Halifax has blocked my card :(

chattychappy

By way of update, I gave up on that call and called the "abroad" number on the back of my card. Promptly answered by a real person (proudly announcing herself as "XXX in Coventry") who confirmed the card was blocked. She offered to connect me internally to the fraud team - but said it would be the same queue (she thought it would be about 20 minutes). She was very apologetic. Poor girl, obviously getting a lot of calls from irate people with "wrecked" holidays, large phone bills and who know their rights or whatever.

Meanwhile just had my 4th call from the automated system (1am local time) asking me to call them. Since I acknowledged the first call (you press a key to say it's you) I thought they might stop. They are also calling my UK landline, so perhaps 8 calls in all.

In case anyone thinks I'm having a rant, well I'm not. Just want to be publicly smug about being so well organised that this is having little impact on me...

reclusive46

I've got to be the only person it seems thats never had their card blocked abroad. Neither my Amex (Which I've had years but then I guess they expect card members to go abroad) or other Visa credit card has been blocked ever.

chattychappy

My now cancelled Amex (chargecard plat) did suffer from declines, though I don't remember blocks. But it stayed in my wallet most of the time because of the approx 3% loading.

reclusive46

chattychappy wrote: »

My now cancelled Amex (chargecard plat) did suffer from declines, though I don't remember blocks. But it stayed in my wallet most of the time because of the approx 3% loading.

I normally don't pay this during the summer months as they almost always have the twitter promotion so you don't pay Forex fees and often I'm in restaurants (Especially in New York) with clients who only take Amex or cash.

I have suffered these random declines in Sainsburys lol I often put it in, it declines, I put it in again and it goes through fine.

chattychappy

Just got my Nationwide Select card unblocked, 4th time lucky.

To recap, it got blocked when I accessed the Lufthansa website whilst in Taiwan:

1st time: 41min wait in queue on special "abroad" number for fraud, gave up.

2nd time: rang usual "abroad" number, said they could transfer me, but would take 20mins, didn't bother

3rd time: closed, out of hours. (I'm 8 hours ahead, didn't think of that. But do think that given cards are more likely to be blocked overseas, longer answering hours would be useful.)

4th time: 9 mins. Unblocked. They thought my attempted purchase on the Lufthansa website looked suspicious. The guy said there is a lot of fraud on flight tickets and the transaction looked unusual. Well, fair enough. Interestingly I have bought tickets a number of times before with the same card on the same site as I have done with Easyjet, Jetstar Pacific and a couple of others. Lufthansa is the only one I use that requires you to show the card at check-in - so surprised they get much fraud on that site.

The guy said the block had nothing to do with my being abroad which they hadn't noticed. In fact, come to think of it I have never had my card blocked following use on a website. It's always been after a foreign ATM withdrawal or as a "cardholder present" transaction abroad.

Anyway, as I say, when travelling take backups and preferably a cheap way of calling home. I carry Select, Post Office Mastercard, Santander Zero as my loading-free cards, using Zero for cash. (Halifax Clarity is also loading-free, but I don't have one of them.) I also carry an MBNA card, Barclaycard, Tesco Mastercard and sometimes Natwest Mastercard. My trips can be quite long, and I keep the cards separated.

With Select blocked, my Post Office Mastercard had a jolly good outing today in Taiwan. Supermarkets, restaurants, local shops. Still unblocked. No chip'n'pin here (well not today, anyway). Very trusting. I usually use Select in preference as the website is easier to use.

Looks like I'll have to resort to a large cash withdrawal on Zero tomorrow in order to provoke my next block!