Barclays Connect card - suspicious activity

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi

Hoping someone might work in banking or have experience of this. I was away at the weekend, went to pay for some petrol and my Connect Card was declined. I paid with another card then rushed round to the cash machine to check my balance - plenty of money in the account.

I rang Barclays to find out my card had been stopped due to "suspicious activity". This is the second time this has happened to me in six months. I asked Barclays what I was doing that triggered this but they didnt seem to be able to tell me.

Its good to know Barclays are keeping an eye on my account but its really embarrassing when it happens. If my credit card hadnt worked for some reason I would have had a real problem - and I was 150 miles away from home.

Friends say its caused by small amounts going through your account, others have said it could be because I was using my card in a different location. Can anyone advise? I shop a lot on the internet and have paid Paypal and Amazon for some fairly small amounts if that makes any difference.

beetlebug1

hi

this happened to me over the summer.

i think its the internet shopping, we were going on holiday so lots of bits and pieces, not much money though.

must say barclays were really quick to unblock it once i had a call with the fraud team

Gromitt

I've had similar, which is why I always carry at least 2 cards wherever I go, just in case one gets stopped.

Usually its "Out of pattern" expenses which cause the card to be stopped. For example, if you never used your card online before and then have a flurry of activity in online transactions, that would likely cause the card to be suspended.

Badger_Lady

It happens to me fairly regularly... I travel abroad a lot and have gotten bored of telling them each time. Barclays is sometimes my only payment method, but I always get a fraud call to my mobile straight after the decline, and immediately after the call the funds are available again. So it's not a problem.

andrew-the-cat

Automated card fraud prevention things work on patterns, it takes into account certain factors such as the amount and frequency of payments, the amount of money in your account, the location of the payments etc. I've had my Santander debit card blocked twice by the automated fraud prevention thing - thankfully as soon as it happens I get a call to my mobile phone telling me that it has happened and I can follow a few steps to get it unblocked straight away. Although both times the transactions were genuine (me making sudden high value impulse purchases, one time one was done quite a long way from home), it's good to know that if my card was stolen and someone attempted to buy £1000 worth of viagra or something from the internet, it's likely the system would stop it from happening without me having to do anything.

I have back-up cards now so if one of my cards does get blocked, I can fall back on the others (and my Santander card doesn't work in the self service pay@pump things because it's Electron!)

YORKSHIRELASS

Thanks for the replies. I think I need to make sure I always have another card with me. My worry is that my "emergency" credit card has also been declined when I have tried to use it away from home. I dont use it often either so any spending automatically looks suspicious. OH says I should carry cash but the petrol was £67 so I wouldnt have wanted to have that much cash on me anyway.

I also need to check if Barclays have got my mobile number because they had tried to ring me four times at home. I guess that if I had rung them from the petrol station it could have been sorted out, its just a nightmare when there is a queue of people behind you.