That’s BS.
I’m sure there are banks (and card issuers) that know how to do their job. Moreover, I’m pretty sure there are many but you’re just unlucky to use wrong one 
Peter wrote:
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.
Visit them and complain. Promise to raise this issue with the ombudsman unless they provide you with a facility to travel with the card…
Well, none of this is practically possible. The one thing which works is sending a Signed For letter to the home address of the Company Secretary (use the Companies House data to find where he lives). But that is a last-resort measure.
All of them do extreme anti-fraud measures; I am sure you can’t get around that. But clearly some do it better than others. I have a credit card (won’t post the name openly) which works perfectly no matter what, but rips me off badly of FX when travelling.
Re Halifax, a company with the highest amount of sh1tty reviews online, a guaranteed way to block it more or less permanently is to try to use it at a computer store in Germany
Are there any credit card companies which function well (none in the UK AFAIK) and which would deal with a UK customer?
When I collected my Bolkow Junior from Turweston after a strip-and-repaint, I paid by transferring money in the Banbury Santander branch.
Next morning my Santander card was blocked, which I discovered after using my bus pass to get ~60 miles to Aberdeen, when trying to buy a rail ticket to recover my car
It took me a long time on the phone next day to get it unblocked. I used another card, but was worried it would also be blocked.
Banks are protective of elderly people being bullied into paying for unsuitable-for-elderly things, like Avgas.
I try to keep 5 cards active now.
I have had the same Halifax card as Peter for many years, and it has never been blocked while travelling. I wonder what’s different about our spending patterns that produces such different results. Indeed, I was in the US last week and I am in France at the moment – so far, no trouble. I’d do frequently use the card in the UK too (for places which don’t take Amex); perhaps that regular use helps.
I occasionally get asked for the one time passwords (via SMS) or (more recently) a request to log into the Halifax app to approve online purchases, but face to face transactions have always worked for me. Touch wood that continues!
Interesting.
I started off using the Halifax one mostly for foreign travel and foreign purchases, and did that for a few years. It would be blocked on perhaps 50% of trips abroad, with a ~1hr phone queue this was obviously crazy. But I always had other cards.
So I started giving it “more exercise” in the UK And it just kept getting blocked in the UK. But making those calls is easier because I just use a land line and leave the phone off hook, on the speaker, while doing something useful. This has not really helped.
The card did get hit by fraud a few times and I suspect their procedures are just crap, and same for many banks.
Now they started sending SMS messages and if you don’t reply with YES within a fairly short time, say 1hr, they block it. So no use using it at home (no GSM signal) for mail order purchases And same with any other card which sends an SMS…
I suspect there is no solution, because fraud is so big, and those who get away with it just have different spending patterns which the stupid software is OK with.
Well… fraud-resistant solution exists – in physical world using PIN for confirming transaction with chip equipped cards and in online shopping using 3D Secure combined with dynamic passwords. However, two reasons prevent usage for all transactions – 1. people are too lazy to use it every time and 2. merchants hate it because it’s kind of complicated for buyers and they sometimes give up the purchase.
I suspect most fraud today does not involve using the card to buy something; well not directly. The purchaser does need the 3 digit number after all, for both in-person (except when using contactless pay, but that works only for small amounts) and for online purchases.
I’ve found ApplePay pretty good at not triggering fraud blocks, and chip+pin normally doesn’t. It’s other cardholder not present stuff that I find tends to trigger it – e.g. my passport renewal! (I ended up going to the passport office in person to pay in the end – the passport renewal is a paper form so it doesn’t have the usual 2FA stuff).
