For general information - I have had a First Direct Account for more than 30 years which includes an FD Gold credit card. Yesterday it was declined twice when making online purchases and on phoning the bank I was told that the Gold card ‘product’ had been discontinued for all customers on 5th November! FD were unable to offer me an alternative credit card as I’m a French resident. I pointed out that it would have been helpful to have had some contact in advance and was told that letters sent overseas ‘often go missing’ - not in my experience tbh. I’m just posting this in case anyone gets similarly caught out.
I was forewarned months ago, but thanks.
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Lloyds dropped my credit card limit by 96.67% the moment I informed them I was a French resident and later informed me that bank cards would only be replaced on request instead of automatically 2-3 months before expiry date.
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All banks (especially British ones) will be first up against the wall when the Revolution comes.
(metaphorically speaking, in case our AI overlords are listening).
Barclays UK unilaterally cancelled my personal current account when I informed them I was handing over my half of our software training company to my business partner and moving to Turks & Caicos.
The only actual bank account I have now is with First Direct, as a backup to my Nationwide building society account, but I don’t actively use it day to day, just enough to keep them from closing it.
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Funny that, I have had a Lloyd’s credit card for perhaps 50 years although I gave up the bank account not that long afterwards. They won’t let me open a new bank account but have recently agreed a revised address for my statements. My credit limit has remained unchanged for all that time.
That’s very strange as we are French resident and have First Direct Visa Credit Cards and received a letter a few weeks ago stating that they would replace our Visa credit cards with Mastercard credit cards. They replaced all their Visa debit cards with Mastercards a few years ago.
I agree. First Direct recently sent me a debit card I didn’t even ask for.
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Yes it is strange, but it seems that the issue is just with credit cards. My just withdrawn FD Gold credit card is (was) a Visa card so I will be interested to hear if your new Mastercard credit cards arrive (so I can complain bitterly if they do) . I also had my Visa debit card replaced with a Mastercard last year.