Lloyds TSB Travel Money Card

Had this card to go to Ibiza. Wouldnt work as chip an pin so they had to swipe it and i signed the bill. Only found one restaurent to take it and now lloyds want to charge me £5 to give me the unspent back. The post office wouldnt have charged me anything. Not really that usefull abroad and certainly not a cheaper alternative.

This is a totally useless card do not get one! I got one for a trip to France and it wouldn't work. I tried it in stores and cash machines and also even got a local bank in France to ring the "24 hour helpline" which was, of course "out of action until further notice". Finally I got through to someone at LLoyds - after pounds and pounds of phone calls, and eventually a machine gave me some money - but only from a machine at 2euros a go. NO shop would take it, despite taking visa. Don't waste your time with this card.

Purchased 3 cards over a period of 9 months. The two in use had worked well until 10 days ago, then ATMs in Moscow came back saying they could not communicate with the bank. Despite knowing they had a problem, they tried to cover up - this was exposed by my bank manager who had access to information I couldn't get. My son was stranded in Moscow with no money - couldn't buy food or the basics for personal hygiene. He is 16 and made history 18 months ago when accepted into the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. For 72 hours I was in communication with the bank but they offered no solution. My son was without money. I then had to fly to MOSCOW ON A MERCY MISSION TO TAKE CASH. I had to go overnight Friday and lose sleep as I am a teacher and that was the only time possible to take money out. I did it on the cheap as the money to go out had to come out of his training fund. We are not well off and all the money for my son's training comes from sponsorship. The bank know this but refuse to compensate me for the cost of getting cash to my son when they wouldn't do anything to get the cash to him. Their cards still don't work and they basically don't know how to solve the problems - reading between all the lines, their have been international changes with the ATMs that they didn't keep up with.

The problems are affecting many countries - so much for a safe alternative to cash/travellers cheques.