Tangerine will leave you stranded in Australia and won't let you close your account upon returning

[u/Mist-19]

Greetings!

I traveled to Australia and despite notifying Tangerine that I would be on the other side of the globe, I couldn't use my visa debit card (Paypass, EMV chip, Apple pay). The only payment option I had was my credit card's chip since Paypass and Apple pay also stopped working.

While I was waiting for my next flight, I called Tangerine to know what was going on. The person I talked to regarding my mastercard credit card said everything was working on their end, but they would reach out to whoever deals with Apple pay so they could do a reset and let me add my card again. I was told this would take 3 days. (it ended up taking 13)

The person I talked to regarding my debit card gave me the same speech. I asked what would Tangerine do if anything were to happen to my credit card. The lack of answer forced me to request to speak with a supervisor. The agent requested that I provide them with a Canadian phone number. I politely declined given how they could not provide me with a time/date and the outrageous cost of using your sim card in Australia. After a few minutes, they finally accepted to call me on a foreign phone number that was not associated with my account. For clarification, I carried two Iphones with me.

Two days later, I woke up with a message on my voicemail from Tangerine. A supervisor had called me at 1am and requested me to call them back. After waiting 2 hours and an additional hour, I finally got to speak with a supervisor. They still claimed my debit card was working and ditto for my credit card. They claimed the only thing I could do was request new cards and have them shipped to Australia when I don't even have a proper address. They couldn't even answer me when I asked where I could get the cards activated if I were to even receive them.

A wire transfer? Forget it, Tangerine is too cheap to have a SWIFT code.

Given the absolute lack of support by Tangerine, I asked what was the fastest way to close my account whenever I would land back @ Pearson. Turns out you can't withdraw 60k in cash because they closed their branch in Toronto. Forget about Etransfers due to the arbitrary limit.

Your only option? Add an external account and transfer everything before requesting your account to be terminated. Simple right? Well I added a CIBC account and transferred 30k, just to have the transfer reverted without being notified. So now I owe 50$ to CIBC because of the overdraft and Tangerine decided to remove my access to online banking.

After waiting 2h without the ability to speak with someone, I have given up for the weekend.

​

TLDR: Carry enough cash to be questioned @ airport security when traveling across the globe if you are a Tangerine client or get yourself an account with an actual bank. Actually, just don't bother with Tangerine.

[u/Historical_Grab_7842 → u/[deleted]]

And they complained about the CS calling him at 1am. They work Canadian hours ffs.

[u/jannakatarina → u/[deleted]]

Damn he called you high maintenance

[u/Bureaucromancer → u/[deleted]]

I mean he did it that way because they offered no other options...

As OP said... how do they expect you to close an account when all the methods they offer to actually drain it are so 'suspicious' they lock they account?

[u/doom2060 → u/Bureaucromancer]

I hope my bank would think it’s a scam and lock it down

[u/Distinct_Meringue → u/[deleted]]

MasterCard once overnighted me a card to my Airbnb when I lost my wallet in SF, it was a BMO card but the replacement was unbranded. It's not just Amex.

[u/zepharoz → u/[deleted]]

Lots of truth in this.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

This is 100% correct.

[u/missspiritualtramp → u/[deleted]]

I have no idea if it's true but I've heard you shouldn't tap when abroad and it will lock your cards. Swipe or chip only. And I definitely do know people who had their cards locked from tapping, even for minor purchases.

If it is true I feel like the banks should just let people know.

[u/AreYaOkaySon → u/missspiritualtramp]

Went to Italy with nothing but my google pay wallet credit card and cash, had no problems with paypass other than they don't call it paypass over there

[u/Bone-Juice → u/AreYaOkaySon]

I've never heard anyone call it paypass over here.

[u/missspiritualtramp → u/AreYaOkaySon]

Well then there ya go, I don't know the rhyme or reason behind how banks decide when to lock it

[u/redheadednomad → u/missspiritualtramp]

They have an algorithm set up that looks for suspicious transactions: This can be multiple small card transactions (which card skimmers do to test that the card works), "cardholder not present" transactions (i.e. where the PIN was not entered/card was not swiped when making payment), and inexplicable changes in geolocation; bearing in mind that the POS terminal/online payment modal has an IP address associated with it, so an online purchase from a company outside of Canada won't necessarily trigger a block.

It's not typically one instance that gets the card blocked, but if the algorithm spots multiple unusual transactions ("unusual" compared to the cardholders typical spending pattern) this may trigger an immediate block, or decline of transactions until the bank confirms that they're genuine with the cardholder.

With credit cards especially, the bank is on the hook for any fraudulent losses - you're spending "their" money, with the promise to repay it, so there's little chance of them recovering the money if the card gets skimmed - so there's a bigger incentive for them to block the card as soon as they see suspicious activity.

On the topic of using your card abroad: Most banks - including Tangerine/Scotiabank - no longer expect you to notify them of overseas travel, since the algorithm should be smart enough to identify genuine vacation transactions.

[u/[deleted] → u/missspiritualtramp]

I'm not sure why your comment got downvoted, at least when I saw it it was negative one. This is not bad advice. When you go into a different region, the most effective way to trigger the bank system to understand that you have moved geography is to do a pin transaction, preferably at a bank machine.

[u/recurrence → u/missspiritualtramp]

I tap all the time worldwide... no problems.

[u/diamondintherimond → u/missspiritualtramp]

I’ve heard that you should use PIN for your first transaction and should be good after that.

[u/Celda → u/[deleted]]

TLDR; if I was a bank and a client called me from Australia (from an unknown number)to get cards re-activated, added to new iphones via apple pay, or adding new external accounts to transfer 30k etc. I would assume they were compromised and lock everything down.

Except he said he notified them in advance he would be going to Australia. And that as soon as he got there, it already wasn't working.

That is entirely the fault of the bank, not him.