Home bank and international travel, fyi

The credit union is not protecting its customers. It is protecting itself. Nothing wrong with that. But it is perfectly legitimate for an account holder to travel overseas, and letting them know before you go should be enough. It is ridiculous that despite a note in your file that they would freeze your account. How in the world would this work?? If this practice spreads we'll all be in trouble. I suggest you keep complaining and escalating this upwards until you find someone with some common sense who might help you.

I have gotten calls from our CUs fraud protection, too. I'm worried now!

You might also consider opening an account just for travel at a bank that does not do this.

At a credit union you are not just a customer, but a member. You have some ownership.

I do have an account with another bank that is my main account. The CU acct. is for travel b/c it doesn't charge me transaction fees. I still have time to decide whether to transfer money from CU to Wachovia and pay the fees. Interestingly enough, when I turned my cell phone one yesterday afternoon, I had a voicemail message from a different person at the CU. She didn't say what she wanted but I called and left her message to call me at work Monday morning.

If my credit union told me that, I'd tell them thanks anyway, but there are oyther credit unions, and I'd be closing all my accounts and moving.

The credit union taking steps to protect themselves is fine. But what you describe crosses the line, IMHO. Traveling overseas is not a crime, and it shouldn't be treated by your bank as some weird, dangerous, suspicious activity (hey - that's what the government is for... ;).

Maybe you could give them the phone number of a friend or other family member who could respond. As a member of a CU, the fraud alert company works for you, not the other way around. I don't have a cell phone, and won't get one. Your solution won't work for me. I think cc's are issued by visa, mastercard, amex.,etc. through your CU. They are in charge of your card. It was visa that called me when I made a same day purchase in my hometown and in Switzerland (train ticket), not my CU.

I had a somewhat similar experience with our CU, when I called to report a trip. The CU documented the travel dates, and countries we were traveling to, and also gave me the number of the fraud alert company which would be handling any problems that might arise when using the ATM/debit cards. I called this company, and was told that they didn't document trip dates, etc., but gave me a number which would provide 24/7 access from Europe. Since this company wouldn't have documentation of the trip, I was worried that the accounts would freeze up the first time we tried to make withdrawals, and I would need to make that call. Alas, no problems whatsover...but I still don't understand the concept behind it. In addition, our ATM/debit cards were issued by Visa through the credit union: however, we were not asked to notify Visa of our trip. We did notify Mastercard, which was the issuer of our credit cards, but these were not credit union-related credit cards.

I called the customer service # on the back of my Visa card and was told that I'd have to call the issuing bank regarding traveling out the country! I told the cust. srv. rep that that is exactly what I'd done in the past but this time was told otherwise by my CU. She agreed that this was all screwy. I managed to get the private voicemail # for one of the supervisors and left her a lengthy voicemail last night regarding my frustration and asked that she call me back today. If I don't hear from her, I'm taking a field trip to the CU and someone will talk to me.

Thanks for everyone's responses!

Well, I feel much better. I just spoke with a supervisor at the Credit Union. The CU uses an outside company to answer overflow calls. The person who took my call Friday works for that company. The CU super apologized and said they've rec'd more than enough complaints about the bad service this company provides and they're working on that. She said that everyone who works directly at the CU knows that she is the person travelers abroad need to speak with, especially regarding credit cards. Oy. However, even though she made notes on my acct., she did say that the fraud dept. will probably call me after the first use of my card due to overseas fraud.

Kim,

I can understand financial institutions trying to protect themselves, but this new policy seems a bit severe! One overseas use without a phone call and then the account is frozen? I suppose everyone will have to start carrying international cell phones (and be prepared for those 04:00 calls as the clerk back home didn't bother to check the time!).

Fortunately my Credit Union has provided exceptional service so far including a Call Centre which is open longer than normal business hours, and I doubt they will be implementing a similar policy. I always notify them when I'm going to be travelling, and so far there have been no "issues". However, based on your experience I may have to provide them with my Cell number in future.

It sounds like your CU is resolving the problem for you.

Happy travels!

Thanks, Ken!

Maybe you could ask if there is a number where you can call them from Europe to verify it's you using the card.

Alternatively, you can call your answering machine and use the code to catch their call, then return the call from Europe to free up the card.

It's always a good idea to have a backup card/account in case something happens to one (lost/stolen card, frozen account, etc.).

Update: After all that trouble, I never once rec'd a phone call. Figures, huh? Buon Natale!