Man 'forced to sleep with rats' after Scottish bank cancels credit card during Thailand trip

[owl7]

I Agree He should Have had more then just one source of Funds.....Well He will Learn

But Why do you make such Much Fun of His Name?

Maybe is a Foreigner living in Scotland? What's the Big deal? ...You Bigots

So Many Brits Working in Spain...Specially in Benidorn area ....Quite few Immigrants from UK

Same as Here in Thailand...Many Brits working....I Know you prefer to call them Expat if They have a Smith surname...But They are Not......They Are immigrants

 

[xkkpafi]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

says he is now working in a restaurant in Thailand in return for meals

Kinda dumb to mention that, could be further up siht creek if he carries on like that.

[SymS]

I had a bit of stress while traveling overseas, as my bank had a new rule that I had to enable a limit while out of the country. I had no idea about this rule, and when I tried to withdraw cash it did not work, even after trying several ATMs. I finally contacted the bank by phone, and they informed me about the new rules, and that I had to enable overseas withdrawal through online banking. Great, except it requires OTP number sent to my phone/SIM card which does not support roaming.

I called the bank several times, asking for solutions, and finally, one officer at the bank told me they could do a 7-day emergency. After asking many questions, I could set the limit over the phone, and withdraw enough cash during that 7 day period to complete my 2-month trip... A lot of unnecessary stress.

[Formaleins]

7 hours ago, soalbundy said:

He's from Barcelona.

Que?

[Formaleins]

5 minutes ago, xkkpafi said:

Kinda dumb to mention that, could be further up siht creek if he carries on like that.

He might just by a very slim chance have his work permit in order! He somehow doesn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer!

[Spidey]

13 minutes ago, owl7 said:

Maybe is a Foreigner living in Scotland? What's the Big deal? ...You Bigots

So Many Brits Working in Spain...Specially in Benidorn area ....Quite few Immigrants from UK

Same as Here in Thailand...Many Brits working....I Know you prefer to call them Expat if They have a Smith surname...But They are Not......They Are immigrants

Maybe a Scot with Spanish/South American ancestry. Bigots +1

[PETERTHEEATER]

Who forced him and why?

[malcoml]

He has now set up a go fund me account and looking to get 5000gbp so he can get home.

 

What sort of idiot goes on holidays with one card and doesn’t check the date on his card before travel.

 

Vegetarian.... get some pork in that fork

[GinBoy2]

So I thought it was interesting, and Yes I did read all of the OP, so it was a bank screw up nothing he did wrong, but the bank says it will take time to wire him cash!

Funny sat here on my laptop, I could wire money to Thailand from my US bank to my Thai bank and it would be there tomorrow, done it many times.

And since he doesn't have a Thai bank account, Western Union or Moneygram can do it instantaneously as soon as you hit the enter button 

 

Bit like insurance companies, instantly able to take your money, a little slow on giving it back when needed.

 

But I would also agree, never travel with a sole source of funds. Debit card and at least one credit card is a must

[GAZZPA]

3 hours ago, graemeaylward said:

That's a good old Scottish name! ????


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

Its a multi cultural would today, people move around, just like you.  I suppose you have a nice sounding Thai name. Pesky foreigners eh! This site is full of old racist duffers, my friends name is Marco but he was born in the UK and sees himself as thoroughly British, so what comment would you make for him? It has nothing to do with this mans predicament. hope it all works out for him and the bank sort it all out.

 

[chainarong]

7 hours ago, Youlike said:

Yes and that's because we even can't trust our own banks anymore these days.

 

I've had the same, my bank had blocked my creditcard for certain countries for safety reasons without telling me.

I had a go in with my bank when trying to book a flight on Thai from an Indo mine site , the bank ended up asking  me what countries did I want the card used in , make it the world, end of story. 

[geisha]

Doesn’t everyone check these things before leaving on a 2 month holiday ? Also, a visit to your bank is vital , to let them know you are in Thailand ? Don’t blame the bank. It’s just ignorance.

[Vacuum]

21 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

it was a bank screw up nothing he did wrong, but the bank says it will take time to wire him cash!

Gotta love the 'electronic age', banks and insurance companies.

[hansnl]

8 hours ago, soalbundy said:

He's from Barcelona.

Manuel?

[ColinChapman]

7 hours ago, overherebc said:

I know nothing Mr Fawlty

Possible he never checked the expiry date on his card before leaving UK

You might think that, but I had a credit card cancelled while I was on holiday that had more than two years left before its expiry date. The bank had sent me a new card without telling me because I had reached some sort of security threshold (they were very vague about this, but there had been no suspicious transactions) and had then cancelled my old card three weeks after sending the new one, which was lost in the post. I didn't know it had been lost of course because they hadn't told me it was coming. To add insult to injury, they then deleted all the statements in my Internet banking remain to the old card, and sent me a final bill with no statement to check it against. 

 

They were baffled as to why I could object to any of this because it was all "for my protection". 

[hansnl]

1 minute ago, geisha said:

Doesn’t everyone check these things before leaving on a 2 month holiday ? Also, a visit to your bank is vital , to let them know you are in Thailand ? Don’t blame the bank. It’s just ignorance.

In principle, it is always the bank's fault.

Banksters do anything possible and impossible to screw you.

Without fail.

[Fred31]

8 hours ago, MeePeeMai said:

Yes it’s happened to me also. 

And you of course, did not have the onus to tell them.....responsibility works both ways you know

[Dumbastheycome]

36 minutes ago, malcoml said:

He has now set up a go fund me account and looking to get 5000gbp so he can get home.

 

What sort of idiot goes on holidays with one card and doesn’t check the date on his card before travel.

 

Vegetarian.... get some pork in that fork

Be interesting to know  what the credit limit on his  card was when  he set out for Thailand.

[bkk_mike]

5 hours ago, PerkinsCuthbert said:

It's nonsense, sensational rubbish; nobody goes for a two-month holiday with a single source of funds, no friends back home to help when things go wrong, and has to sleep on 'streets and in disused buildings with rats'. Even in the extremely implausible event that the man was so helpless and had nobody to assist him, a temple would give him shelter and food for the duration. 

The fact that the guy's story made it into the Scotsman means the bank is now doing something to sort it out, rather than playing phone tag with someone calling from Thailand (and we don't know if he's worked out how to use the cheap dialling codes, or call through Skype. It could be costing him ridiculous amounts of money to call the UK if he's, for instance, using his UK mobile).

 

[dunroaming]

What a load of rubbish.  Credit card  would have to be authorised before the old one is cancelled.  If not authorised then the original card can still be used.  There are procedures in place to deal with this sort of thing.  I have used them myself.  But anyway there is nothing to stop friends or family n Britain from sending him money in Thailand.  There are many different ways to do that, Western Union being one of them!

 

Also he can just bring his flight home forward, usually without penalty.  This is just pathetic reporting of a non story.  More likely the idiot just ran out of money but nobody is forcing him to sleep with rats.  That would be a choice of his own making.

[Sheryl]

1 hour ago, Estrada said:

I have had 2 Thai Citibank credit Cards for 25 years. In the early days they used to ask me to inform them if I was going to visit another country. If I made an abnormally high monetary purchase they would ring me on my mobile phone immediately to check in case of fraud. These days they use a host of data that their computers use to track you and ascertain whether you can be in two locations at once, for instance. For online purchases they send a random pin number to your mobile phone so I don't understand your complaint about them not understanding on-line purchases. The security is there. These days I don't need to inform them if I go to another country, because their computers track us using location from daily purchases, air tickets (which show destination) and so on. I have had had only one fraudulent purchase on my account in 25 years for which they refunded the money. The same happened to a friend recently and they contacted him because they thought it was suspicious that at age 65 he was taking out an online subscription to E-Gaming.

 

Mine is from Citibank US, not Thailand.

 

No OTP pin system for online purchases. My Visa card has one, but not my Citibank MC.  Citibank does on some sites, but not all, ask for I think my postal code. But not on all sites and never an OTP.

 

They have (or had, these problems improved about 2 years back) all sorts of algorithms they use to decide a charge is "suspicious". One of these apparently including being a charge in Thailand with no exception made for the fact that the cardholder lives in Thailand.  And a variety of others. It was often impossible to determine the reason why certain charges were flagged and even they could not explain it.   What I can say for sure is that no human reviewed the flagged item before the card was frozen, because if they had they would have quickly seen that it was a charge I had made before -- same amount, same vendor, often even same time of the year -- and that I lived in Thailand etc etc.

 

They did not seem to track my whereabouts though as witness them accepting a charge for monthly gym membership in the US (in a state I do not even visit) despite my being in Thailand.

 

My favorite was when they froze my card because they decided an online payment of my income taxes was suspicious. I am pretty sure credit card thieves don't go around paying people's taxes for them.

[thaibreaker]

His name must have been misspelled. His name is Albert McPerry, I presume.

[thaibreaker]

Note to self.

 

Travel abroad for two months with a backup plan. Have friends at home. Write down WESTERN UNION. If all goes sideways, be nice to the rats around you. You never know when you`re gonna need their help.

[Vacuum]

48 minutes ago, malcoml said:

What sort of idiot goes on holidays with one card and doesn’t check the date on his card before travel.

I'm probably older than you and have never used 'plastic money', does that make me an idiot? I might add that I've never had any problems with using cash or travelers cheques.

[bert bloggs]

16 minutes ago, ColinChapman said:

You might think that, but I had a credit card cancelled while I was on holiday that had more than two years left before its expiry date. The bank had sent me a new card without telling me because I had reached some sort of security threshold (they were very vague about this, but there had been no suspicious transactions) and had then cancelled my old card three weeks after sending the new one, which was lost in the post. I didn't know it had been lost of course because they hadn't told me it was coming. To add insult to injury, they then deleted all the statements in my Internet banking remain to the old card, and sent me a final bill with no statement to check it against. 

 

They were baffled as to why I could object to any of this because it was all "for my protection". 

That has happened to me ,having a new card before my old one expires ,but to be honest to travel to Thailand for a long period without cash ,he must be very stupid

[Sheryl]

1 hour ago, TomTao said:

Didn't he let the bank know he was going on holiday, or check the card expiration date? I feel sorry for him, I hope he learns to have a little forethought the next he goes for a break, and gets full enjoyment out of it.

 

 

He did both of those things. Read the article.

 

Anyone who thinks problems like this can't happen unless  one has done something wrong or failed to do something one should have....just wait. Sooner or later you will find out differently, the hard way. Not at all unusual for banks to without warning change chips or add chips or for some other reason replace all the cards and if you aren't home when the new one arrives you are out of luck....and it makes no difference if you have put in a travel notification as the people who mail out new cards don't check them.

 

  Obviously if one has more than one card then there is a fall back when things like this occur, but not everyone does or realizes that this sort of thing can happen.

 

I would have a lot more sympathy for these supposed security precautions if they were (1) better designed (taking into account the modern world e.g. that people travel and buy things online from vendors who could be based anywhere) and (2) employed in an intelligent manner which absolutely has to mean a human eye reviewing things flagged by  computer against the other information in the account.  That would have prevented virtually every single case in which my cards got frozen.

 

And yes, when you try to call them you are on hold forever and it is extremely hard to get a human on the line.   I spent a small fortune calling Citibank over the years over my frozen cards. Before getting to spend an eternity in hold would have to first suffer through the automated menus...you know, the ones that never, ever, apply to your reason for calling.

 

Automation run amok is the problem, companies do not want to pay for sufficient human staff and the customers suffer. 

 

 

[scorecard]

2 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

 

He did both of those things. Read the article.

 

Anyone who thinks problems like this can't happen unless  one has done something wrong or failed to do something one should have....just wait. Sooner or later you will find out differently, the hard way. Not at all unusual for banks to without warning change chips or add chips or for some other reason replace all the cards and if you aren't home when the new one arrives you are out of luck....and it makes no difference if you have put in a travel notification as the people who mail out new cards don't check them.

 

  Obviously if one has more than one card then there is a fall back when things like this occur, but not everyone does or relaizes that thsi sort of thing happens.

 

I would have a lot more sympathy for these supposed security precautions if they were (1) better designed (taking into account the modern world e.g. that people travel and buy things online from vendors who could be based anywhere) and (2) employed in an intelligent manner which absolutely has to mean a human eye reviewing things flagged by  computer against the other information in the account.  That would have prevented virtually every single case in which my cards got frozen.  Automation run amok is the problem, companies do not want to pay for sufficient human staff and the customers suffer. 

 

 

Well said.

[Tanlic]

8 hours ago, graemeaylward said:

That's a good old Scottish name! ????


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Bert MacPerez from the clan MacPerez they fought at the battle of stinky water with Billy Wallace who's cousin William makes movies with Mel MacGibson pictures..........for God's sake man learn your history 

 

[Tanlic]

8 hours ago, graemeaylward said:

That's a good old Scottish name! ????


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Bert MacPerez from the clan MacPerez they fought at the battle of stinky water with Billy Wallace who's cousin William makes movies with Mel MacGibson pictures..........for God's sake man learn your history 

 

[SunsetT]

8 hours ago, Youlike said:

Yes and that's because we even can't trust our own banks anymore these days.

 

I've had the same, my bank had blocked my creditcard for certain countries for safety reasons without telling me.

Me too......Twice with Nationwide UK even when notified of dates in Thaialnd! They write (and now phone) to your UK home address to inform you! What use is that when ur abroad? After the 1st time I provided them with my Thai phone number but 2nd time they said their 'system' cannot sms foreign numbers! 2nd transaction was blocked because my online payment for annual UK car insurance to Lloyds Bank was flagged as suspicious!