Global Card - Waste of Time

“Global Card - Waste of Time”

Written on: 07/01/2012 by vialli25 (2 reviews written)

I opted for the Travelex Global Cashcard as I would be using it in Asia.

One of the many benefits of the Global card is 0% commission when reloading. What an absolute lie that is.

Travelex also promise you no hassle reloading of your card using the internet. What a lie.

Let me explain...

The online service would be good, except when I went to reload my card online (which lets you reload as much as you want and has no limits) it would not work for me. I then had the hassle of ringing customer services from Thailand, and was told that the Global Card cannot be reloaded online. Hang on...what?!

So, I had to actually ring them up, from Asia, every time I wanted to reload my card, simply because the Global Card couldn't be reloaded online, even though all their other cards could be, and it was claimed you could with the Global too!

So, I then had to buy a Skype subscription and find a wifi hotspot to ring them every time I wanted to reload my card, costing me money. Not only that, but there are limits to reloading over the phone, meaning if you need a large amount of money quickly, like I did, there's just no way of doing it over the phone. You are even more restricted as you are only allowed to re-load up to £1200 every 30 days, if I remember rightly, over the phone. Hang on, this is supposed to be a travel card, people tend to use quite a bit of money when they're travelling! The restrictions are not short of ridiculous, especially when for some reason, they won't allow you to reload online, where you can transfer as much as you want.

As I needed a large amount of money, I opted for transferring the money from my bank account to Travelex's bank account, which then gets added to your card, rather than just using a simple online service with my debit card like they'd promised! You may think this is simple, but when you take into account the security measures banks now employ for online banking, this is a hassle when you're away. When I went to transfer the money, I realised I needed my online banking card reader to give me an authorisation code. That was back home in England. So I had to Skype my mum quickly to read out the numbers and get an authorisation code. Not an easy task when the webpage times out quite quickly!

I then realised that they were trying to charge me commission for this. So back on the phone I got. I actually had to explain to customer services the supposed benefits of their own product, because they didn't have a clue!

They informed me that "On this occasion, we're willing to waive the commission", as though they'd actually done me a favour! I couldn't believe it! The card is supposed to be a 0%, commission-free travel cash card, and this is a point they tirelessly promote on their website.

Overall, a highly stressful experience from a service that was supposed to be the complete opposite. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!