Barclaycard Foreign Transaction hassles.

Sorry, I don't have an answer for you (though I suspect the hire co are fraudsters), but could you please tell which rental company did you use? I am about to travel to Europe soon and was looking to rent a car there. Was it a UK web site or Italian?

Perhaps, contacting the police would be your best move.

Joe R.

many people believe that a hire car abroad is a licence to break traffic laws. Perhaps that is what happened.

mrcheerful

I'll try to find out.

BIL said it was "Car Hire Sicily". But googling for that is not helpful. Most of the Italian car hire outfits have a list of all major Italian cities (maybe 50 ) with "car hire" appended to the city name on their site which frustrates searching.

It could be it came from the cheap flight booker they booked their air tickets with.

DG

Does this "gold card" business really mean anything other than something to impress the cardholder?

My Barclaycard is gold /coloured/, and says "Gold Visa" on the statements, but the card doesn't say "gold" on it. Would fussy traders believe this?

Both my MBNA cards say "gold" on them, but I think all MBNA cards do, except the ones that are platinum or something.

Surely it's the credit limit that counts, and this will be checked when it's swiped.

My Lloyds credit card has "Platinum" written on which according to Wikipedia makes it better than gold. Some credit card companies do a black card or Centurion card which is even better.

That is a possibility that he has not been discounted.

B.I.L. did say that he gave up trying to keep up with the driver of the other car because of speed issues. But he has simply *zero* information as to what offences and which car these charges refer to, if indeed it is not a scam by the car hire company.

DG

I know I have a "Gold" Yorkshire Bank credit card, anongst other "Gold" cards, AFAIK it's the only one they do.

I'm just about to upgrade my "Gold" Lloyds debit card to Platinum. But AIUI the only difference is in thelevel of the bundled AA breakdown recovery included in it. I wouldn't expect it to get me extra brownie points in Italy.

Apparently my blue chav-esque ASDA card wouldn't get me very far in Italy but it gets me 2p/litre off the already cheap ASDA fuel prices.

Correct, they should take an authorisation for the estimated amount they might need to charge at the outset. This is why we wonder if it might be a scam by the car hire outfit.

The party concerned were a group of friends who had gone to school together 40 years ago and kept in contact ever since and made these trips several times before since cheap air travel arrived on the scene.

Since I wasn't there I don't know but one possibilty has to be that the renters card got declined out of earshot of the rest of the party and he concocted the tale of the necessity for a "gold" card. That might explain why the late charges got directed to BIL's card as a first recourse. IOW a scam by the party member who booked the car rental.

But IMO Barclaycard should *still* be able to justify these charges.

DG

It certainly used to relate to credit limits and probably had its origins with American Express practice. AMEX gold cards have no pre-set spending limit, which distinguishes them from their green cards, which do. Established AMEX customers may be offered an upgrade to platinum, which I think is related to income and hence to the amount that is likely to be authorised for a transaction. AMEX Centurion (black) cards are only offered to customers with a certain spend level (ISTR $50,000 per month).

Barclaycard Platinum does have Platinum written on it. That was issued to me automatically with one of their regular updates of credit limits. Here, again, it seems to relate to credit limit levels. My Barclaycard VISA, which has the higher limit, is platinum, while my Barclaycard Mastercard is gold. However, a number of other issuers have realised that many people see the colour of their card as a status symbol and it is quite possible to get a platinum card as your first card with some of them.

...

Swiping a card only tells the retailer whether the amount of the charge entered is accepted. There is no indication given of the credit limit or of the credit available.

Colin Bignell

Perhaps the renter's card was tried first and the charges were declined.

Why? They have asked the hire company, who have said they are traffic fines, which, no doubt, were covered by the T&Cs of the hire company. If he wants to challenge the charges with Barclaycard, he needs to show that they were not for traffic fines and the only way to do that is to ask the hire company for supporting evidence. If they cannot provide that, then he could apply for a chargeback.

The amounts are not unreasonable for traffic fines in Italy. If they were not made on the spot, the chances are they were speeding fines from fixed cameras, which are often placed just inside town speed limits. As the Italian Police have up to five months to collect the fines, he may see a few more. The moral is to know what you are guaranteeing when you sign any guarantee.

Colin Bignell

While I hope you sort your hire problems, a Lloyds platinum card isn't exactly a brilliant deal. It has the free travel insurance etc. but I have to keep a minimum of £5,000 in credit on a current acount so it actually costs the lost interest on £5,000 , say $225 p.a. You could get quite a lot of travel insurance for that elsewhere.

LTSB latest deal is proper interest on a platinum current account, for which you pay them £120 pa. for the privelege. So altogether they trouser £345 pa to keep your money safe.

So its only just short of a scam.

john2

So do I. But all that proves is that they'll give them to anyone.

The moral here is not to allow traders 'open season' on your credit cards. Agreed this is easier said than done with respect to rental cars, and in this respect the answer would seem to be to use brands that have a 'presence' in your own country which may make redress easier and act as some deterrent not to get up to mischief (such as farming out infringements to customers with respect to un-hired cars). Agreed again this is not foolproof.

My Amex gold card does have a credit limit. I was offered a platinum which doesn't, but as it comes with a £175 annual fee, I declined the offer.

My income is about average or slightly above average, and my card expenditure is pretty negligible.

It's possible. Perhaps the scam was based on the fact that it would be more likely to work by having those amounts working against a gold card rather than another card by assuming that the former would have a higher credit limit?

Axel

So did mine, it was just that it was not a pre-set amount. In practice, my VISA card worked much the same, as every time I exceeded the pre-set spending limit, it went up by more than enough to cover the excess.

I find it worth it for the travel insurance alone.

Colin Bignell

A nightmare! Return the card and close the account immediately!

Artie

nightjar AMEX Centurion (black) cards are only offered

I have a Centurion card and I don't spend anything like that on it per month - £10K a month is about average. The guy I share an office with spends even less - but he has a few hundred million to his name.

Trouble is these days who can tell what card you have when you place it in a C&P reader.