Halifax Credit Card Helpline NOT 24/7

stclair

organic_choc wrote: »

That is pretty amazing customer services! If you had to make that call on your mobile that would be real yikes!

Most banks offer a telephone number to reverse the charges to their fraud departments whilst your aboard. Its also advisable to inform your bank of you will be travelling aboard and ask them for the said number should anything happen.

organic_choc

stclair wrote: »

Even if "customer services" was available the "fraud department" more than likely would not been anyway being a specialist department. So either way the OP still would have not been able to resolve their issue regardless of whether customer services was open or not.

I do not see any mention of their fraud department being open "24/7".

I called their Customer Services line and the fraud dept was one of the options. So you are saying one of the options available on the customer service phone isn't part of the customer services?

organic_choc

stclair wrote: »

Most banks offer a telephone number to reverse the charges to their fraud departments whilst your aboard.

If you can get them, may be.

organic_choc

stclair wrote: »

In future call the geographic number of 0113 242 2229 least the call will be free from your landline or included in your mobile minutes.

However having said that most 0845 numbers are included in your calling packages now adays.

Why are you twisting my point?

I am saying that if they spend an extra 10 seconds on their recorded message telling me they will be open next day at 9am, I would have been much happier. I don't mind paying extra 10 seconds worth of call time 0845 or not.

meer53

The bank i work for is open on Xmas Day, the staff who work on Xmas day are trained to deal with whatever query they get, fraud included, i would imagine that most banks who don't offer a full service on Xmas day will have an automated service for fraud calls.

As for fraudsters, it's bad news if cards can't be unblocked, not good news.

I think the OP should make a written complaint about what happened. Then change banks. Halifax are terrible.

stclair

organic_choc wrote: »

If you can get them, may be.

They are available you can request the number when you notify the bank your travelling aboard.

chattychappy

stclair wrote: »

Its also advisable to inform your bank of you will be travelling aboard

Won't do any harm, but in my experience won't prevent a block. It might just cause an auto-blocked card to be manually unblocked later despite your not having phoned in to unblock.

In my opinion, these systems have a long way to go. It seems that when deciding to block a transaction, rarely is any account taken of previous transactions on the same account. Perhaps during a typical authorisation process there isn't time to access this data, not sure. This is despite phone operators impressively referring to "out of character" spending patterns.

I have had a card blocked in a foreign shop, got it unblocked, spent in that shop but then got it blocked again in exactly the same shop a day or so later. So by the time of the second block, the card record would show 1) that I am in the country concerned, 2) that an attempt to authorise a transaction in that shop was confirmed as being me, 3) that I had spent in that shop before. Meanwhile another UK card won't get blocked in that shop at all.

Actually I think I have built up a much better "blocking pattern" of UK credit cards than the CCs have built up of my spending pattern. Good job I'm not a fraudster.

Now if data as to the goods/services were available, fraud systems could be even better. The shop I mentioned above is a small supermarket. I usually buy pretty much the same stuff. If at the time of authorisation it could be seen that the proposed purchase overlaps significantly with a previous transaction that I haven't disputed, then it's less likely to be fraudulent. Ditto my recent block on Nationwide when using the Lufthansa website. Given I had previously used this site to book tickets involving Munich, this is less likely to be fraudulent than a ticket to/from a totally different destination.

dalesrider

chattychappy wrote: »

Won't do any harm, but in my experience won't prevent a block. It might just cause an auto-blocked card to be manually unblocked later despite your not having phoned in to unblock.

Brave staff member that does that. All it really does is allow staff to target the customer in a way, that allows for a speedy resolve.

chattychappy wrote: »

In my opinion, these systems have a long way to go. It seems that when deciding to block a transaction, rarely is any account taken of previous transactions on the same account.

The security systems do not look at a customers spending pattern.
They look at fraud spending patterns.
Could you imagine if they worked on a customers spending.. Just how many people would get security checks at christmas :rotfl:

chattychappy wrote: »

This is despite phone operators impressively referring to "out of character" spending patterns.

Should not be saying something that is not true. Sadly many that work the systems do not have the heart to tell the truth. As it can lead to a long conversation about how the system works.

chattychappy wrote: »

I have had a card blocked in a foreign shop, got it unblocked, spent in that shop but then got it blocked again in exactly the same shop a day or so later. So by the time of the second block, the card record would show 1) that I am in the country concerned, 2) that an attempt to authorise a transaction in that shop was confirmed as being me, 3) that I had spent in that shop before. Meanwhile another UK card won't get blocked in that shop at all.

But just because you are in the country does not mean it could not be fraud. You have had your card stolen. Clearly there was something about that retailer, that one card providers system did not like.
After a security check a card has a marker placed on it that should make it less likely to have further checks for a certain period.
A example for you, is many people go to Brazil. It is very common for people there to see counterfiet fraud on card while they are there.
Hence we will not release any card in that country from further security checks.

chattychappy wrote: »

Actually I think I have built up a much better "blocking pattern" of UK credit cards than the CCs have built up of my spending pattern. Good job I'm not a fraudster.

Same systems used accross both debit and credit. Although fraud patterns can be totally diffrent.

chattychappy wrote: »

Now if data as to the goods/services were available, fraud systems could be even better. The shop I mentioned above is a small supermarket. I usually buy pretty much the same stuff. If at the time of authorisation it could be seen that the proposed purchase overlaps significantly with a previous transaction that I haven't disputed, then it's less likely to be fraudulent.

And if you had your card stolen?
Security systems can see more than the average bank systems in terms of where,who and how transactions are made.

chattychappy wrote: »

Ditto my recent block on Nationwide when using the Lufthansa website. Given I had previously used this site to book tickets involving Munich, this is less likely to be fraudulent than a ticket to/from a totally different destination.

Just because a site before does not stop a fraudster from using it.
For some reason Lufthansa is seeing a lot of fraud at the moment.
Guess it may be something to where they fly to and the origin of the people who are doing it :eek:

AdamJK_2

sfax wrote: »

Check the contact us page on Halifax for credit cards. Lost stolen and customer services both say 24/7. No differentiation and yet clearly one is open and one isn't. This is the OP's point and it's valid. They should explicitly list exceptions for days when customer services is closed. Barclaycard also have no distinction and no exceptions but I don't know if they are open over Christmas

They both are open.

Lost & Stolen is not an automated task - therefore you always speak with a human.

Customer Services - 70% of the calls to this line are answered and resolved by the automated service with no human contact on the bank side. This line is also open. One of the services offered on this line - namely 'advisor' isn't available due to the bank holiday.

I'm really not seeing where the difficulty in understanding this is. The OP had a fraud block on the account, the only way to resolve that would be to speak with the fraud team. The fraud team don't work bank holidays so when the card details were put into the automated system, it would recognise that that account has been flagged for fraud and attempt to transfer. The problem seems to be that no information was provided when transferred and the OP was disconnected.

chattychappy

dalesrider wrote: »

The security systems do not look at a customers spending pattern.
They look at fraud spending patterns.

That is the problem - ideally they would be profiling both. Not taking into account a customer's spending pattern is having one arm tied behind your back.

dalesrider wrote: »

Could you imagine if they worked on a customers spending.. Just how many people would get security checks at christmas

Not really. You'd be armed with more information. Fraud checks wouldn't need to be so scattergun. Eg if I'm doing chip'n'pin spend in Hong Kong, that mag stripe transaction in Oxford Street is more likely to be fraudulent.

The more information you have to base a risk assessment on, the fewer false positives you need to have in order to get the true positives.