Barclaycant

[Cyberman]

I stopped my Barclaycard about 20 years ago after I received a very rude computerised letter in big red capital letters after missing just one monthly payment in error. They made me feel like a criminal and I still have a very low opinion of them after all this time. I hope they go bust !!

[TykeMerc]

I'd have thought this should be dealt with by the fraud department rather than the disputes department. In cases of fraud your card should be cancelled immediately and a new one issued.

Which is exactly what CapitalOne did when I noticed a couple of wrong transactions and spoke to them. They had also intercepted and refused another dozen or so that morning and had posted me a letter.

The transactions were reversed then and there, a new card and account arrived a couple of days later with a form to fill in to list the transactions that were suspect. All thoroughly painless from my perspective and resolved as quickly and easily as I could have hoped.

[gadgetman]

Had a similar nightmare with Abbey about 18 months ago. Several transfers totalling 3.5k done *internally* from my account. Whole account was compromised so had months of hassle opening a new account and transferring over.

A tip for expat: sign up for a free Flextel number then give that out. They look like mobile numbers and you can redirect them anywhere.

I have one permanently directed to my landline in Oz, one always goes to voicemail and one is faxmail. The nice thing is that voicemails are emailed to you as a WAV file attachment along with the caller's number (even withheld numbers) so it costs nowt to pick up messages.

It doesn't cost me anything, the caller pays for the redirection so you get one back on the banks

[expat]

A tip for expat: sign up for a free Flextel number then give that out. They look like mobile numbers and you can redirect them anywhere.

Thanks, but that's the reverse of the situation I had: where each mobile number that I had, I had previously obtained so that people in that country could call me on a mobile number in that country (not the UK).

I didn't have any trouble with my 5 mobile numbers anyway (most of which were on forward or straight-to-messaging), what I had trouble with was not being able to remember which one I had given to Barclaycard, not knowing that I would have to remember it. My problem with Barclaycard was that they had taken my mobile number, and not told me at the time that I would need to remember which one it was or I would "fail" security.

[cailin maith]

Barclays are gimps for making you jump through hoops sometimes. When I got divorced I went back to my maiden name, my married was just double barrelled (sp?) but when I phoned up the telephone banking (having changed the name on the account in the branch) they wouldn't speak to me because I gave them my maiden name instead of the married one... Grrr I was soooo furious. At least now, they have upgraded my account, I actually get to speak to someone in this country who has a reasonable grasp of the english language as opposed to reading answers off a crib sheet!

Rant over

[Menelaus]

Which is exactly what CapitalOne did when I noticed a couple of wrong transactions and spoke to them. They had also intercepted and refused another dozen or so that morning and had posted me a letter.

The transactions were reversed then and there, a new card and account arrived a couple of days later with a form to fill in to list the transactions that were suspect. All thoroughly painless from my perspective and resolved as quickly and easily as I could have hoped.

FALCON strikes again