Card blocked abroad - Lloyds

visidigi

You can let them know but Lloyds are reknown for being REALLY bad at this - they stopped my dad's card when he moved out to spain - when he called to ask why they said unusual activity in Spain - he asked them to read out the address on the account - it was an address in Spain (he had purposely changed it with Llloyds before going for this very reason).

They reactivated the account, and it never occured again - so there must be some form of Fraud Bypass they can put in place

agrinnall

Hi Beth, I travelled for 4 months through South East Asia and used my Nationwide Flexaccount Visa in all 4 countries to take out amounts varying from £20 to £200 without any issues. I did tell them I was going first, at the time I had to call them but they now have an online facility to do it:


Travel Notifications


Our Special Investigations Department constantly monitor card use and spending patterns, especially those taking place internationally. You can notify us online up to 12 months in advance of your departure date with up to 10 different destinations. By advising us of your travel dates and destinations we can reduce the chance of your card being restricted should we detect unusual usage patterns.
However, if we identify specific transactions which we believe indicate fraudulent activity could be taking place on your account, we may place a temporary restriction on these transactions until we can confirm their validity.

bethhateslloyds

It's interesting re. Nationwide. I have informed Lloyds by letter and over the telephone, although they have always told me there isn't anything more they can do. Perhaps the father in Spain had better luck since he gave them a Spanish address; I ought to consider doing this. Thank you for your help all.

visidigi

yeah, but once or twice, lloyds have done it to the OP 8 times - thats not seeing it from their point of view, thats being inefficient

bethhateslloyds

visidigi wrote: »

yeah, but once or twice, lloyds have done it to the OP 8 times - thats not seeing it from their point of view, thats being inefficient

Agreed that some fraud alerts are clearly in our interests but this goes a bit too far. Also, it would be good if they could let the person know when it happens, and that way check if the transactions are genuine or not straight away. It would certainly be much safer this way as I would be able to resolve it without the danger of being stuck somewhere, or the embarrassment of borrowing off friends. It's happened three times in as many weeks this last time, and the alerts are happening simply because I am using the card in Brazil (where I have advised them I am living), not for example because of sudden huge transactions at unusual times, as may provoke these alerts at home in the customer's own interests.

giraffe69

Well lovey bean

Designed to irritate and patronise, no doubt and to be fair does a reasonable job of it.

hcb42

I thought there was an option somewhere on online banking, although I might be making that up and it is a different account entirely.

i think they are being reasonably cautious though, for the area. I travelled abroad for 2 years and never got stopped once, but that was just Aus/USA

meandthree

This happens to me all the time as well, because we travel to France all the time, and I have tried explaining that it's not irregular if we do it regularly!!!
However, I have recently opened an account with Santander (I know!!) but they have actually not blocked my card once in the last four trips.
Could be that it's because I am still in Europe, though might be worth looking in to?

squeaky

You don't even have to be abroad to have this happen. A few years back a pension company merged with another and I got a bonus of a few hundred quid. So I went on a shopping "spree" and bought around 40 second hand books via Amazon Marketplace and a few other sites. EVERY last one of them got stopped without notice. *I* had to ring them to find out what the er... heck... was going on. I got it all sorted out (after complaining that they might have darn well asked me first) and then had to track back and re-order all 40 books.

Burgher me sideways if they weren't all stopped AGAIN!

<sigh>

I've just had another windfall, not big, but enough to allow me to do a bit of serious shopping to update my white goods this time - so contacted the bank first to say "Please don't stop things - but if you are unsure do please just put them on 'hold' while you check with me"...

..the answer - "No can do - it's all automatic".

Yeah. Right. So it's about time a programmer somewhere changed a line of code from "STOP" to "Hold and CHECK"...

______________________________________ ______________________________________

Collective noun: A wunch of bankers.

MamaMoo_2

I bank with Natwest. Once a month, my husband puts £500 in my account, and I then pay the bills/rent etc and pretty much empty the account in about an hour. The first time I did this, Natwest phoned me straight away, and an automated line went through the transactions, one by one, and asked me if I made them. As I had made all the payments, my card was instantly unblocked