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Got my card a couple of weeks ago. On holiday in the US and the hotel has an unusual policy of putting a hold on only the cost of the first five days of the stay and the putting a new hold daily for the remaining days so that there’s always a buffer of five days authorised.
Paying via Curve, Barclaycard were ok with the first five-day hold and the next two on the following two days, but then started blocking subsequent authorisations and all other transactions on the card. The card vanished from the app and my web access was blocked.
A call to Security revealed that the card had been blocked and a letter sent to home address. The reference on that letter has to be quoted to Barclaycard to unlock the card. Apparently no way around this so the card cannot be used to pay for our hotel or any further spending in the US. The question also is how the released holds on Curve will be reflected on my Barclaycard since I have no visibility of the account until I return home and receive the letter.
So beware if you plan to use this card on holiday shortly after getting it. I don’t know if using Curve exacerbated the problem but all spending, not just that through Curve, has now been blocked.
Hotel undertakes unusual behaviour, Barclaycard responds to unusual behaviour.
Time to send round your neighbour with the spare key to retrieve the letter – or use an alternative card.
I’m ok with using an alternative card, but I’m very never previously come across a card that couldn’t be reset via a phone conversation or other secure interaction using existing information.
I’d also have expected a proactive communication, e.g. a text “There is a security issue with your card and it has been temporarily suspended. Please await a letter with instructions on how to deactivate.” Just stopping transactions and suspending all access to the account via web and app seems a little abrupt. Given Barclaycard’s known IT issues, I assumed it was a weekend glitch and so kept trying until Monday morning. Even if I’d been at home, the letter was only sent today, so I’d have had 4-5 days without use of the card with no explanation.
I’m with Andrew. The hotel continually putting daily holds on is going to set alarms ringing with fraud software.
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