Royal Caribbean Card issues threatened with arrest

[Lookingforfacts]

Why is everyone assuming the issue was failure to notify? My credit cards pick up on trip planning charges like airline tickets and send me an email a few days before my tripl reminding me to take their credit card.

 

The OP said he charged $7,000 in a few days. That could trigger a fraud alert.

 

In what world should a merchant assume the risk inherent with the use of a manually entered credit card number. OP goes home, contests the charges and benefits from an automatic charge back.

[lax18stx]

I guess I'm at fault for trying to enjoy my vacation.... lesson learned bring physical back ups .... I was just saying I think they could of come to a resolution that would of avoided this situation

[eynsteinp]

Once again, the original posters issue I think was the threat that he would be arrested. It was the way RC handled the situation that caused the stress. This could have been very easily resolved without threats or making it antagonistic. I cannot believe that anyone thinks it is okay to threaten a passenger with being arrested because the credit card company put a fraud alert hold on a credit card. By the way, even when you notice the credit card company that you will be traveling abroad it does not guarantee that they still won't flag your card for a fraud alert as that has happened to me recently. I am having a hard time understanding why people are blaming the original poster for complaining that the cruise line threatened to have him arrested. Had he known to alert the credit card company that he was traveling abroad I imagine he would have. But this is not the first time that RC has dealt with this issue and they should have a policy to handle it that does not including threatening customers with arrest. I would be beyond angry if that threat was made to me when spending thousands, if not ten thousand or more, on a vacation with the company and they threatened to have me arrested for an honest oversight.

[lbjen]

The fact that you dropped $7K in a matter of days was probably working against you, I can only imagine how much they were freaking out thinking they had lost that much money from one passenger!

 

A few people have tried to explain to you why they couldn't come to a resolution using what you had at the time. It was a bit extreme of them to threaten you with arrest, but as someone else said, we don't know how the rest of that conversation went. If you try to take yourself out of the picture for a second, you can see how it looks - $7K of charges racked up, card stopped by the bank for fraud, and this guy comes along with only a photo of another card and no other way to pay?

 

I'm assuming they either reinstated your drinks package or refunded it to you?

[whogo]

My credit card issuer does not want to be informed of travel:

 

"With the added security of your Capital One chip card, you don’t have to tell us when and where you’re traveling, inside or outside the United States."

[CruiseGal999]

Once again, the original posters issue I think was the threat that he would be arrested. It was the way RC handled the situation that caused the stress. This could have been very easily resolved without threats or making it antagonistic. I cannot believe that anyone thinks it is okay to threaten a passenger with being arrested because the credit card company put a fraud alert hold on a credit card. By the way, even when you notice the credit card company that you will be traveling abroad it does not guarantee that they still won't flag your card for a fraud alert as that has happened to me recently. I am having a hard time understanding why people are blaming the original poster for complaining that the cruise line threatened to have him arrested. Had he known to alert the credit card company that he was traveling abroad I imagine he would have. But this is not the first time that RC has dealt with this issue and they should have a policy to handle it that does not including threatening customers with arrest. I would be beyond angry if that threat was made to me when spending thousands, if not ten thousand or more, on a vacation with the company and they threatened to have me arrested for an honest oversight.

 

You are right. And I do agree with everything you said. BUT we do not know how the OP escalated this situation. It 'could have', I am NOT saying it did, just that it could have escalated to a degree where the OP was belligerent, yelling, threatening his own actions ..... THAT could have been the trigger of being warned with the possibility of being arrested. We don't know. We weren't there.

[eynsteinp]

You are right. And I do agree with everything you said. BUT we do not know how the OP escalated this situation. It 'could have', I am NOT saying it did, just that it could have escalated to a degree where the OP was belligerent, yelling, threatening his own actions ..... THAT could have been the trigger of being warned with the possibility of being arrested. We don't know. We weren't there.

 

That is fair enough and if he was the one to escalate it you would be correct. I was going by the original posters first comment that makes it seem that the cruise line threatened him very early on or right away. If he was the aggressor I agree but I can tell you as an owner of a business that it is generally a very very bad decision to threaten a customer, much less threaten them with criminal

Prosecution. I have to imagine that rc has a policy on how to handle this as it happens on a fairly regular basis. I can't imagine that threatening your customer with arrest is in their handbook.

[crzycick]

<p>

Did you bother to tell the issuer of the "turned off" card that you were going to be on a cruise and would using the card on the ship and in particular ports of call? If you didn't, then you must accept a great deal of responsibility for the card being frozen.

 

 

 

 

We don't do credit cards (Dave Ramsey followers) and we always called the bank to tell them when we'd be traveling and our route. Assured we'd be fine. Every single time we did this, they'd shut off our card! One time we were really hard up for cash, young, newly married, trying to go home for Christmas (husband was stationed 1200 miles away from home) and we were even using my husband's card to his parents' account because they gifted our gas and hotel to travel. When we stopped for the night for a hotel we found out their card had been deactivated despite letting that bank also know our plans. Our card had been shut off too. I had just enough money in a seldom used bank to get home on gas fumes. It was a terribly long trip, sleeping in the car, super cold.

 

 

 

 

Now when I don't tell the banks we're traveling we don't have issues! :confused: 3 banks have shut off our card when we've told them about traveling. And they were just minor gas, room, and food bills, nothing crazy.

Edited June 20, 2017 by crzycick

[cheeseclan]

In all of our 40 + cruises i have only forgotten to call my CC company once. And that was a problem. Princess denied my card but they did let me use the phone on the ship at no charge and call the CC company to get it straightened out. Took about 30 minutes but then done. Card was set to go.

Hopefully will never let that happen again....

[babs135]

This is why we always travel with more than one different bank credit card. We had a similar problem whilst in Australia when trying to pay for a meal the card was 'locked out'. Fortunately we could pay with another card. Rang the original bank who had 'forgotten' we were travelling around Australia (!) and immediately unlocked it.

[bUU]

BUT we do not know how the OP escalated this situation. It 'could have', I am NOT saying it did, just that it could have escalated to a degree where the OP was belligerent, yelling, threatening his own actions ..... THAT could have been the trigger of being warned with the possibility of being arrested. We don't know. We weren't there.

This is a very important point. We always only get one side of the story. It's best to always take the Middle Road assuming that there is more that we don't know than what we do know. It will always be better to give benefit of the doubt evenly to both sides of any matter. We can focus on discussing what we can do as passengers to ensure that we have as trouble-free a vacation as possible, and discount recriminations whether they be directed at the passenger or at the cruise line.

 

This message may have been entered using voice recognition. Please excuse any typos.

[kmdreamcatcher]

ok but do u see the irony that they would not accept it without the physical card on board but as soon as I get off the ship I can call and use it to pay the balance without the physical card?

 

It is a fine line...splitting hair so to speak...I work at a hotel in a resort town and we would not take it this way either. And as someone stated before you can get real-time authorization over the phone when you call into the place.

 

 

The card had my name on it I had pictures of both sides and discover on the phone saying it was my card.

 

This don't mean anything...unless it is something like applepay and the company is able to take applepay! Most business's want the card to swipe because you could get mad and call and dispute the charge on your card and because it was not swiped the company (Discover in this case) could say that it was stolen and will not pay it. Where I work, even though the card is on file, if you do not have the physical card then we can not and will not charge that card.

Sorry they threatened you with arrest...however thinking they should give you more then 300.00 and that they ruined your vacation is going overboard!!! Because in all reality YOU were the one that ruined your vacation because you did not call your credit card company to let them know that you were traveling with your card and where you would be traveling too. And I understand that you did not want the Discover card stolen, but there is a safe in the cabins on the ship that you could have left it in. You are blaming RC are you demanding compensation from your bank also for freezing your card, because by your accounts it is everyone else's fault so they ruined your vacation also????

[sanger727]

If you are in the US and spend several thousand dollars at any business and then have your card shut off for fraud - you will get threatened with arrest. You said that they said authorities would b waiting for you in port. That's appropriate and true. If you were unable to pay your bill I'm sure that's what would have happened.

 

I really think your beef at this point is with your bank, not royal. I alert my cc company if I leave the country and not had any issues. I know that my bank does is robo calls if they see spending that is out of line with normal spending habits and if you don't answer the robo calls they freeze the card. But a phone call is all that is required to undo the freeze - them shutting the account down and requiring you to wait for a new card is crazy.

 

Whether they may have shut your card down immediately for out of the country use or tried to call you ref the high spending and couldn't get ahold of you is beside the point. Either way your beef is with them for locking you out of your account with no method of getting back in.

 

Maybe they were able to re-try the number on your original card because they had already swiped it. But take yourself out of the situation. Let's say the same situation happened to someone else but they were using your stolen credit card. They rack up several thousand in charges and the bank shuts it down. Then they show a picture of another one of your cards and they are permitted to use that and charge up several more thousand? Everything they did makes sense from a fraud protection standpoint.

 

 

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[Grandma Dazzles]

My credit card issuer does not want to be informed of travel:

 

"With the added security of your Capital One chip card, you don’t have to tell us when and where you’re traveling, inside or outside the United States."

 

American Express and Visa told me the same thing earlier this year.

 

Separate problem, but posted back in 2012 about credit card difficulties in Europe when we didn't have a chip card. Couldn't use any major credit card - thank goodness we were visiting friends and family prior to a TA cruise and they took care of us. Very embarrassing at the time but now chalk it up to a crazy memory.

[bajae]

because before we called the bank that froze the card they tried the original card again ... no swiping just typed in the numbers

 

 

 

They typed the numbers from the physical card, not a picture.

 

I haven't even gone on my first cruise yet but even I can tell you that it is clearly stated that you must show the physical card.

 

 

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[zqvol]

I place the blame on this entire thing on the OP. Clearly a mellinial who chooses to use the latest gadgets instead of traditional methods of payment. RCCL was correct and fully within its rights to suggest that Op would be detained if he did not pay the bill. It is the OP's fault that he failed to notify his CC company that he was traveling and would be using the card on a cruise ship. It is the OP's fault that he neglected to physically carry more than one CC. RCCL has chosen not to implement ApplePay, as have a vast majority of merchants around the world. Op was foolish to rely on new technology. Shame on OP.

 

I may be in the minority but I applaud RCCL, actions like theirs make the banking system safer for all of us.

[Floridiana]

Am I the only one that thinks the threat of arrest is extreme and uncalled for?

 

I think so. In a similar situation, Princess front desk handed me the phone and let me call my bank. There was no fraud alert, however.

For the future:

Call your cc issuing bank(s) before you travel. Take a second card with you. Leave it in the cabin safe with your other valuables, so it is there when needed. Put your valuables/passport including the card in a bag/container in the safe. That's important so these important items don't get forgotten in the dark interior of the safe.

[BlueRiband]

I guess I'm at fault for trying to enjoy my vacation.... lesson learned bring physical back ups .... I was just saying I think they could of come to a resolution that would of avoided this situation

 

Would you have tried to use the image of your passport on your phone instead of the physical passport? As others have pointed out images can be very easily altered today.

 

One point that you are missing is the cost of credit and debit card fraud to merchants.

 

A customer reports that their card has been breached. If the bank determines that the transaction was not made by the customer the temporary credit is made permanent. However the seller has already given out the product or service. But the bank has now charged that payment back. It's now on them to try to recover their payment.

 

In this case you bought packages on a card that turned out to be no good. (All RCI knows is that it's turned off for fraud.) And you had no other form of payment other than the image of a card that may or may not have been real.

[DirtyDawg]

OP, sorry this happened to you. So you can't pay without a physical card on an RC ship, but once you dock, you can. That is one awful payment system RC has or some really bad on-board customer service policies. Oh well, you have learned two things from this experience. One, RC has very outdated systems/policies on their ships, and two, there are a whole lot of RC cheerleaders on the board who think RC can do no wrong. ;)

 

And yes the OBC they offered you is an insult and the threat of arrest was worse. I would be raising bloody hell with Corporate if I were you.

I'll finish up with a story of another cruise line who had a hard time with their payment system. A few years ago we did a West Coast cruise with NCL. If you bring wine aboard a $15 corkage fee was charged. Or first stop was Seattle where we bought a couple of bottles of nice Washington State wines. Getting back on the ship, the guy at the NCL counter couldn't figure out how to charge our seapass cards. He fumbled with charge pad, couldn't figure out the code to use, or the amount. We told him it was $15 per bottle and to put it under any code he wanted, we just wanted to get back on board. (Really, do we care if it shows up as chocolate covered strawberries on our account?) He couldn't take cash, which we had in hand, and finally he just gave up, put the stickers on our bottles and we went on our way. Surprisingly, the corkage (or strawberry) charges never came through!:D

Edited June 20, 2017 by DirtyDawg

[bUU]

I place the blame on this entire thing on the OP. Clearly a mellinial who chooses to use the latest gadgets instead of traditional methods of payment.

That might be an unfair and perhaps even ill-advised conclusion. The millennials in my family are indeed very much attuned to the latest methods, but in being so well-informed they wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that every method is accepted at every point-of-sale. This oversight is the kind of thing old people like me would make, trying to capitalize on these new capabilities but perhaps not having the vast social networks the younger generations have that would have assured that I would have heard time and time again about the requirements and provisions of this kind of payment capability. I just had an experience of that sort, purchasing a webcam but not having the insight or group-knowledge available to me to realize that it only works through a remote server provided by the manufacturer, rather than controlled from within my own network. I can hear my niece sighing at my lack of awareness of the nuances of this kind of webcam.

 

Would you have tried to use the image of your passport on your phone instead of the physical passport?

Interestingly, we had a related experience recently: My spouse's driver's license left in the bin at security in Atlanta as we were on our way to New York. Unremarkably, on returning from New York, TSA would not accept a photo image of driver's license nor photo image of passport. Edited June 20, 2017 by bUU

[Aquahound]

Two things have me scratching my head here.

 

One...this happens all the time. Cards gets frozen frequently on cruises due to it being so far different than the holder's normal spending habits. When that happens, the ship allows you to make a phone call to the bank to confirm the travel is legit. The card gets unfrozen. Life goes on. It's happened to me twice, so I know the routine.

 

Two...I have a very hard time believing they threatened arrest based solely on the story given. There has to be a lot more to that story and my suspicion is that the part left out is some sort of less-than-favorable attitude by the OP. Again, cards get frozen all the time. That's a daily thing they deal with. Sorry, but no-way, no-how is Guest Relations going to threaten arrest over a frozen credit card. Again, there's a lot here that's not being told.

[TruckerDave]

Two things have me scratching my head here.

 

One...this happens all the time. Cards gets frozen frequently on cruises due to it being so far different than the holder's normal spending habits. When that happens, the ship allows you to make a phone call to the bank to confirm the travel is legit. The card gets unfrozen. Life goes on. It's happened to me twice, so I know the routine.

 

Two...I have a very hard time believing they threatened arrest based solely on the story given. There has to be a lot more to that story and my suspicion is that the part left out is some sort of less-than-favorable attitude by the OP. Again, cards get frozen all the time. That's a daily thing they deal with. Sorry, but no-way, no-how is Guest Relations going to threaten arrest over a frozen credit card. Again, there's a lot here that's not being told.

 

Exactly...I travel all over the country (see my screen name) and my card gets turned off quite often. (I spend money in IA one day, then OH the next morning ,TN that afternoon. It sometimes looks a bit fishy.) A simple 2 minute phone call to the cc company BEFORE sailing and none of this would have happened. Instead of putting their cc in the apple wallet, they should have put the cc phone number in the address book and made an actual 2 minute phone call. But, instead we get another poster playing the victim card and not liking it when other posters don't give them the replies they want to hear. :rolleyes:

[sanger727]

That might be an unfair and perhaps even ill-advised conclusion. The millennials in my family are indeed very much attuned to the latest methods, but in being so well-informed they wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that every method is accepted at every point-of-sale. This oversight is the kind of thing old people like me would make, trying to capitalize on these new capabilities but perhaps not having the vast social networks the younger generations have that would have assured that I would have heard time and time again about the requirements and provisions of this kind of payment capability. I just had an experience of that sort, purchasing a webcam but not having the insight or group-knowledge available to me to realize that it only works through a remote server provided by the manufacturer, rather than controlled from within my own network. I can hear my niece sighing at my lack of awareness of the nuances of this kind of webcam.

 

Interestingly, we had a related experience recently: My spouse's driver's license left in the bin at security in Atlanta as we were on our way to New York. Unremarkably, on returning from New York, TSA would not accept a photo image of driver's license nor photo image of passport.

 

 

 

I disagree. And I am a millennial. OP is def one. The assumption that a photo of a card is the same as a card. This isn't a lack of tech understanding, it's a lack of business understanding. The entitlement that even though OP found himself in a situation where they couldn't pay the several thousand dollar bill they racked up but the threat of arrest for non payment was outrageous.

 

 

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[bUU]

I disagree. And I am a millennial. OP is def one. The assumption that a photo of a card is the same as a card. This isn't a lack of tech understanding, it's a lack of business understanding.

Neither of us know to OP personally, I suspect, and I chose to make more charitable assumptions. Let's abide the moderator's note that was briefly posted earlier (though it seems to be gone now) and discuss cruising rather than other posters.

[slidergirl]

My CC company told me the last time I called about going on vacation that it was no longer necessary to do this. So, apparently, this is changing.

 

Credit card issues are never pleasant. I have to deal with it every day at my hotel. Indeed, each vendor deals with declining cards in different ways. I've never worked at a hotel that accepted a card from an eWallet, though. Either have the hard card in-hand or have submitted a 3rd party CC authorization form in advance is what I've seen as the practice where I've been. There are scams out there where one card is put down as the initial card and it has just enough money to pay for what is the needed pre-payment when the reservation is made. Then, at check-in, a second card is given to be used to pay at check-out. The "guest" doesn't come to the desk to check-out (not an uncommon occurrence). When we clear all the departures at the end of the day, surprise!, the CC is declined... I had one of those Sunday - a bill of $400 went unpaid.