B....y Barclaycard

[Blue Sunray]

Works both ways - if your card is stolen / cloned etc. and you get your statement at the end of the month, or a phone call at the time, telling you your card has been used in France/Hong Kong, you expect the bank to bare the loss and they will. So it makes sense they look to limit their exposure by cancelling cards when there’s suspicious activity or trying to ratify whether fraud had occurred. It stands to reason if a card had been stolen it may be near/with your mobile, making a landline the safest number to verify the transactions.

Clearly the customer experience hasn’t been great because of this and, if you believe it has caused you a financial loss or distress and inconvenience, your best bet would be to log a complaint when you get home.

+1

 

[Blue Sunray]

It really is a lot more complicated than that, but in fact the card issuer is rarely the one left taking the loss.

Tell us about it then.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Don't just carry different cards but also have one on the VISA system and one on MasterCard.

For travel in the Netherlands and Germany I find it useful to have a Maestro card, which seems to be more widely accepted than Visa Debit or Debit Mastercard, even though Maestro is run by Mastercard. My German bank card is a Maestro.

 

[Concerto]

Don't just carry different cards but also have one on the VISA system and one on MasterCard.

Just checked my 2 debit and 2 credit cards, issued by 3 different banking organisations, and all are Visa.

In the past Barclaycard used to have Visa and Mastercard versions, but now only issue Visa. That is how I no longer have a Mastercard.

Are Visa becoming the major player in the transaction card market in the UK?

Is there any UK bank that issues Maestro cards?

 

[bedouin]

Tell us about it then.

Life's too short for that - but depending on the circumstances it can be
a) The Merchnat
b) The "Merchant Acquirer"
c) The card holder (even for fraud)
d) "Verified by Visa" (I think)
e) The bank - but I suspect very rarely

 

[JumbleDuck]

Is there any UK bank that issues Maestro cards?

I can't find any bank issuing them, though Wikipedia claims that some smaller ones still do. Pre-paid Maestro cards are available through Splash and Quidity, and maybe others.

The really fun thing about my German card is that it only has a ten digit card number. Some systems can cope with this, some reject it outright and some assume they are under attack and get all defensive. I know one large Dublin shop whose entire POS system shuts down - and requires 30 minutes to restart - if a Germany Maestro card is presented at any terminal. Applegreen service station staff get very twitchy when they see one too, I suspect for similar reasons.

 

[franksingleton]

Don't just carry different cards but also have one on the VISA system and one on MasterCard.

I do. That is not the point which is the stupid action by Barclaycard.

 

[Gerry]

I can't find any bank issuing them, though Wikipedia claims that some smaller ones still do. Pre-paid Maestro cards are available through Splash and Quidity, and maybe others.

The really fun thing about my German card is that it only has a ten digit card number. Some systems can cope with this, some reject it outright and some assume they are under attack and get all defensive. I know one large Dublin shop whose entire POS system shuts down - and requires 30 minutes to restart - if a Germany Maestro card is presented at any terminal. Applegreen service station staff get very twitchy when they see one too, I suspect for similar reasons.

Wonderful! Made me giggle in my coffee x

 

[jwilson]

Barclaycard recently sent me new cards for no obvious reason. At the time not a problem, but when I used to travel abroad extensively I always carried at least four different cards, Amex, two Visa and one Mastercard. In some 3rd world places also carried a wodge of US 10 dollar notes - surprising how often they are acceptable outside the US.

My first Barclaycard replaced Barclaycash vouchers - you bought in advance a pack of paper vouchers and each one would give you a £10 note from a machine outside the bank. Really cool in 1967.

 

[colind3782]

I had a Barclaybank card in the 70s which you put into an ATM and it gave you £10 but they posted the card back to you!

 

[emsworthy]

Barclaycard may not do customer service but they're brilliant at irony!! This appeared to the side when I was reading this thread...

 

[VicS]

I had a Barclaybank card in the 70s which you put into an ATM and it gave you £10 but they posted the card back to you!

I'd forgotten about the Barclaybank card. I remember the vouchers, Barclaycash ????? , that came first.

 

[colind3782]

I'd forgotten about the Barclaybank card. I remember the vouchers, Barclaycash ????? , that came first.

I was probably to young to know about that VicS!

 

[mjcoon]

I remember the vouchers, Barclaycash ????? , that came first.

I remember those vouchers too. They were machine-readable because of a punched paper tape strip across the middle. I wonder how long it took for crooks to replicate that?

Mike.

 

[franksingleton]

Barclaycard recently sent me new cards for no obvious reason. At the time not a problem,..............................

After all the anecdotes, back to my OP. Did you get any prior warning? What if you had been away?

 

[Giblets]

Don't just carry different cards but also have one on the VISA system and one on MasterCard.

+1

I suspect Barclaycard's systems do not allow 2 cards on the same account and in the same name to be in use at the same time hence the cancellation of card #1 after card #2 had been sent.

 

[GHA]

Picking up revolute card in a few days, the virtual one has been a bonus so far for transferring euros free to pay the boatyard without having to go to the cashpoint several times. Real card costs a fiver.
Good timing, nationwide cancelled a card and sent a new one out without telling me!

 

[Chris_Robb]

Frank, have you considered the possibility that the email was a fraud - fishing for your number? If they said the number does not exist, perhaps that was to ensure that you had given them the correct number?

WHat number did you ring - the number given on the email???

Just a thought as in my experience when new cards are issued before renewal you can use the old one till expiry date when it stops working. Using the new one earlier, stops your old one working.

 

[Heckler]

I have had cards issued well in advance before but, I suppose, being at home I did not give it a thought.. I did not think about what would have happened had we been away. At one time you had to call BC to validate a new card.

Your point about email is part of my beef to BC. They, themselves, say that email is not a secure method of communication, yet they use it and, apparently, assume that an email or a text message has been received. If there was a security problem they have not said do. They only said that they issued a new card. There must be many sailors who spend considerable periods out of internet contact. We have done many passages in the 1 - 3 days bracket, others will have done far more.

I hope this is a one-off. I hope that my letter might make them think. Meanwhile, be warned. I doubt that that my experience is unique.

As others have said and I do, we carry a range of cards "just in case" I suspect that your "expectations" are because of a certain age and mindset. Crankie old gimmer comes to mind! We are all guilty of it sometimes! Get used to life not going along as you think it should, Move on!

 

[JumbleDuck]

Picking up revolute card in a few days, the virtual one has been a bonus so far for transferring euros free to pay the boatyard without having to go to the cashpoint several times. Real card costs a fiver.
Good timing, nationwide cancelled a card and sent a new one out without telling me!

I have a Revolut account which I used to send some money to a German colleague. She sent the unspent balance back to me, and Revolut lost it. It left her account and didn't appear in mine. They were polite but firm that this was not a problem they had any interest in solving. Since then I have marked them down as "incompetent", "crooked" or "both" and never used my account again. Their constant attempts to get account holders to invest have more than a whiff of Ponzi to them as well.