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Credit cards blocked when travelling (and fraud generally)

Banking with a solid and customerfriendly bank ?

Neither my Commerzbank nor my ING card has been ever been blocked following a use abroad.
Only after a few (resolved) abuse cases has DKB blocked my Lufthansa Card…

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EDM_, Germany

Ultranomad wrote:

I use wise.com (formerly Transferwise). Totally happy with it.

While I previously used Wise, they seem to have become very hostile to business accounts (closing them without explanation), lying about it (saying they don’t serve businesses in “my country”, while their website clearly says they do, and I know of other business accounts that are open and functioning in the same country), randomly blocking transactions for days and weeks while they investigate and ask for the same documents that you already provided, etc.

ELLX

The nuance about using the Halifax card if you are based in UK is that they not only don’t charge a ‘foreign exchange fee’ for each transaction, but more importantly don’t clutter your statement with duplicate lines about the skim off that the bank has gouged you for. (Pre-covid) I have had the card blocked, most notably when staying in the same hotel in Oslo on different occasions. An hour on the phone is about right but always press for a credit to cover your inconvenience.

Now I’m going back to travelling. We shall see. And yes, I do carry several cards!

Last Edited by Aveling at 22 Apr 11:16
EGBW / KPRC, United Kingdom

Revolut is a bank now btw.

ESME, ESMS

Blocked credit cards when overseas used to be a significant issue for US credit cards, and preventing it used to require pre-travel phone calls with people having sub-100 IQs. Nowadays you may instead need go online with either your phone banking app. or computer and notify the travel, I do this for my most used credit card and debit card simultaneously. That is a lot less annoying than phone calls and can be done in a couple of minutes. Or in the case of a no-applicable-fee credit card I use almost exclusively for foreign currency transactions, the bank no no longer requires (or provides for) any foreign travel notification.

I haven’t had an issue with this since 2013.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 22 Apr 14:35

When I was in the US I used Amex pretty much exclusively abroad, which didn’t have a problem. I only used my US debit cards to get cash, which mostly worked without problems. (My worst experience was when Visa blocked my card while I was in Churchill, Canada – where international phone calls are not cheap. It cost me about $50 in hold music to resolve).

Our US Visa cards would get blocked for just about anything or nothing – even when you warned them in advance.

Have yet to find out how it works out with my French cards, since the furthest I’ve been outside France is Basel (you can walk there) and getting gas in Spain about 100 km from the border. So far, so good.

LFMD, France

Revolut is a fraud magnet, apparently.

Never have had any issue with Revolut. Just top up from another card and that’s it. I got it stolen once and try of fraudulent transaction was stopped and I immediately get inapp messages of potential fraud, blocked the card and new one was immediately issued, stored to wallet and usable via NFC before I received physical replacement.

BTW I’ve never had issue of blocking cards when traveling – it’s all about software implemented in particular bank and UK ones are not at top of the list

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

I have never had a permanent block on my payment cards.
Long time ago I would hit a “payments abroad over 7d rolling limit”, but since then learnt how to adjust that amount so I have not run into this in over a decade.

ESMK, Sweden

Every card I own has a ‘notify of travel’ section in the online servicing portal. Simples.

PS: I’m not sure it’s really needed, as I often forget and nothing untoward happens.

Well, guess, what, Halifax says you don’t need to tell them which is just as well, since there is no way to contact them, in under 1hr on their chimp phone queue.

You no longer have to tell us when you are travelling abroad. Our fraud and security systems are always on the lookout for suspicious activity on your accounts meaning you can relax when you are away making going abroad stress free.

That’s BS.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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