myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

Just a word of warning, we have always relied on cash machines in Tobago for all of our holiday spending money, the small amount of cash left from one year to the next is the only currency we take. this has not been a problem for the past few years. This year both my husbands, and my cash cards, from Halifax and Barclays Banks, were declined by cash machines. We then had to visit internet cafes to find phone numbers for our banks and call to sort this out, luckily we had enough cash to tide us over till the following day! It seems, that both cards were put on temporary stop by the banks fraud depts, once we had spoken to them this was easily rectified, but did put us in a panic to say the least when we realised we were in tobago for two weeks with hardly any cash!
The simple answer is, if you intend to use your cards in Tobago (or anywhere else outside the UK for that matter), inform your bank before you leave. I appreciate the need for their vigilance, just wish I had been aware sooner (on four previous holidays I had no problem using my cards).

Linda

Hi Linda

May I endorse your warning - the same happened to me and I had to make a long phone call to Barclaycard in the UK to get the ban lifted. I spoke to a number of other people to whom the same thing had happened. So, the advice is to take at least one extra card - and ensure that at least one other member of your party has at least one card with them - and keep a note of the card company's telephone number (normally shown on the back of the card).

I don't think this is a particular problem with Trinidad & Tobago - my understanding is that it occurs whenever you travel anywhere outside your normal country of card usage. If memory serves me correctly they were talking about this on the Jeremy Vine show on radio BBC2 the other week. There seems to be no easy way round it. Notifying the card company before you go is a help, but not guaranteed to help because the bans are probably initiated automatically by the computers.

Like you, I rely on my cards to get cash while we are over there. We obviously use the machines quite a bit during a two month, mainly self-catering stay. Well, two days before we left this year I was contacted by the security department of my main card company, asking if I'd bought anything in Norway in the last few days. I confirmed that I hadn't - in fact had never been to or bought anything in Norway in my life. Apparently quite a few charges had gone through in the last couple of days. They cancelled my card - but it was clearly impossible to get me a new card before our departure. A few naughty words sprang to mind. Can't be helped, I guess - thank heavens that they spotted it. Better whilst I was here than away from home.

Linda / Steve; This also happened to me when I visited another island(did I just say that) this past February. My VISA card was shut off by Chase. A simple phone call corrected it. I guess one cannot be too careful and at least they're watching. Chase also advised me to let them know before hand when/where I'll be traveling too.

Hi all,I always tell my card issuers of when I will be departing and reurning and what currency the cards will be charged in.I do it by email on their contact site and by phone.It does work.
David

I meant to add a postscript to my message above.

A couple of hours after posting that endorsement of Linda's message the post arrived. In it was a credit card statement. Shock/horror. There was just short of £2,400 of fraudulent charges on the statement - all charged on the same day and all charges from American business (including a McDonalds in Las Vegas).

The funny thing is that the same card company (Barclays Premier) stopped my card whilst I was in Tobago this year and I had the frustrating job of telephoning them, assuring them that it was me that was legitimately using the card in Tobago and getting the card reactivated. We tend to only use that particular debit card when we're in Tobago each year and one would have thought that their records would show that a high percentage of all charges made with the card originated in Tobago - therefore should appear as a perfectly normal spending pattern for the card. It clearly didn't. However, they seem to totally accept that I might have been in Las Vegas and accepted two identical charges of £1,024 from an Apple Store - not to mention the McDonalds charge and a few other small charges - and accepted the charges without question. I despair! In fairness, it does show the problems that the card companies are facing and in fairness, I have to say that Barclays withdrew the charges immediately as soon as I telephoned them. Can't say I was impressed with the fact that although payment is not due for another 10 days they had already issued the direct debit instruction for the full payment and couldn't amend it - so now I've got the hassle of contacting my bank (anybody know how to contact Barclays these days without going via India or someone who doesn't speak English and who expects you to know passwords you haven't used in years?) and cancelling the direct debit and then paying the correct amount manually. Oh for a simple life!

Hi everyone.
I also had problems this year with my cards whilst in Tobago.I took some local currency, some travellers cheques (just in case) and some £s.When I tried to use the blue machine at the airport after only 24hrs I got the message to say the transaction would not complete and to contact my bank. At first I did not worry as other Brits were also not able to draw money and we thought it was due to being close to bank holiday weekend with big demands for cash. After the w,end I tried again at more machines with the same result so contacted the bank. My first 5 phone calls aborted for various reasons and the sixth one was successful! I was told that my card had been cloned and therefore stopped and that two fraudulent transactions had been denied.I was able to negotiate to use the card as a cash withdrawal facility only to a maximum of £100 on any day. My HSBC Gold card was also reinstated although I did'nt use it and stayed with the cash option. Of course my first stop after driving back from Gatwick was to the bank to get a new card ordered asap.Fortunately I managed to keep some english money which got me through the days before the new card arrived.
After seeing the Panorama programme about this problem with cards abroad which was aired before my holiday I had been to the bank in person to tell them my travel plans to avoid any difficulties. I had watched the guy make notes against my accounts and send them to the security section. I was actually impressed that fraudulent activity had been picked up so quickly and blocked. The cloning had certainly occured before I left England, maybe when I took out the cash at a supermarket cashpoint or when I filled up with fuel just before travelling as I had no problem before then.HSBC couldn't or would'nt tell me in which country the attempted fraud had occured.
When I got my mobile bill the phone calls to the bank came to a total of £48.56 with the last one billing at over £26 Not quite sure what the answer is but I will always have a secure plan B from now on.
Gill xx