On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:43:01 +0100, Lobster wrote:
Bit of a bugger if you happen to be on the other side of the world with
no mobile phone coverage, as happened to me once. Ended up in a
payphone shovelling in change as fast as I could while navigating
through the bank's menu system.

In my case my bank gave me a number I could call designed specifically for
international use - got me straight through to a human being and card
unblocked* with minimum of hassle (although I did it from a normal US
landline; granted it'd be more of a pain from a payphone).

* except that they'd blocked it because they said they sent me a paper
statement in the post and it had been returned - which was odd because
I'd long before told them to cease sending statements as I'd just keep
track online. I'm guessing some new employee goofed somehow - or I have a
bazillion bank statements sitting in a pile at some unknown address

cheers

Jules