Debit cards in Spain blocked!

You left out some key information. What financial institution issues your debit card? Who gave you this list where your card would not work?

Many, many people have debit cards that work in at least most of these countries. Is there some unusual circumstance for you and your bank?

This is a small community bank in the USA that is probably part of some consortium of similar banks. It's unlikely they came up with the list on their own. For privacy reasons I am not going to post the name of the bank. This list is on their website under travel notifications.

It would seem that the financial institution that made this decision would be the only one who could explain how they came up with their list. An odd grouping, for sure.

Marcia, if you plan on traveling much in the future, you might want to consider opening a different account to use when traveling. There are many countries on this list that seem "out of place" besides Spain. The network that your bank is on is extremely limited.

I have my regular checking, debit card that I use for my day to day life from a local credit union. Then, I have a special checking account/debit card that I use exclusively for travel. I use Charles Schwab for this since they never charge an ATM fee and have no foreign transaction fees. This means that I can withdraw money in the local currency worldwide at whatever the VISA exchange rate is for that day. An added bonus is that I keep my travel money separate from my other money and I know just how much I have saved up for my next trip.

I hope that you have a good trip to Spain.

Open an account with another financial institution that is world traveler friendly. Search the Travel Forum for suggested firms.

Years' ago i had the same situation pop up with a local CU and found out that they didn't have the needed security for charges outside of the U.S., so I switched to a bigger CU and solved the problem. Now all I do is list where I'm traveling and problem solved.
As far as Spain is concerned, on our last trip my DW used a CC for Metro tickets, and it was hacked-found out when Capitol one asked if we were trying to charge $1600 for cosmetics. We said no, and they cancelled her card-not mine, however, we always have other cards for back-up if something like this happens. Something like this also happened to us in Sicily.

Yeah, France.....now there's a country you can't trust with your debit card. (/eyeroll)

Pretty crazy. Whatever bank put this together seems more than a little out-of-touch. That said, I have been surprised at how unready some banks appear to be to deal with our small world.

As an example, my primary credit union has usually been my go-to financial institution for pulling cash at ATMs overseas, for years. I realized I had been doing this for, well, decades, without knowing the exact costs (it always seemed reasonable, but I wanted more clarity). Because I am now a member of multiple credit unions, prior to my last trip I contacted all of them to ask about foreign transaction fees, ATM charges, etc. to compare and be sure I was using the best one. I also wanted to give them a heads-up "travel alert" so they didn't block my card suspecting fraud.

Most were able to provide direct, simple, and accurate answers to my questions. But one - my longtime local CU - was unable to answer the most basic questions (they also seemed to have never heard of several European countries - admittedly, Latvia is not on everyone's radar, but I had to spell it for the CS agent several times before she could find it in her system...ah, geographic literacy...).

Anyway, I asked multiple tellers in branch how much they would charge to pull cash from my account at a foreign ATM, and also called their main office. At other CUs I got good, solid answers immediately. But at my old standby CU #1 that I've used forever, I made three attempts to get a straight answer. First I was blithely told "there's no cost", which I knew was wrong. OK, so if no fees per se, then I asked what they based their exchange rate on and was met with a blank stare - they did not understand the question. They responded that if I asked for $100, the ATM would give me $100. I had to explain, each time, that I would be in Europe, where the currency is not US dollars, and that I would be at an ATM, I'd use my ATM debit card from their CU, the ATM would not have dollars in in, it would dispense Euros, my account at home does not have Euros in it, it has US dollars, so somebody was going to convert the US dollars in my account into Euros, and that conversion always has a cost - what was the fee, or the rate used, for that? Each time they said this was all free, there would be no cost to me at all. I was flabbergasted. This was at CU#1, a well-established regional CU that has been my primary bank for 30 years.

CU#2 (which is a very small, local CU) was quick and confident with their answer: "We won't charge you anything for the withdrawal. Our debit cards go through Visa's international network. Visa charges 1% for the currency conversion, so we pass that along, but we add nothing to that. Visa should use the current interbank rate available at the time." They even seemed to have heard of Latvia and had no trouble finding it in their system.

Upon arrival in Amsterdam, I performed a test: at a bank ATM I pulled 100 Euros out of my CU#1 account. I then switched cards and immediately pulled 100 Euros out of my CU#2 account. I later compared the withdrawals from both CUs online. The amounts that were withdrawn from my two accounts were identical - so both CUs had the same fee structure, even though one of them appeared to not understand or be able to articulate what they charged.

So, moral of the story: some financial institutions have their act together, and understand that a visit to Europe is a routine event for many of their customers. Others appear to treat a trip to France as if it were an expedition to that lake under the polar icecap on Mars, something exotic and other-worldly that no ordinary person would ever do.

Good luck.

I've found the same thing with some banks in Denver. Several banks gave me answers that made me wonder if they even understood foreign exchange rates. At one major bank they told me in person that they only charge 2% for foreign exchange, but when I went home and looked at their website, it said 3% plus a flat fee.

I have a friend who worked in Human Resources for a bank. Tellers are not the most educated. It's a low level job. Best to deal with a manager.

Once, I asked a teller to print up the balance on my IRA. I even showed her my previous printout. She was reluctant to do that, keeping saying but you will get a statement in the mail. We went back and forward until a manager heard us. He came out of his office and told her how to print it up. The bank policy is that they do not sent out statements on IRA, which I knew that's why I was asking her to print it out. Apparently, she doesn't know that.
Bottom line, tellers don't get much training. And there is frequent turnover.
There're too many bank regulations. There's no way can they know it all. But at least a manager will make the effort to look up the information on their computer.

https://www.thebudgetmindedtraveler.com/how-to-set-up-a-charles-schwab-bank-account-and-avoid-atm-fees-anywhere/

Open an account with another financial institution in central Massachusetts that's not Florence Bank:
https://www.florencebank.com/resources/restricted-areas

It's your money, they shouldn't be restricting access like that. There isn't even a single ATM in all of North Korea:)

In defense of tellers: they get lots of training. At least 2 weeks before they ever get to even look at a customer, often more depending on their previous experience. Training through the year is mandatory. But it is only training for what a teller is required to do. That doesn't include international transaction fees, markup on foreign currency sales (it they even do that in that specific branch, many times it is only 1 or 2 people who actually do that there), and anything much beyond taking deposits and cashing checks. Their job depends on this training as rules and federal banking laws change often and it is a lot to remember. A teller can be fired immediately for any breach of those rules even if there is no loss to the bank.

This doesn't mean they they can't look up the answer or ask someone else for the answer when it is something beyond their normal day to day tasks.

Managers are not much better at this. At least not the ones in the branches at the banks I have dealt with. All they are interested in is getting you to put more money into their branch so they get their bonuses.

What is really frustrating is when you call a bank and the customer service person you talk to can't answer the question or worse actually lies to you. These agents have their entire bank's wealth of documentation right there in front of them. It is unfortunate that they are tied to scripts that are not very flexible. If you don't ask exactly the right question using exactly the right words, the computer they are using gives an answer that might be close enough in many ways, but, especially when it comes to international activities, can be completely unrelated to what was actually asked. Once you end up down that rabbit hole with that agent, all hope is lost. It is best to just end the call and try later hoping the next person you get understands better what you are asking and punches the right button.

My main bank told me my debit card would not work in Denmark. No explanation, just it wouldn't work there. Credit cards would be fine they said. When I got to Denmark, debit card worked fine.

The list kinda makes sense because it contains countries the US is not very friendly with, countries that are currently having major internal conflicts (civil war), countries that the US will not allow you to do business with, and countries that simply don't have ATM machines. Spain doesn't fit any of those categories as far as I know. Neither does France, Bulgaria, Romania, and possibly a few others. I agree with the other posters -- get a travel account at a different bank that does not restrict you as much.

I always call the fraud department ( the phone number on the back of the card) to report foreign travel and ask any questions about card usage. Even then, you'll end up in inane discussions, like having to list every city you're going to, or having to explain that England is a country, and that its part of the UK.

People working at the local branches just don't understand the concept of there being other countries, and assume that usage abroad is the same as it is in the US, so read the same script.

Can you really trust an ATM in France?
Just asking.
I would worry that the billets might be sticky with smelly cheese.

Educating newbies :).... https://www.creditcardinsider.com/learn/chip-and-signature-chip-and-pin-emv-cards/

The ideas for opening a travel account are good; they can at least provide a backup in case your main bank account is blocked for various reasons.

As to your actual question, Spain or France might have been added due to a heavy amount of fraud from there in your network. Some smaller networks don't have the capacity to absorb fraud the way massive institutions can, so they block entire countries where they have had problems. Others using smaller CU networks have reported similar oddball restrictions (as some have noted above).

Update:
I went into the bank today and talked to a manager and found out that the way the list was presented online was very misleading. In fact, you can use their debit card at ATMs in Spain and France, you just can't make online purchases that come through as being from that country. That's where the massive fraud is and those are the transactions that they block.
Big relief. I'd already begun researching what other bank to open an account in.

Marcia, that is very interesting. Thanks for going in to talk with a manager and also for posting the results.

UK is on my bank's list of having to do an extra step to open the card for use in the whole country. Now that I know that I make sure I give the teller a head's up when I place a travel notification. I've also started asking that the actual person who does that step to call me when it's done. That was after I had put in a notification in person a few years ago but my card was refused the first time I tried to use it in London. Thank goodness I had listed my brother on the travel notification as someone who had authority to handle things - of course it's a small CU and we know the manager so he could have contacted her if I was in dire straits but still.... Plus this is a CU in a University town so you KNOW they have people traveling out of the US.

Also had to give a geography lesson to one teller a few years ago. I had said I was going to England and Wales. She said, oh good those aren't on the list. I said, Isn't UK on the list? Yes, she said, it is. Well...says I...

Interesting that Nigeria and Russia are not on the restricted transaction list.

That said, the foreign travel notification process should alert customers as to restricted countries for ATM/debit transactions.

I was in Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca and Barcelona) in late June to mid-July. My debit card (Berkshire Bank - Mass.) worked fine.

It’s not only the bank workers who are clueless

“People call it ‘Britain’, they call it ‘Great Britain’. They used to call it ‘England’”…

Said the orange one.