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Screwed while travelling - new security
6 replies
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13 posts

I am travelling and all my credit cards wont work now to pay online for flights and hotels etc as suddenly verified by visa and MasterCard secure want to send me a text. To my UK number that isnt working in Indonesia.
What an awful mechanism. I wasted a lot of money phoning each of my banks to get around it and they say not their problem. So looks like I have to change my phone number wherever I go online then hope that gets picked up by verified by visa etc.
So beware when travelling now! I have 8 cards to avoid failure issues but all have one bottleneck now with same mobile issue.
:mad:
What an awful mechanism. I wasted a lot of money phoning each of my banks to get around it and they say not their problem. So looks like I have to change my phone number wherever I go online then hope that gets picked up by verified by visa etc.
So beware when travelling now! I have 8 cards to avoid failure issues but all have one bottleneck now with same mobile issue.
:mad:
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Replies
Even if it costs you a fortune to make outgoing calls / texts, you should still be able to receive texts no problem.
How so?
I wasn't aware Mastercard/Visa were doing two factor auth, but if they are then that's great as the improved security is only a benefit and is designed to help combat fraud.
The problem is not with Mastercard/Visa or their bank, but with their phone carrier / phone device. They are correct to use two factor auth to help bolster security. Otherwise you'll end up with posts titled "help, my bank auth'd £2,000 transactions online abroad that I didn't make" or "My urgent transaction was blocked by the automatic anti-fraud system" - Two factor auth proves you auth'd it so the later, which is commonplace now, becomes redundant.
They need to find out why they are not receiving texts, which is rather odd.
I suspect there might be connection issues in Indonesia (e.g. 3G may not work which would result in no service whatsoever from 3 mobile).
I also don't understand why an SMS could not be received in Indonesia with any UK network.