Credit cards and bank-debit cards are a huge convenience when traveling far from home.
- You reduce your need to carry cash around
- you don't need to buy traveler's cheques (or find a place to cash them, or pay exorbitant cashing fees)
- when you do need dinero, you can get local currency from bank machines.
What if, however, suddenly your card is refused when you try to make purchases-- as happened to me in a busy store in Venice. (I had a shopping-cart full of groceries...)
Or what if you punch in your data at an automated teller machine, and not a pesoor a eurodrops into your waiting hands-- only your rejected credit card?
And what if you then find out that these woes were due, not to a malfunctioning card-- but to credit card company policy?
Blame it on crime and fraud
Over the last decade, credit card theft has been a huge growth industry. Naturally, credit card companies are making new moves to boost security.
For example: some companies now automatically scan your pattern of purchases, looking for "red flag" activities. A red flag might go up when:
- a charge is made in a foreign country and there's no past pattern of purchases made in that locale
- an unusually large amount is charged to the card
- the card is used in a public telephone. (Apparently credit card thieves often use public phones to test if credit cards are valid or not.)
Once the red flag goes up, various events may happen.
Red Flag up, Your Access Down
Back at the credit card company, a human employee will probably review your account, and telephone you to ask if you've genuinely made the suspicious charges. This is all a very nice form of protection--
Except that if you're away traveling, trying to use your card , t he credit card company won't be able to reach you. Here's what will probably happen, when you're on the road:
Most importantly: your card probably won't work any more .
If you're making a purchase:
When the merchant "swipes" your card --i.e. slides it through the device that reads the magnetic stripe-- he/she should receive an instruction to contact the credit card company. Ideally, the call should be made on the spot and the problem will get straightened out.
What I found in practice, however, was that merchants simply informed me that the card didn't work-- End of story.
Good thing I'd brought along plenty of cards..
If you're using an automated teller:
Forget it.
Your card will be spat out, with no explanation-- or perhaps a confusing explanation, such as "unable to process this transaction at this time."
y Week Two of our trip, I'd lost the use of both my gold Visa card and my gold Mastercard: one was "red-flagged" simply because I'd made a purchase in France; the other because I'd used the card in a pay phone.
Granted, I live in Cautious Canada: perhaps US companies are not so quick to put security concerns above customer convenience. Nonetheless, the trend is toward greater security. If you're traveling outside North America, you'd be wise to take a few precautions on extended trips.
- make sure you carry more than one credit/debit card-- I'd recommend three or four!
- take along some travelers' cheques, just in case. These cheques never expire, so the same set of emergency cheques can last indefinitely.
- call your credit card company before your trip, to say you're traveling internationally and to check their policies. Give them your cell phone number if your cell will work in the country you're visiting.
- avoid using your credit card in a pay phone.
