Bank Card Fraud .. AGAIN! :(

[kalniel]

Had my card blocked once in Dubai which was a complete PITA spending 24 hours there with £20 in cash.

Had you told them in advance you were likely to be using a CC over there? I can understand that they'd get suspicious of a transaction in another country. When I was working in America it was quite easy to just let them know in advance and then it was all fine.

[MD]

Yup always do.

Its catch 22 though, you phone up your CC company and say 'hey im going away for three weeks to dubai so you need to be aware of that so you don't block my card'

When in fact you are also saying at the same time 'my house full of lush kit and nice furniture is gonna be empty for three weeks - help yourself!'

Society needs to read from its own book sometimes - the systems don't work and its does nothing but hurt society.

[SiM]

Take 3 or 4 cards when you go abroad. If one gets blocked use another
But, if you get robbed then you are screwed...

I have been scammed a few times with debit/credit cards. Each time it hasn't been much problem getting natwest to sort it out and refund

[Funkstar]

Take 3 or 4 cards when you go abroad. If one gets blocked use another

Thats why I don't want to give my my RBS Visa card. Everyone is going Mastercard, but I like to travel with a MC, Amex and Visa, just in case.

[dave87]

Mastercard & Visa here, no Amex, never seen the appeal tbh.

It doesn't offer me anything that the other two don't already, so little point me taking it.

[SiM]

An amex and 2 mastercards for me. I need a Visa to add to my collection, i'm thinking egg moneyback... but maybe I should wait until I start working so I get a better limit.

[Funkstar]

Visa is hard to come by now, as I said, everyone is changing to Mastercard. I hardly use my Amex (the blue one) but it is useful to have, their customer service is excellent.

[Lucio]

Chip and Pin has one huge gaping security hole: How the hell do I know the chip reader is connected to the bank and not just logging my data?

It needs some kind of hand-shake. The chip reader first tells me a 'pin' so I know its spoke to the bank, only once I've seen that will I input my pin. Date of birth would do it, although not the most secure I guess its better than nothing.

It'd maybe work if you had a welcome phrase, like you do with Mastercard Securecode or Verified by Visa. That said, it'd be incredibly costly in terms of bandwidth, having to do a lookup in a public facing database and could be kept reasonably secure if you only allowed access from specific IP addresses, and from a known list of terminal ID's.

[TooNice]

Odd about the Visa being hard to come by part, somehow I always end up with a Visa. I am trying to find a good card for use overseas (i.e. one with low transaction cost) and I've pretty much narrowed down to two (Nationwide and Post Office). I favour nationwide slightly simply because I am interested in opening an account with them, and it's usually a bit quicker to pay off spending on the credit card when you also bank with them, but that'd be one Visa too many (for zero Mastercard).

[kalniel]

Yup always do.

Its catch 22 though, you phone up your CC company and say 'hey im going away for three weeks to dubai so you need to be aware of that so you don't block my card'

When in fact you are also saying at the same time 'my house full of lush kit and nice furniture is gonna be empty for three weeks - help yourself!'

True, but that's when you say don't be surprised if the wife makes a purchase or two from home either.. especially as the rotweiler is nearly out of food..

[Blitzen]

Mastercard & Visa here, no Amex, never seen the appeal tbh.

It doesn't offer me anything that the other two don't already, so little point me taking it.

When im abroad i use my corporate AMEX.
That way, if i get scammed, its not my own cash