ATM in Egypt

Mary.M

Not sure whether this should be in banking or in phones, so let's try here first. 

Last month I was in Egypt, because of the travel uncertainties I wanted to be sure I could access my UK funds so I messaged my bank, I got told 'you no longer need to inform us of your travel plans, our fraud team will contact you about any suspicious transactions'.  They made a big thing about carrying a cellphone, which I did.  I wanted a small sum of Egyptian cash so I tried to draw from an ATM using my UK debit card.

The transaction failed with the message 'timed out by issuing bank', I checked the phone to see if the bank had tried to query the transaction but only a message in the SMS box from 'Show Balance'.  I hadn't asked for a balance.  I tried again and same thing, then another 'Show Balance' message.

When I'm in UK and make a chargeable call or send a text, I get a balance screen at the end of the transaction.  I'm wondering if these odd 'Show Balance' headers were related to some attempt by my bank to contact me, I usually get a recognisable message with their logo so were these connected to failed incoming messages?

Either way I didn't get my cash, when I got home my bank statement shows 2 sets of refunds (cash plus FX fee x 2) followed by 2 sets of matching charges so I didn't get charged for the cash I didn't get.  

But it does worry me.  I was in the desert 4 hours from the nearest city, what if I'd needed cash to pay a taxi, for example?  All my transport & meals were pre-paid and I carry a credit card plus cash in sterling, euros and dollars, but taxis in the desert don't have card terminals and although the city souks take any sort of currency, if I'd needed Egyptian cash, which I don't think you can get in advance in UK any more, and my debit card failed, what would I do?  

Bank is totally unhelpful and say it must have been an error with the ATM, I just wonder about those phone messages ...   

Westin

Always best to never rely on one debit card/one credit card but to have several options open to you.

Also never expect one ATM in remote parts of a country to work and function as they might down your local UK high street.  I probably would have tried to get cash from an ATM in a main city or airport in advance of travelling to the desert region, 4 hrs from a main/nearest city. 

Having a small supply of USD/EUR/GBP as you did was a wise back up however. 

Mary.M

Westin said:

Always best to never rely on one debit card/one credit card but to have several options open to you.

Fully agree.  Just tried to reply and my post was 'caught by the suspicious post filter'?????  Seems you only have to mention Egypt and everything goes pearshaped ...