Ulster Bank visa debit declined!

makeorbrake

Anyone having any issues with Ulster Bank today? Just had visa debit declined. Whats more im abroad ...luckily my last few hours and i have cash.

Tried to log in to anytime banking and it says no such customer number!

Whats more they pulled this **** on the morning of the very day I left for the airport the other week on the basis of alleged suspicious activity on my account.

Really losing patience with this damn bank. They have come so very very close to leaving me stranded in a strange place with no cash

Spocker

What did they say when you called them up?

makeorbrake

Spocker wrote: »

What did they say when you called them up?

Im overseas and irish sim doesnt work over here. I have a local foreign sim for data access - for which theres no phone credit left. Furthermore i dont want to waste quality time talking to those w****rs right now.

I have a few hours left - just having some lunch and a few beers (which i may have to bodge paying for in local money and euros). They came very close to leaving me properly screwed.

When they locked my account down last week, i told them i was going overseas!

Part of posting here was to see if they were having one of their IT issues as to put a block on my account for the few small transactions that have been applied to it in the last few days is NOT rational.

angeldelight

My experience is when you log onto internet banking and the account has disappeared a stop has been put on it by fraud department

Nervous Wreck

You don't want to waste quality time talking to them but are happy enough to waste quality time bitching about them online instead? 5 mins on the phone would likely get it sorted out and probably cost you about 3 quid on a pay phone. Obviously an annoying situation but one that's well within your control to get resolved quite quickly, in fairness.

makeorbrake

angeldelight wrote: »

My experience is when you log onto internet banking and the account has disappeared a stop has been put on it by fraud department

Yeah, that's what happened on the morning of the day I left Ireland.


And now its happening again.

With other banks, ive received calls asking if this transaction is right.

I understand this is an area of difficulty for banks but it can be handled differently.

Ive wanted to move for other reasons (fees) in the past but for the hassle (having to manually adjust direct debits (whatever they say, oftentimes the transfer process is fudged...accidental? ...u know the answer)

Stheno

makeorbrake wrote: »

Yeah, that's what happened one day BEFORE I left Ireland.


And now its happening again.

With other banks, ive received calls asking if this transaction is right.

I understand this is an area of difficulty for banks but it can be handled differently.

Ive wanted to move for other reasons (fees) in the past but for the hassle (having to manually adjust direct debits (whatever they say, oftentimes the transfer process is fudged...accidental? ...u know the answer)

Theyve probably blocked the card if you are abroad and it's unusual for you to be abroad. Try taking out some cash

OU812

It's happened to me also, recently, despite buying currency in my branch, calling the customer service line & telling them I'm going to NYC & saying it also to my branch, they cut me off two days into a five day trip.

Ripped them a new one when I got home & they sent me a €50 bottle of whiskey & credited my account with €200.

Was really inconvenient, luckily I had cash & a card from another bank.

makeorbrake

With other banks in the past, i'd ring them up and ask them to put a note on the system that i was going abroad. When i tried this with UB a year or two back the story was we dont do that with visa debit! Why the hell not. If customer is on the line, isnt it just as easy to type that in? To anyone with a set of digits, that would take all of 20 seconds.

Bank focused banking...not customer focused banking.

OU812 wrote: »

It's happened to me also, recently, despite buying currency in my branch, calling the customer service line & telling them I'm going to NYC & saying it also to my branch, they cut me off two days into a five day trip.

Ripped them a new one when I got home & they sent me a €50 bottle of whiskey & credited my account with €200.

Was really inconvenient, luckily I had cash & a card from another bank.

dobsdave

makeorbrake wrote: »

With other banks in the past, i'd ring them up and ask them to put a note on the system that i was going abroad. When i tried this with UB a year or two back the story was we dont do that with visa debit! Why the hell not. If customer is on the line, isnt it just as easy to type that in? To anyone with a set of digits, that would take all of 20 seconds.

Bank focused banking...not customer focused banking.

Maybe they tried calling you on your Irish sim that doesnt work?

Did you give them an alternative number?

makeorbrake

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

You don't want to waste quality time talking to them but are happy enough to waste quality time bitching about them online instead?

I had online access at my fingertips - I had no such access in terms of phone.

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

5 mins on the phone would likely get it sorted

Hello! I said I had no god damn access to phone.

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

...and probably cost you about 3 quid on a pay phone.

€3 quid - in addition to the €6 quid I lost in the messing about in paying for the item where my card was declined between the rough estimate of what it should be in euro's and then the rough estimate of the change I would get in local currency...came to about €6 more than visa.
Furthermore, "pay phone"? Are you from 1982!? I've travelled two countries over the past 12 days and have not seen one pay phone.
Now I guess I could go and get phone credit from somewhere - try and figure out how to load it ...but then theres the fact that I don't know what the damn number is on the phone and its not displayed via the phone itself.
Still, I could go to T-mobile half way across town and shell out for another sim. Lets add on another few euro's for metro or taxi.

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Obviously an annoying situation but one that's well within your control to get resolved quite quickly, in fairness.

obviously..and 'in fairness', within my control. Sure what else do I have for doing?:rolleyes:

dobsdave wrote:

Maybe they tried calling you on your Irish sim that doesnt work?

Well, I had the 'benefit' of experiencing this the first time round 12 days ago. They locked my card where the last attempted transaction was paying for call credit! I couldn't load it - so I couldn't ring the b*****ds. I had to jump in the car and drive down to the bank. Even when I did that, they said, ah yeah, this happens all the time - but they still seemed to be utterly powerless to fix it. All they did was dial the number and then put me on the phone to them.

They don't ring you - a bloody machine does telling you to ring them! In fact, now that I think about it, its the third time in 3 months card has been locked by them. It's just that on the very first occasion it wasn't such a major issue to deal with - as I wasn't trying to put any vital transaction through as such - and I was in a position to call them.

dobsdave wrote:

Did you give them an alternative number?

Ulster Bank will not put a note on their system to say customer has advised that they will be abroad between date X and date Y. Therefore, leaving them another contact number (which I wouldn't have anyway as I only picked up a sim (2 sims actually - one for each country) on arrival) isn't going to help.

Nervous Wreck

You're a very angry person.

makeorbrake

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

You're a very angry person.

Your other post expressed an opinion on the subject of the thread (even if I don't agree with it).


Whereas...


nothing constructive about this last post.

Nervous Wreck

makeorbrake wrote: »

Your other post expressed an opinion on the subject of the thread (even if I don't agree with it).


Whereas...


nothing constructive about this last post.

When you act as you have done in this thread (angry, petulant, entitled), it demotivates people from wanting to help you; hence, my last post. This may also be why you have had little help from your bank.

AlanS181824

I still feel bad for you but after reading your last few posts not so much!

Try to calm down, there could be much worse things happening to you ye know! :pac:

makeorbrake

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

When you act as you have done in this thread (angry, petulant, entitled)

Entitled? Really? Would that be with regard to my expectation that a service should work? - as it has done on 1001 other overseas trips taken in the past 20 years?
As a mod, you will be aware that there is a forum rule that goes along the lines of posting on topic and not attacking the poster...or making personal remarks about the poster. You go an about 'anger' and alleged petulance. If you want to focus on emotions, before deciding to be 'helpful' in responding to a thread here, you might consider trying to develop a little empathy with the poster.

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

It demotivates people from wanting to help you

I didn't find any of your posts in any way helpful by contrast with many others who have posted objectively and helpfully.

Nervous Wreck wrote:

This may also be why you have had little help from your bank.

So my bank blacklisting my card was based on an emotion expressed by me AFTER this had happened? ...reminding you for the second time now, the major issue was that I simply wasn't in a position to contact them.

AlanS181824 wrote:

Try to calm down, there could be much worse things happening to you ye know!

You get stranded in a foreign country on your jack jones with empty pockets and no means of contacting your bank - for reasons that the bank is culpable for (as if they acted like any other bank and allowed customers to register the fact that they would be travelling abroad, this wouldn't happen) .....experience that and then you (and anyone else) are quite welcome to come back and tell me that it's not human and understandable to experience 'anger'. You understand the implications of that happening - had it been at the beginning of an overseas trip?
I don't call being left in a scenario where there's no funds available to pay for food, accomodation, etc. - in a place where you know no-one as 'annoying' as NW put it.

dobsdave

Its happened to me a few times with BOI and PTSB, but I always bring a back-up card.

Just in case something goes wrong when I'm away, I make sure I can call home too, saves me from getting too angry :-)