This modern life

[anef]

Spent half an hour the other day trying to top up my mobile phone.  This is  a trying process at the best of times, and it was complicated by me needing to tell them that I'd changed my credit card number.  This cannot be done (as I discovered) in a crowded airport where you can't hear their menu options and you don't want to stand there in a public space reciting credit card numbers. 

So I tried again a few days later in a quiet hotel room, and half an hour and several menu options later I had managed to update my card details.  Then I tried to do the top up, but couldn't manage to complete the transaction.  I eventually managed to speak to someone who said I'd need to speak to my credit card people.  I thought Oh I'll do it later, and forgot about it until just now when I thought I should try to buy one of the three remaining tickets for Hadrian.  (No, I haven't seen it yet!).  And my credit card was rejected again. 

At this point I do start to get worried.  So I ring the credit card people, who (after I have to prove who I am several times over) say airily "Oh yes, we stopped it your card because you tried to top up your mobile phone.  There's lots of fraud about, you know.  So we are just keeping you safe.  We'll reactivate your card now."  Well, thanks.  I'll just go and see if there are any tickets for Hadrian left, shall I?

Frankly, I would have thought there were a whole lot more suspect transactions on my card than trying to top up my mobile.  But there you go.

Comments

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I can basically not use a credit card abroad now without it being stopped and have heard several other people in my line of travel say the same. Apparently we are meant to notify every time we go abroad: which simply isn't practical with my lifestyle and in any case am told it makes no difference. My solution is to use my debit card as much as possible, but of course quite often that doesn't work for some countries/shops. Last time my card was stopped for daring to try to access wi fi in an airport, also I would have thought a pretty normal activity for a frequent traveller. Security has gone mad and it's not for our benefit at all, it's to save the card issuers from liability for the fraud of the unknown middlemen, which makes me all the more enraged.