Cancellations shock shoppers

Two women were almost left without funds overseas when their credit cards were cancelled without warning.

Public relations consultant Louise Sneddon discovered her card was cancelled when she went to check out of a hotel in Malaysia.

She complained to the ASB for not trying to contact her before cancelling the card after she shopped at a Kuala Lumpur shopping mall this month.

Sneddon, who was accompanying journalists on a trip to Malaysia, said all the others in the group were phoned by their banks to check they were overseas and had used their cards.

After discovering her ASB Mastercard had been cancelled, Sneddon phoned the bank and was told fraudulent card transactions had been detected at the same mall.

Her card had registered a payment in New Zealand on the same day, which made the bank suspect fraud.

But Sneddon said that transaction was a Transit Northern Gateway Toll automatic direct debit. "I only have one credit card so I could have been really stuck."

The ASB apologised, reinstated her card and credited her $100 in compensation.

New Zealand Woman's Weekly journalist Louise Richardson said her National Bank credit card was cancelled while she was in London. She used the card three times at Marks & Spencer. By the time she went across the road to buy clothes at Gap it had been cancelled.

It took Richardson six calls, trying various numbers on the National Bank's website, before someone answered. "They reinstated it thank goodness. "

A National Bank spokeswoman said the bank was looking into Richardson's situation. The bank had "sophisticated fraud protection software" which flagged suspicious transactions often before the customer was aware the fraud had occurred.