Credit card company cancelled my card whilst on holiday

Lizmontague

Hi all,

This happened a while ago...but I wondered if I could still take them on...

I went on holiday to Ibiza in 2017 and whilst there I found I could not use my bank card.

I called the bank and they told me that there had been suspected fraud on my card so they were cancelling it and had sent me a new one with a covering letter explaining this.

Only thing being I was on holiday and my friend had just left that same day. I was basically left for four days with no access to my cash and the bank offered no alternatives for getting hold of it. Ruined the end of my holiday.

Afterwards, I was told by a relative working for a bank that they should have offered to send me a cash advance to a bank in Ibiza.

Do you think I could take them to Court?

They told me afterwards that they can cancel the cards at any time they want. But I was surprised they did not even send me an email, text, or call me, or even send a secure message through their website, to tell me. Also, I had a travel flag set up on their systems for the holiday.

Thanks for any advice you might have

Lizzie

[Deleted User]

You can take anyone to court, but you have no grounds to do so.

Next time you go away, remember to take alternative payment methods.

System

Lizmontague wrote: »

But I was surprised they did not even send me an email, text, or call me, or even send a secure message through their website, to tell me.

I guess they were surprised you didn't tell them you were going abroad via sending me an email, text, or call them, or even send a secure message through their website, to tell them.

[Deleted User]

LOL - you can’t take them to court no.

As you’ve already pointed out they can cancel cards anytime whenever they like - they don’t care if you’re in holiday.

What if there was some genuine fraud on your account? What would you have preferred - them to cancel the card or your account to be rinsed clean?

Let alone being surprised they didn’t make contact with you (although your email etc could also be hacked) I’m surprised you took one single card with you and no physical cash

Ebe_Scrooge

beany_bot wrote: »

I guess they were surprised you didn't tell them you were going abroad via sending me an email, text, or call them, or even send a secure message through their website, to tell them.

To be fair, the OP did say that they had set up a travel flag to notify the company of their holiday.

OP, it's annoying for sure - but I suspect you'd have been rather more annoyed if the company had suspected fraud and done nothing about it. As ZX81 says, it's never a good idea to rely on a single source of funds whilst away from home. A common scenario is that some countries widely accept Mastercard but not Visa, or vice-versa.

Nick_C

Advice?

Learn from the experience.

Take two credit cards and a debit card next time you travel.

Not unusual for CCs to be frozen following unusual spending. Particularly with the large amounts of stolen data backed from big corporations (such as BA).

And credit cards don't give you access to your cash. Debit cards do that.

Bermonia

With all due respect they didn’t cancel YOUR card... the card belongs to the provider and they merely let you use (or not in this case).

As advised learn from this and have a backup in future, but please don’t waste anymore time on the outlandish notion that this may be something you can take them to court over.

Missus_Hyde

Goodness me, OP doesn't seem to have much luck with her bank cards abroad. :huh:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5975357/atm-fraud-currency-card-institution-playing-funny-s

(No chance of telling any porkies, of course! )

Doshwaster

HSBC once blocked my debit and credit cards because they thought it was suspicious that I had made transactions in two countries in the same day. Yes, it's called international travel

The lesson: take a backup from a totally separate provider and take a backup to that backup. Also, don't keep all of your cards in one place in case your wallet goes missing.

Terry_Towelling

Are you back home from Thailand now?

It is interesting that your first thought would be to take the bank to court!

Did you really not have your debit card with you to help you out - similar to your Thailand trip?

I do take the point though, that if the CC company had a note of the dates of your holiday, they could reasonably have known that cancelling your card might cause problems. Still, no point crying over spilt milk, eh?

Have you pushed back against the card company in your Thailand thread? You should do.

phillw

Lizmontague wrote: »

Afterwards, I was told by a relative working for a bank that they should have offered to send me a cash advance to a bank in Ibiza.

Do you think I could take them to Court?

What outcome would you like? Do you have out of pocket expenses due to the card being cancelled? A court is unlikely to refund you for the lack of enjoyment on your holiday for example.

I would have complained, if you did it right you might get £50 out of it. It's a little bit late to have just realised now that their behaviour was unacceptable, but if you're nice you might get away with it.