Card blocked abroad - Lloyds

bethhateslloyds

I am tearing my hair out and wondering if anyone has any advice/similar experiences.

I have been living in Brazil for a year, and constantly having to contact my bank, Lloyds TSB. They have blocked my cards (both credit and debit) a total of eight times. As I'm in a dangerous city, I've been stranded in slums, at night, not to mention the hours of time and money I've wasted contacting them to resolve it.

They always say the same thing - that it is an automatically generated fraud alert because of "unusual activity" on the account - i.e. me using it in Brazil, usually to take out larger sums than I would in the UK to avoid the charges.

I am so sick of dealing with this. I know this happens with many banks when people travel abroad, but does anyone know of a bank I could move to that doesn't do this?

Has anyone had any success in complaining and getting the situation changed? I am so frustrated, angry and upset about this.

pcombo

Why dont you open a brazilian bank account if your staying there so long. And transfer the money to that.

robpw2

would it not have been better letting lloyds know before you went to brazil .

bethhateslloyds

I let them know before, and many times since I moved here.

Thanks for the snotty attitude, but I was required to work in one of those slums. Obviously you haven't been here but since they dominate the city you are never far away from areas of high crime. Sometimes it is simply necessary to go to the bank to get money out, having spent what you have had on you. I don't see why it is down to me to work around this and predict that my card won't be available for use once a week. Now that I've been here longer I have a small amount for buses/taxis but this took me by surprise when I first arrived.

I was really hoping for some constructive advice or information, if anyone has it, but of course it's easy to be !!!!!y from behind a computer.

If anyone has any experience of this, or knows anything about how the banks compare on this issue, that would be useful.

As regards a Brazilian bank account, this would be a good idea, however I am employed by a UK firm and get paid from there in pounds. From what I understand, bank charges here are much more prohibitive than in the UK also, although it may indeed come to that.

shaun_from_Africa

Have you considered getting a prepaid credit card?
These are available in both Visa and mastercard and will allow you to withdraw money from most ATMs.

I have a couple of Travelex cash passport cards (one in € and one in $US)
They are easily topped up via online banking and you could carry one of these for emergencies.

bethhateslloyds

Just seen pcombo's suggestion of transferring money - in fact this could work, thank you for the suggestion. That way I can still get paid into my UK bank account but without the need to use cash machines here. Thank you for that.

It would still be great if anyone has any other experiences to share, as from what I gather this is frequently a problem for people travelling abroad on holidays or business trips in the short term too. It would be good to know if anyone has found a way to prevent the banks from doing this, or at least to get informed when it does happen. Maybe I am hoping for too much!

bethhateslloyds

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Have you considered getting a prepaid credit card?
These are available in both Visa and mastercard and will allow you to withdraw money from most ATMs.

I have a couple of Travelex cash passport cards (one in € and one in $US)
They are easily topped up via online banking and you could carry one of these for emergencies.

That's another good idea, thank you. I didn't know these existed, it would certainly be useful for emergencies and give me a back-up plan. I'll look into that, thanks.

shaun_from_Africa

These are the ones that I use.
http://www.cashpassport.com/1/en/uk/

You can get them instantly from airports in the UK, or have them delivered to your house.

A little tip to make it a bit more secure if you want to keep one for emergency use only.
When you get it and have topped it up, use a bit of solvent to totally remove the signature strip and deface the front of it with a permanent black marker pen.
This will ensure that if it is lost or stolen then the person who has it will find it extremely difficult to use to make purchases in a shop, but it will still work in a cash machine (provided that you've not damaged the magnetic strip).

bethhateslloyds

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

You can get them instantly from airports in the UK, or have them delivered to your house.

A little tip to make it a bit more secure if you want to keep one for emergency use only.
When you get it and have topped it up, use a bit of solvent to totally remove the signature strip and deface the front of it with a permanent black marker pen.
This will ensure that if it is lost or stolen then the person who has it will find it extremely difficult to use to make purchases in a shop, but it will still work in a cash machine (provided that you've not damaged the magnetic strip).

That's great advice and I shall get hold of one, thanks. A bit of peace of mind.

DCFC79

No need to get upset over some replies,

robpw2

bethhateslloyds wrote: »

I let them know before, and many times since I moved here.

T

how did you let them know ,
im only asking because it may not have been forwarded to the correct dept if you only rang them