International credit card disaster in Brazil: Foreigners unable to use Visa and Mastercard bank cards

Since about 2-3 weeks, foreigners (including me) in the whole of Brazil are unable to use cash machines due to changements in the criteria of autorization of foreign Visa and Mastercard bank cards. If one isn t in a quite protected and networked family environment like my husband s and my own, this must cause very serious trouble and headache to most foreigners stranded abroad without any money for weeks. Let s not even mention the coming international events taking place in Brazil in the next few weeks and months...

But back to the issue: The first thing that probably appears on screen is something similar to ^malfunction^, ^no communication^ or ^Your bank failed to authorize this transaction^.

As most foreigners, I contacted my bank which told me that everything was fine with my bank card and that the problems seems to have their roots in the Brazilian withdrawal system.

There is no official information available, but after hours of research I was able to find the following information on the Banco do Brasil official facebook homepage: ** (portuguese)
in short:
a) the foreigner needs to authorize his BIN, the six first digits of the card number), the fact that the card isn t authorized causes the error messages.
b) the bank advises to contact the emergency phone number at the back of the bank card to receive further advice.

By the way, I checked this information with my bank and got an incredibly rude response that this was no valid information, that the Brazilian bank was inventing something to avoid facing the error themselves and that I needed to decide myself whom I would believe. O. K. :D relax...

I guess there is no other option than wait and hope. We shall never forget that

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE. Yes it is. And life is a waiting game. Don t you know that! ahem...



**a) A bandeira (Visa ou Mastercard) deve autorizar o BIN (seis primeiros dígitos do nº do cartão) a utilizar a rede conveniada no exterior; Caso o BIN não tenha sido autorizado pela bandeira, o saque será negado com a msg "FALHA DE COMUNICAÇÃO","SEM COMUNICAÇÃO" ou"NÃO PERMITIDO".
b) O valor do limite diário de saque é definido por cada banco conveniado.
Diante do exposto, sugerimos que você entre em contato com os telefones de emergência das bandeiras - informados no verso do cartão - a fim de obter as orientações.
Os cartões com BIN ainda não autorizados pela Visa ou Mastercard terão as transações de saque negadas em nossos terminais. A orientação nesses casos é que entre em contato com os telefones de emergência das bandeiras - informados no verso do cartão - a fim de obter as orientações para fazer esse procedimento. Reforçamos novamente que tais ajustes visam adequar o BB a critérios definidos pelas bandeiras Visa e Mastercard.