HELP: Reclaiming phone charges from your bank?

skytrotter81

Hi

Me and my partner recently went to south Asia travelling.

We had advised Barclays before we went that we were travelling to 3 countries. They told us they could only put 2 into the system and we would have to call them to unblock it while we were over there. Although i thought this was ridiculous to begin with and complained it seemed they weren't willing to help.

To cut a long storey short while we were over there i had to re-unblock by card a number times; at one point we were left with no money at all even though the day before we had unblocked it and we were still in the same country! Luckily for us we were able to sort things out and eventually borrowed some money off a friend.

Whenever we called from abroad there was no answer from the number they tell you to call from abroad and so was forced to phone the internet banking, sometimes being left on hold for an hour and still not able to get through to anyone. I could go on. This obviously ruined some parts of our holiday. Most notably when we spent 3 hours on the 5th floor of a bank in Vietnam trying to get as much money out as possible before barclays blocked my card again!

Anyway, i have been left with a lovely £247 phone bill. Basically, i am going to speak to a manager but wondered if anyone had any advice for me while in the meeting? am i wasting my time? How much could i rightly ask in compensation seen as i have a large phone bill, were left in some scary situations without money and it ruined parts of our holiday? Any tips on things to say or angles to go at them with.

I figured the banks have taken enough money off me in the past its time to get some off them!

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Luke

InsideInsurance

Ultimately all transactions go through fraud screening, if they feel a transaction doesnt look right they take the cautious approach of blocking it. To be honest if they didnt do this then you'd get many more people on here saying they've been robbed by their bank as someone's used their card fraudulently and the bank let the transactions go through.

Barclays do seem to be exceptionally zealous with their fraud screening. I've had high street, low value chip and pin transactions stopped as it was "outside of my spending pattern" and every single month I was having my payment to RBS Credit Card blocked (whilst I was paying the card off)

You'll be very lucky to get the phone bill refunded let alone any compensation. They will argue that it is for your protection and the actions of a responsible provider to question transactions and that by providing travel dates is not a promise that transactions will go through.

innovate

I would formally complain, and put the complaint into writing, so that there is a clear record of the complaint.

As to how much they should pay - - I wouldn't give them a figure to start with. Let them make an offer. If you then think it is not good enough, you can still tell them how much you expect. But you might be pleasantly surprised by their offer, who knows.

dalesrider

Fact you advise a bank of your intended locations. WILL NOT STOP fraud checks.
All it does is help them contact you in the best way.
eg. pointless ringing you at home when you told them you are in China...
There is a lot of fraud in the countries you have been too. So that will cause issues.
This is even with people that are in these countries at the time. Though it seems strange that it was blocking the card every day. So that makes me wonder if your card had been marked as compromised at some point in the past and overseas usage has triggered everyday.
I do know with our system that in these cases you can only reset the card for 24 hours before it could trigger another alert.

All you can do is go in explain your case, have proof of the bill and hope that they will offer something.

End of the day. Banks have to have security systems to protect not only themselves, but you as well..

But this is the whole reason NO ONE should travel with one form of getting cash....
What whould you have done had your card been stolen????

jonesMUFCforever

Probably blamed the bank for not advising them to take an alternative form of payment!
God how did we manage before debit cards?

pmduk

dalesrider wrote: »

Fact you advise a bank of your intended locations. WILL NOT STOP fraud checks.

Dalesrider, A bank exists to conduct whichever transaction it's instructed to. I realise you feel you're here to defend banks whatever they've done, but a customer who tells you they're going to be in a country travelling should not have to keep reminding the bank of this fact, any more than if they remained in the UK. The OP needs to make a formal complaint and if necessary escalate it to the FOS.

I'm sure the FOS will take a more sensible view than a bank's own staff will.

jonesMUFCforever

pmduk wrote: »

Dalesrider, A bank exists to conduct whichever transaction it's instructed to. I realise you feel you're here to defend banks whatever they've done, but a customer who tells you they're going to be in a country travelling should not have to keep reminding the bank of this fact, any more than if they remained in the UK. The OP needs to make a formal complaint and if necessary escalate it to the FOS.

I'm sure the FOS will take a more sensible view than a bank's own staff will.

Rubbish! You would not have this attitude if it was your money at risk.
Egg when it was open did give me the option of not doing any fraud checks for x number of days when going abroad once - but I had to accept liability for all transactions genuine or fraudulent. Would this be acceptable to you?
You are right when you say a bank exists to make transactions instruct - the problem is they need with a certain probability to know whether the transaction has been genuinely authorised.

stclair

You should always get the banks number to enable you to reverse the charges in these circumstances prior to travelling.

http://ask.barclays.co.uk/help/travel_international/problem_abroad

dalesrider

pmduk wrote: »

Dalesrider, A bank exists to conduct whichever transaction it's instructed to. I realise you feel you're here to defend banks whatever they've done, but a customer who tells you they're going to be in a country travelling should not have to keep reminding the bank of this fact, any more than if they remained in the UK. The OP needs to make a formal complaint and if necessary escalate it to the FOS.

I'm sure the FOS will take a more sensible view than a bank's own staff will.

I'm not here to defend banks at all costs.
What I aim to do is give correct advise in area's I can. If they have meesed up, then I will advise to complain.

You also have to remember a bank has a duty of care to its customers.
I see too much fraud where customers are in the country concerned. Mostly in the area's that the cm was in.
Once a customer realises and gets over the shock. They are happy that the bank is looking after their money.

FOS will look at the case, but will say that the bank has to have a security system in palce.
The issue is, if there has been a breakdown in the banks process.

As I said. If the OP's card has had a compromised marker then a daily reset is standard process.

Given ALL the issues the OP had. Did the parner not have a card?
Any issues are card and not account related. So even if it was a joint acc. There card could well have been OK.
If it was a diffrent bank. Then transfer some funds and issue solved.


Complain. Yes. Banks often will refund call charges. Just that is a very high bill and they may need proof to ensure that OP is not adding in other calls.

skytrotter81

Thanks for your responses.

To the people who were wondering, i did have another debit card and i also had another credit card as back up. I chose not to use them as we were never in an emergency where i couldn't sort some money out on the card we were using. I also didn't want to end up in a situation where all my cards were blocked!

There seems to be a lot of defending of the banks but in reality i dont see how they have a leg to stand on. I told them the dates i would be in a country and which country i would be in. Whether said country has a problem with fraud should be irrelevant to my case. I need a card that works between these periods. They cant claim to be an international bank otherwise.

On one occasion we had arrived back in Thailand. I spent an hour on hold trying to get my card unblocked. Finally got through and they said it was now sorted but i needed to go through to the fraud department to make sure there were no restrictions on it. Another 30 minutes on the phone to be told there's no problem with my card. Ok..lovely. I took some money out at a machine with no problems. 2 days later i went to get some cash out again ...from the same cash machine. Blocked. Now that is not good service.

jonesMUFCforever

Well you are back in UK now so does that mean your are immune from scammers and fraudsters?
Of course not - the same when you are abroad.