MSE News: Avoid the blocked card holiday nightmare

windowsupplies

Just traveled out to cancun Mexico and had the Blocked card nightmare
Both my wife's debit card and mine did not work in any cash machine on high street or in banks although would work in shops with pin , spent £150 in calls to both banks and still not working , complete nightmare , Halifax still maintains its nothing to do with them ???

windowsupplies

Just an update on my wife's account re Mexico travels just spent a further £50 on calls to nat west but have to say they were most helpfull and offered to call us back on the mobile , offered to pay for earlier calls then went through each transaction to confirm legit her online account had been canceled but reinstated after they called us direct , which is more than I can say for my bank Halifax nightmare never offered to call us back my mobile bill is currently £145.00 and have only called them and no one else so far , whilst they offered to pay for some calls they would not cover complete bill unlike nat west but have to y the process to get though to peak to some one was appalling far too long approx 8 - 12 mins ave at 5 dollars per min is not acceptable had this issue last year in thailand whilst mybcardvworked fine we got ripped off in a bar and it cost me more in calls to cancel the transaction than it did in the bar !!!! :rotfl:
Moral of the story forget the banks use cash or travellers cheques
I'm done with using cards and banks

reclusive46

Does anyone know if telling Norwich and Peterborough helps?

reclusive46

Does anyone have any experience using a Norwich and Peterborough debit card abroad? Did calling help?

Gloomendoom

windowsupplies wrote: »

Just an update on my wife's account re Mexico travels just spent a further £50 on calls to nat west but have to say they were most helpfull and offered to call us back on the mobile , offered to pay for earlier calls then went through each transaction to confirm legit her online account had been canceled but reinstated after they called us direct , which is more than I can say for my bank Halifax nightmare never offered to call us back my mobile bill is currently £145.00 and have only called them and no one else so far , whilst they offered to pay for some calls they would not cover complete bill unlike nat west but have to y the process to get though to peak to some one was appalling far too long approx 8 - 12 mins ave at 5 dollars per min is not acceptable had this issue last year in thailand whilst mybcardvworked fine we got ripped off in a bar and it cost me more in calls to cancel the transaction than it did in the bar !!!! :rotfl:
Moral of the story forget the banks use cash or travellers cheques
I'm done with using cards and banks

I suffered a blocked Halifax Clarity card last week in Cyprus. I guessed phoning to sort it out was likely to cost a pretty penny so I just withdrew some cash with a Barclaycard instead.

The moral of the story? Always carry a backup card(s).

The strange thing was that the problem with the Clarity card sorted itself out. It worked fine the following day. :huh:

reclusive46

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I suffered a blocked Halifax Clarity card last week in Cyprus. I guessed phoning to sort it out was likely to cost a pretty penny so I just withdrew some cash with a Barclaycard instead.

The moral of the story? Always carry a backup card(s).

The strange thing was that the problem with the Clarity card sorted itself out. It worked fine the following day. :huh:

I think what happens sometime is it gets blocked and then someone looks at the card in security and then unblocks it if they seen any sort of notifications but on many occasions my card has been blocked at ATMs but not at a point of sale.

Bob_the_Saver

reclusive46 wrote: »

I think what happens sometime is it gets blocked and then someone looks at the card in security and then unblocks it if they seen any sort of notifications but on many occasions my card has been blocked at ATMs but not at a point of sale.

I would take some convincing they don't do it just for the hell of it.

Never had a problem with Metro Bank or Fairfx being blocked, Just all the others, which are notified, often used out of UK (or at least we try to) and paid off in full every month.

zagfles

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I suffered a blocked Halifax Clarity card last week in Cyprus. I guessed phoning to sort it out was likely to cost a pretty penny so I just withdrew some cash with a Barclaycard instead.

The moral of the story? Always carry a backup card(s).

The strange thing was that the problem with the Clarity card sorted itself out. It worked fine the following day. :huh:

Was it really blocked? Sometimes the ATM says "your bank has refused the transaction" when it hasn't - I kept getting this in Italy whenever I tried withdrawing on my Nationwide card, I phoned Nationwide who told me the card definitely wasn't blocked and they haven't declined any transactions.

I think sometimes it can just mean there's a problem with the network and they can't contact your bank to get authorisation. Nationwide suggested keep retrying and on the third or fourth attempt it did work.

SaveTheEuro

reclusive46 wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience using a Norwich and Peterborough debit card abroad? Did calling help?

I've used my N and P card abroad several times. I never inform the N and P in advance.

I only once had a problem. I thought the card had been blocked when a cash machine failed to issue the sum of €300. I rang N and P and they couldn't shed any light on it. I then tried to withdraw €100 and it worked fine. I think that my request for €300 was (at that time) asking for more than a daily limit of £250. It would have been nice if a message on the machine had said "try asking for a smaller amount."

totallybored

Bob_the_Saver wrote: »

Never had a problem with Metro Bank or Fairfx being blocked, Just all the others, which are notified, often used out of UK (or at least we try to) and paid off in full every month.

Metro Bank told me they didn't need to know I'd be going abroad when I called them.

Halifax, Santander and Nationwide wanted to know where I'd be going but couldn't make a note of everywhere. I was going to 7 countries, one of them would only take 3 countries, another 5. They told me to call back when I reached the next country. One of the cards wouldn't work in Toyko despite that being at the start of my trip! Hubby also had connections in BKK and Jordan and gave up trying to tell them he'd need to use his cards for a few hours and just took US$ instead.