unreasonable (I don't think); my intention was to send money over from HSBC as and when I needed it, and then I couldn't as the available balance was circa £300 overdrawn due to the duplications - they have agreed to pay my HSBC fees. But you're correct that I should not have completely relied on faster payments.

And I take the point about having double what you intend to spend, but as I mentioned in my first post, nobody at Metro Bank informed me of any issues (why would they?). And I have seen no mention of it on the forums. Besides, I'm not a millionaire - unfortunately... hehe.

I just wanted to make people aware that there are issues, and from what the operations manager at Fulham has told me, these are being investigated and should be ironed out soon.

How much did your hotel ''reserve'' on your card??
I would stick to the big banks If I were you.

Olipro

I've used Metro Bank's card in Hong Kong myself - the bank's system is (of course) automated and will block any funds that a merchant obtains authorisation for until the auth falls off or the funds get taken. I have had a *few* merchants who double-auth, and that's the merchant's fault, not Metro Bank's.

Protip: use a credit card (or some other card) for authorisations, only use your desired card when making the actual, final payment.

Frankly, your story only serves to demonstrate what will happen to you if you decide to "live on the edge" - you make it clear in your complaint that you aren't actually using Metro Bank for anything other than free overseas withdrawals and that you are still using HSBC since you seem to go about your business by transferring the bare minimum to cover whatever you anticipate you will have to pay for - had you maintained a reasonable buffer in excess of what you were spending, you wouldn't have suffered any "stress" or "inconvenience" and frankly only have yourself to blame, I realise it's, as you put it, not your fault that you're "not a millionaire" - but neither is it Metro bank's.

Quite frankly, had you used any other UK bank, I would wager you would have had exactly the same issues, but more-so, since I find it extremely unlikely that you would have managed to get a pending authorisation manually cancelled like that. Due to the way Metro Bank are run, I'm sure they'll over some very nice "compensation" although in reality, most would (arguably rightly) tell you to sling your hook.

The account operates in exactly the way it is supposed to and your claim is incorrect; it simply didn't operate the way you expected it to, so I suggest you brush up on exactly how debit card transactions are handled.

you shout and moan in big bold letters "there was enough money" - no, there wasn't, it was blocked by an authorisation, put more in your account or stick to using the card for cash withdrawals ONLY.

proeleche

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

How much did your hotel ''reserve'' on your card??
I would stick to the big banks If I were you.

I used my credit card to check into the hotel, not the debit card. I used the debit card to settle the bill for supplementaries on checking out.

I don't see how people can say I did not have enough money - after all spending (ATM withdrawals and POS transactions) before the restaurant in Bangkok, the *available funds* in the account should have been over £100(I was keeping track of all spending); going on to attempt to make a payment for £20 is not living on the edge as far as I'm concerned - others may disagree.

Perhaps I don't fully understand the exact specifics of how a debit card works, but if I have a balance of £100 and go on to spend £50, I should then have £50 left to spend. I don't think it's fair or reasonable for my bank to freeze that £50 and then remove the other £50 thus leaving £0 - which is what was happening. Furthermore, there were no such issues with using my HSBC current account or credit card: what I spent was removed only once, which is the way it should be.

On a trip to the States last year, I used a Caxton FX card: I topped it up using my debit card, the money was available instantly, and I spent what was available to spend, and when I needed more I topped it up again; I wrongly assumed that I would be able to do the same with the Metro Bank current account.

Also, I've not complained purely to make some easy money - Metro Bank did not deliver on its promises of exceptional customer service: calls not returned; not being able to provide an explanation for over 5 days. I did suffer stress and inconvenience, and I truly believe there are issues which Metro Bank need to rectify - and they have admitted this to me.

[Deleted User]

proeleche wrote: »

I used my credit card to check into the hotel, not the debit card. I used the debit card to settle the bill for supplementaries on checking out.

I don't see how people can say I did not have enough money - after all spending (ATM withdrawals and POS transactions) before the restaurant in Bangkok, the *available funds* in the account should have been over £100(I was keeping track of all spending); going on to attempt to make a payment for £20 is not living on the edge as far as I'm concerned - others may disagree.

Perhaps I don't fully understand the exact specifics of how a debit card works, but if I have a balance of £100 and go on to spend £50, I should then have £50 left to spend. I don't think it's fair or reasonable for my bank to freeze that £50 and then remove the other £50 thus leaving £0 - which is what was happening. Furthermore, there were no such issues with using my HSBC current account or credit card: what I spent was removed only once, which is the way it should be.

On a trip to the States last year, I usTred a Caxton FX card: I topped it up using my debit card, the money was available instantly, and I spent what was available to spend, and when I needed more I topped it up again; I wrongly assumed that I would be able to do the same with the Metro Bank current account.

Also, I've not complained purely to make some easy money - Metro Bank did not deliver on its promises of exceptional customer service: calls not returned; not being able to provide an explanation for over 5 days. I did suffer stress and inconvenience, and I truly believe there are issues which Metro Bank need to rectify - and they have admitted this to me.

Metro Banks systems are very flawed
Contact the manager and hopefully they can give you some sort of compensation for the duplicated transactions etc..

Degenerate

proeleche wrote: »

Perhaps I don't fully understand the exact specifics of how a debit card works, but if I have a balance of £100 and go on to spend £50, I should then have £50 left to spend. I don't think it's fair or reasonable for my bank to freeze that £50 and then remove the other £50 thus leaving £0 - which is what was happening. Furthermore, there were no such issues with using my HSBC current account or credit card: what I spent was removed only once, which is the way it should be.

I've used various credit and debit cards abroad and all your issues sound like the vagaries of international payments systems and merchants, not anything under Metro Bank's control. I've seen double auths on my available balance plenty of times, with various banks, and they've always dropped off in a few days. My advice is to use credit cards for payment and save the debit card for cash withdrawals.

I suppose you have a valid complaint over promised call-backs, but I suspect there wasn't really much they could do but wait.

proeleche

Degenerate wrote: »

I've used various credit and debit cards abroad and all your issues sound like the vagaries of international payments systems and merchants, not anything under Metro Bank's control. I've seen double auths on my available balance plenty of times, with various banks, and they've always dropped off in a few days. My advice is to use credit cards for payment and save the debit card for cash withdrawals.

I suppose you have a valid complaint over promised call-backs, but I suspect there wasn't really much they could do but wait.

And this is fine, but it took 5 days before I got any kind of explanation even remotely similar to that from Metro Bank.

But I do want to add: some cash withdrawals were also being duplicated - cash withdrawals in Bangkok. And if this is nothing to do with Metro Bank, fair enough - it's just the first time I have ever experienced this. Also, I was annoyed by the assumptions by earlier posters that I was attempting to spend money that wasn't mine, when this was not the case; or the fact that I did not have the foresight to have double what I intended to spend available - I unfortunately don't have unlimited funds.

What I really don't understand is: if they are receiving 2 requests for a single payment, why was the same transaction never 'pending' (frozen) twice at the initial authorisation? The duplication only occurred when the funds were actually claimed by the merchant and the frozen amount didn't drop off - this is why I'm inclined to think that it's some sort of system error or fault, but I may be wrong, I honestly don't know.

Degenerate

proeleche wrote: »

What I really don't understand is: if they are receiving 2 requests for a single payment, why was the same transaction never 'pending' (frozen) twice at the initial authorisation? The duplication only occurred when the funds were actually claimed by the merchant and the frozen amount didn't drop off - this is why I'm inclined to think that it's some sort of system error or fault, but I may be wrong, I honestly don't know.

I would regard this as a systems error but that doesn't mean it's at Metro's end. It seems to me that when it's time to claim the money some merchant systems fail to reconcile things and generate a second auth instead. I'll wait for Olipro to chip in here as he seems to have inside knowledge of banking systems.

proeleche

proeleche wrote: »

And this is fine, but it took 5 days before I got any kind of explanation even remotely similar to that from Metro Bank.

But I do want to add: some cash withdrawals were also being duplicated - cash withdrawals in Bangkok. And if this is nothing to do with Metro Bank, fair enough - it's just the first time I have ever experienced this. Also, I was annoyed by the assumptions by earlier posters that I was attempting to spend money that wasn't mine, when this was not the case; or the fact that I did not have the foresight to have double what I intended to spend available - I unfortunately don't have unlimited funds.

What I really don't understand is: if they are receiving 2 requests for a single payment, why was the same transaction never 'pending' (frozen) twice at the initial authorisation? The duplication only occurred when the funds were actually claimed by the merchant and the frozen amount didn't drop off - this is why I'm inclined to think that it's some sort of system error or fault, but I may be wrong, I honestly don't know.

Looking at Metro Bank's important information summary for the current account, they state: ' If you make a debit card payment in a
foreign currency, we will change the amount of the transaction to sterling on the date we pay it out of your account using the rate
for the transaction which is set and provided to us by MasterCard.'

I think this is the problem: they are authorising transactions, and when the merchant goes on to claim the funds, they are applying the exchange rate again before paying out of the account, but the initial authorised amount is not dropping off. As I said, I really think this is a systems error, but I may be wrong.

Olipro

proeleche wrote: »

I think this is the problem: they are authorising transactions, and when the merchant goes on to claim the funds, they are applying the exchange rate again before paying out of the account, but the initial authorised amount is not dropping off. As I said, I really think this is a systems error, but I may be wrong.

No, the amount is posted to them by mastercard, they don't deal with currency conversion or exchange rate issues.

Every authorisation has a unique number - when a transaction is then posted, it is done so by its auth number and the block for it ceases to exist.

If a merchant has made 2 authorisations then obviously they will only actually post one of them for clearing - the result will be that the posted authorisation is dropped because the funds get taken and one will remain until it "falls off" - an authorisation fall off is down to the bank since all authorisations are generally valid for anywhere between 90 to 180 days (and also a reason why debit cards really aren't well suited to people running their balance on a a shoestring) - anyhow, in the case of Metro Bank, the fall off appears to be a matter of a few working days, but as I've said before, if you're going to do everything on a knife's edge, clearly a few working days is the difference between being able to use your card or not.

E.G.: you owe the hotel £400 - you give them your card and they auth a total of £800.
They post for £400 resulting in that being debited from your account, now an auth for £400 remains which will never be claimed but needs to be allowed to fall off.