Lloyds credit card is unusable due to overzealous security algorithm

Chrysalis

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82073542#Comment_82073542

Yet reports on here say otherwise.
For me capital one an old school card provider will sporadically block payments.
I have seen plenty of reports from lloyds (although I am not affected, I am only using debit card though), halifix, natwest, satander all high street type banks where people have to ring up to get a payment through. Thats just not good enough.

I accept your point about revolut and monza being debit transactions, there does seem a pattern where debit cards there is less paranoia from the banks.

Maegi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82074829#Comment_82074829

There is zero actual evidence that 'old school' providers are any worse / better than neo banks.

My niece was using her Monzo card in Catalunya few week ago and it randomly declined in a local cafe. Luckily she was there with friends and one of them paid for her share of lunch (she transferred funds to them) but she won't be going abroad with Monzo only again.

Tim_L

God yes.

I'm currently in the Far East, travelling between Malaysia, Australia, Timor l'Este, Indonesia, Myanmar and Bhutan. And I use a Lloyds World Elite for travel. So anyone want to hazard a guess which of those countries got my card blocked?

Yep, that hotbed of credit card cloning and fraud, Australia, for UberEats.

A bit of viber calling got it opened up again, and then it was Timor l'Este. It was declined, which I have to say I'm not wildly surprised about, but when I called up, the card hadn't been blocked. There are apparently some countries they don't support AT ALL for payments. "OK", I said, "I'm going to some odd ones, can you tell me which countries are not supported?". "No sir, we can't give that information". I put in a complaint about that as it makes travelling with the card extremely difficult, and explained that as I was travelling I'd prefer to have email communications (this is one of the options you're offered).

And of course the communications come back by SMS which I can't reply to. I could call by viber, but don't really want to run the credits down further, so I went onto twitter to try to get them to tell the complaints team to use email. The twitter team can't deal with case IDs, nor can they make contact with the other teams. They're essentially just a glorified chocolate teapot sort of customer care.

The card was also declined in Indonesia, but this time it didn't make it past the Hilton systems to Lloyds. No trouble in Malaysia.

It is absolutely maddening, because otherwise the Lloyds card is brilliant for travelling (includes Priority pass, etc).

Chase on the other hand is accepted everywhere. It was the only card I had accepted in Belarus a couple of years ago too. I prefer Lloyds as it's where I get the best cashback currently.

Slonvinton

Bank of Scotland have just blocked my credit card for the second time this year. It started with failed payments on Amazon and now a declined from a respected furniture shop.

I dont understand how they can block such big retailers who I shop with a lot. Im considering taking my card off any site that stores details and inputting it each time (I dont know if that will help though as the furniture store didnt have it stored).

Ive got MECFS and phone phobia and agoraphobia so the stress of having to deal with this could make me ill for months. I got very stressed today when the person on their app asked to send a SMS with link for me to enter details in- sounds incredibly dodgy.

I really dont get why bank ask people to do things that sound dodgy because shouldnt we all be refusing to follow links to add our info?

It looks like Im going to have to get my support worker to take me to local branch to try to sort it out- unfortunately Im inbetween support workers so Im just going to have to use debit card for the next few months until I get a new support worker and can get it sorted.

Im not sure its worth the hassle to have the credit card if its going to waste hours of my support workers time every few months.

Slonvinton

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81972692#Comment_81972692

Yes exactly just how insecure are these cards that they need this level of protection?

Maegi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82095056#Comment_82095056

How can you receive sms but not reply? sms roaming is fairly basic functionality

RichL74

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82111755#Comment_82111755

Probably costs £xx to reply if the country the poster is in doesn't have that country included in their usage data.

wiseonesomeofthetime

I know it goes against the vein of this thread, however, I have had my Lloyds Ultra credit card for one month now, with zero issues, it always working as expected.

That said, I have not made any large value transactions, nor spent abroad on it.

The only strange thing was that my first statement was created just three weeks after the account was opened, not a calendar month, as I had been anticipating 🤔

Still, that does not concern me, more in fact helps me as most of my credit cards DD around the 10th of the month, and this falls in line now too.

flaneurs_lobster

Lloyds

Only just noticed this from @Tim_L's post of 07/08

There are apparently some countries they don't support AT ALL for payments. "OK", I said, "I'm going to some odd ones, can you tell me which countries are not supported?". "No sir, we can't give that information". I put in a complaint about that as it makes travelling with the card extremely difficult, and explained that as I was travelling I'd prefer to have email communications (this is one of the options you're offered).

Are Lloyds saying that they won't disclose which countries their cards will work in? Is this some kind of "security" measure or is it simply they don't know/don't have the information?

In either case it seems a ridiculous situation, especially when referring to a card called the World Elite.

Seems a pretty basic requirement to add to the list when considering the suitability of a card for use overseas ("will it work at all") along with charges, cashback etc.

shaunm1985

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82111755#Comment_82111755

Sometimes the SMS does not even arrive, especially when underground in tube stations as one example.