halifax left me stranded in india

poppyflorence

I will try not to make this a rant!

First of all i phoned the halifax 5 days before going abroad i took my halifax clairty card reccommended for use abroad, i also took my current account card just incase.

I tried to use my credit card and debit card abroad in india it would not work to use over the counter in various places, i got stranded just had enough money to get to an airport (and spend £25 on phone calls to halifax!) where they offered me no help whatsoever and i tried to make a payment to my partners card which could take up to 3 working days (when i got home i had an email saying this coud not be done as i was unable to verify it over the phone- possibly as they did not put +44 infornt of my no!)

Halifax blamed the machines they were using in india did not correspond with the cards but we eventually got home using my partners overdraft on his barclays visa debit card exactly the same as my halifax visa debit which would not work.

I also asked if anything else could be done and i have just looked on halifax.co.uk and they could have made an instant international transfer (which i obviously asked whilst in tears down the phone to the really understanding halifax person or 8 of them which i spoke to as they put me through to lots of different people!)

i dont know where i can go from here halifax dont care when i went into branch the person behind the counter suggested i should have known not every card is accepted in india and reffered me to the non-helpful phone assistants HELP!

agrinnall

Sounds to me like Halifax customer service leaves a lot to be desired, I would suggest you move to a bank that cares a bit more. I'm not going to recommend one but there are quite a few threads on best bank in the budgeting and bank accounts forum.

One lesson that you should learn from this is that any card may not work at times, especially abroad, and you should therefore always have a back up card that you can use even if it's not as good as your main one (and I'd suggest that if your main one if Visa that the backup should be Mastercard).

ziggyman99

I know it's no use to you now but for future reference, I used to travel extensively for business and would never leave home without a selection of cards. I had a business Diners card ( pretty useless), an Amex card, Visa Debit and Credit(2) cards and a Mastercard.Overcautious? May be. But I never came unstuck.
I even left my wallet at home once. That's OK because Amex bailed me out with a new card and cash delivered to my hotel room within 2 hours. Brilliant. It's a shame the service has gone down hill dramatically since.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

halifax wouldnt let me fuel my car up when i went to scotland! i called the so called customer service who said they couldnt help me as the system dictated it was out of my buying pattern it was the first time i filled using my now ex halifax card as my chip in my Barclay card had come away from the card itself and was lost and i kept getting rejected to use swipe and sign when i asked before filling. halifax first said it was a faulty card, but i had used it to get my spending money a day prior in the services, then they said its down to their machines, then they said it was their system that was down in the area, then they said it was because the anti fraud system had decided it was out of my buying pattern on my account and that the system decided to reject ALL payments. i spent 4 hours producing 4 forms of ID at one branch to lift the sanction then they applied a charge of £120 2 days later for a direct debit bouncing while the sanction was applied after numerous calls to sort it out i just took out my cash shut the account down and never looked back.

chattychappy

Sorry..... yep poor service, but you don't really have any right of redress IMHO. You just cannot leave the UK and expect stuff to work smoothly and T+Cs state that they won't be held responsible for systems failures etc. This is reasonable in the case of foreign transactions over which a UK bank doesn't have much control. When stuff goes wrong it is sometimes impossible to determine the problem from the UK.

"which card to use overseas" often comes up here and I always urge people to take backups. I spend months overseas and often find that things go wrong and usually there is little that can be done. You did take 2 cards, but they were from the same bank and your partner was a backup - and that did work! I generally take 4 or 5 cards as well as having other alternatives.

If they gave you wrong or misleading information, then perhaps you can argue for a gesture. Else... well... tough luck, I'm afraid.

Mrs_Ryan

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

halifax wouldnt let me fuel my car up when i went to scotland! i called the so called customer service who said they couldnt help me as the system dictated it was out of my buying pattern it was the first time i filled using my now ex halifax card as my chip in my Barclay card had come away from the card itself and was lost and i kept getting rejected to use swipe and sign when i asked before filling. halifax first said it was a faulty card, but i had used it to get my spending money a day prior in the services, then they said its down to their machines, then they said it was their system that was down in the area, then they said it was because the anti fraud system had decided it was out of my buying pattern on my account and that the system decided to reject ALL payments. i spent 4 hours producing 4 forms of ID at one branch to lift the sanction then they applied a charge of £120 2 days later for a direct debit bouncing while the sanction was applied after numerous calls to sort it out i just took out my cash shut the account down and never looked back.

Wow - my god. Im quite surprised they allowed me to spend about £600 (including one single transaction of £200) on a previously dormant EasyCash account in shops 170 miles from my registered home address... they didnt bat an eyelid...

jonjamie1970

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

halifax wouldnt let me fuel my car up when i went to scotland! i called the so called customer service who said they couldnt help me as the system dictated it was out of my buying pattern it was the first time i filled using my now ex halifax card as my chip in my Barclay card had come away from the card itself and was lost and i kept getting rejected to use swipe and sign when i asked before filling. halifax first said it was a faulty card, but i had used it to get my spending money a day prior in the services, then they said its down to their machines, then they said it was their system that was down in the area, then they said it was because the anti fraud system had decided it was out of my buying pattern on my account and that the system decided to reject ALL payments. i spent 4 hours producing 4 forms of ID at one branch to lift the sanction then they applied a charge of £120 2 days later for a direct debit bouncing while the sanction was applied after numerous calls to sort it out i just took out my cash shut the account down and never looked back.

How can you possibly expect people to read this mess ?

GooliesOfFire

poppyflorence wrote: »

I will try not to make this a rant!

First of all i phoned the halifax 5 days before going abroad i took my halifax clairty card reccommended for use abroad, i also took my current account card just incase.

I tried to use my credit card and debit card abroad in india it would not work to use over the counter in various places, i got stranded just had enough money to get to an airport (and spend £25 on phone calls to halifax!) where they offered me no help whatsoever and i tried to make a payment to my partners card which could take up to 3 working days (when i got home i had an email saying this coud not be done as i was unable to verify it over the phone- possibly as they did not put +44 infornt of my no!)

Halifax blamed the machines they were using in india did not correspond with the cards but we eventually got home using my partners overdraft on his barclays visa debit card exactly the same as my halifax visa debit which would not work.

I also asked if anything else could be done and i have just looked on halifax.co.uk and they could have made an instant international transfer (which i obviously asked whilst in tears down the phone to the really understanding halifax person or 8 of them which i spoke to as they put me through to lots of different people!)

i dont know where i can go from here halifax dont care when i went into branch the person behind the counter suggested i should have known not every card is accepted in india and reffered me to the non-helpful phone assistants HELP!

I go to South Korea every year (pretty much I spend 1 month a year there) and I often have problems with cash withdrawals from Korean ATMs. Sometimes the same card work one day but it doesn't work the other. Most of the banks in Korea don't accept foreign Visa Debit / Credit and Mastercard cards at all. It's only a few the biggest banks that do. It's quite annoying but I've learnt my lesson and I always take some cash with me. Paying is shops is not a problem and all debit/credit cards work there just fine, except for the first time in Korea when I didn't inform my bank about going abroad - my bad.. I had to phone them from Korea to access my money. I cannot blame them for that, it was entirely my fault that I didn't tell them about my trip.

Bob_the_Saver

Many ATM's in India are Visa OR Mastercard not both. We travel in India a lot and often find banks that even with the correct card won't give you money.
Always always always take a couple of pre-paid cards you can top-up quickly over the internet.

SecLender

If you are having trouble with ATMs abroad, take your card and your passport into a branch of a bank and get a teller to do the transaction for you.

This has worked numerous times for me (although I didn't need to do this in India).

Also agree with people above saying take lots of cards with you. I've had 3 seperate cards blocked on 1 trip before.

InsideInsurance

In latin american countries cards can also be difficult because in addition to your PIN systems often also ask for your national identity number.

Inside shops it can be easier as it is process and not systems that require it but that is down to the person who you get served by.

The only card I found which was different was AmEx.

As others have said, carry a selection of cards and try different banks/ stores. Not every countries systems are as unified as ours are and a lot can come down to individual relationships between groups of institutions.