Originally Posted by
stewardo
Avoid Lloyds TSB bank if you can - they refuse to accept a travel note/advisory/flag at all, and any ATM withdrawal in the US seems to trigger refusal/the card being blocked.
The worst thing about Lloyds TSB is that their fraud department (the only folks who can unblock debit/ATM/credit cards..) work UK office hours only, not much use if you're in Sydney or Los Angeles and needing some $$ for a taxi. They are absolutely unapologetic about it as well. They will attempt to contact you on your cell -- but this can be four-five hours later.
Every trip I make to the US has a matching huge roaming cell bill for getting the card unblocked on the first day.
That's pretty harsh.
I had couple of calls from HSBC, namely remembering Morocco and Croatia. But after that they stopped.
Since January [Morocco trip] I've been [and used that same card] in France, Italy, Holland, Egypt, Serbia, Belarus, Switzerland, Monaco and Czech Republic; they never questioned any of those card uses. My friend thinks after they've called few times they realised I travel a lot and stopped bothering me.
And I wish they'd pay up for the roaming charges...