aussiefive

Last night I went on to the notorious website and booked my tickets for our family to travel from Florence to Trento on the 6th of January. I had already visited the site and knew which train I needed to get and had read all the instructions (both theirs and this board's more helpful ones - thanks Ira). Well with only a bit of fuss I managed to book the tickets but when it came time to pay it would not accept my AmEx card. I was a little surprised as I am actually in credit on that card - by many thousands of dollars. Anyway thinking not much of it I had another go, used my Visa, it was accepted, was given a receipt with required numbers and seat numers etc and felt really proud of myself. Until this morning, when thank God, a nice man from AmEx called me to check if I had made any transactions last night because they had noticed some strange activities. I told him what had happened and he STOPPED THE CHARGE on AmEx. But what if they hadn't checked? I advise everyone to triple check everything on Trenitalia.

ira

Hi A,

There is a lot of CC fraud in Italy.

The reason that your AMEX transaction didn't go through was because the computer flagged it for "unusual activity".

Let AMEX know that you will be visitng Italy before you go to prevent this from happening again.

Enjoy your visit.

aussiefive

Thanks I will. At least I know they are on the ball.

LoveItaly

Hello aussiefive, be sure to take your Visa card with you also as the American Express is not as accepted in Italy as the Visa cards are. Have a wonderful trip!

Hal8999

I only found two places in October that would not take American Express. It is much more common there than here. By all means, call and let them know the dates that you will be there.

kslanker

I only found one place in Italy that would not take my American Express Card...unfortunately it was my Hotel. That put a difference face on the issue. Check ahead folks, plan ahead.

LoveItaly

Well no doubt my experiences with places not taking AMEX cards is because I am often in areas that do not have a lot of tourist. But in any case I would have more than one type of credit card with me. Best regards.

LucieV

ira, I'm genuinely curious as to why you state that there is "a lot of cc fraud in Italy"? I've travelled there many times, used cc for Trenitalia as well as other purchases, and honestly have never had a problem w/"false charges" or whatever. Nor, in fact, have I heard about cc fraud from my friends & family travelling in Italy. Maybe we've all just been lucky, but if you have information that substantiates your statement, I'm all ears!

ira

Hi Lucie,

I admit that I am only repeating what I have been told by my CC companies.

The reason I found out was that I was called by their fraud units asking about charges.

Since then, I always call them before making any "unusual" charges - Italy or not.

Like you, I have not seen any strange charges from trips abroad.

aussiefive

I have to say I am glad this happened before I left. Although I had read your warnings Ira, I had thought it might be an overreaction as I have travelled quite a bit for business, always used credit cards and never had any problems. But now I know that the card could be denied I will be sure to tell the CC companies of our plans before we leave. Of course we have an embarassingly large number of credit cards and debit cards to chose from if any one does go wrong but I was really only planning on taking a couple of them. Of course cash is always a good alternative. Now let's hope that ATM works the bank here in Australia (CBA) swear it will.

Hal8999

Be sure to call your bank and let them know you'll being using your atm card. I only discovered by chance that mine would have been blocked it I hadn't notified the bank before leaving.

LoveItaly

A year or so ago a friend in Italy who works for a very large financial institution in Italy attended a conferenece in NYC. The subject was about the high rate of fraud in Italy in relationship to Visa and MC credit cards. And my Stockbrokerage Co a couple of years ago advised until further notice their ATM cards could not be used in Italy until further notice due to the high rate of fraud in Italy. They replaced all of their clients ATM cards and as of this writing the ATM cards can be used in Italy.

Ann1

I've only had my cc number stollen once in my life......it was in Italy. Yes, there is a lot of cc fraud there.

As for places not accepting Amex....I was in Normandy and Paris in the spring. I always try my Amex first. Literally....3/4 of the times that I tried to use it I was told they don't accept it. As LoveItaly said, in Italy I am usually in non tourist areas and even some very touristy areas and they don't want to accept Amex because Amex charges too much for their services.

LucieV

Hmmmm, Ann...I've only had my cc number stolen once, also: right here in the good old Yew Ess of A! Wonder what I can extrapolate from that??!
;-)

Ann1

Lucie: What you can extrapolate from that is that yes, there is a tremendous amount of CC fraud in the US also. That isn't new news.

Aussiefive: I was thinking about your problem and remembered something that happened this October. At the Roma Termini we went to the machine to buy the tickets. It said that the CC was not accepted. We just figured it was another glitch. As we waited for it to reset itself, the ticket came out. So it said it wasn't accepted and still processed. So whatever glitch the glitch is it's in their system and people need to be aware of the problem.

LucieV

Ann, I wasn't trying to be a smarta**, I'm just saying that perhaps we ought to say, &quot;There's a tremendous amount of cc fraud<b><font color=red>.</font></b>&quot;

Rather than &quot;There's a tremendous amount of cc fraud in [Italy][USA][Germany][Mexico][UK].&quot;

Maybe it's just me, though, maybe I'm overly concerned about what others extrapolate from these kinds of statements.

aussiefive

Ann,

You know I think that is what probably happened; but I logged out too quickly to have a receipt processed. Anyway I have assurances from AmEx that I wasn't charged (they are pretty good on the customer service!) and I have my tickets so no real harm done. But it is a warning for our upcoming trip.