Oh. Right. An embassy is technically foreign soil

Drove ninety miles to Hartford and did my biometrics today (I looked months into the future with the office local to Providence without finding an opening). Went straight from there to FedEx/Kinko's and packaged everything up. Handed my credit card to the nice man...and it was rejected.

Hm. Okay. Gave him a different card, went home and called the credit card company.

Her: "Oh, your account is frozen. There was a suspicious charge from overseas."
Me: "Really?"
Her: "Yes. Great Britain. November 4."
Me: "Well, I do have someone in Britain. Perhaps I bought him something locally. How much was it?"
Her: "$942."
Me: "Oh, well that is rather a large...ZOMG YOU'VE BOUNCED MY VISA APPLICATION FEE!!!111!!!11!"

She wasn't sure if the charge went through and then they froze it, or what. Nice. Either they let a suspicious charge sit on my account for eight days without telling me, or they bounced my fee. I suppose I'll find out when the papers get there.

Is there no end to the suckage?

The day after I paid for my spousal visa, my credit card was denied at every store I went to. It was a real scare until I got home that night and called my credit card company - same thing as you. The charge for the spousal visa did go through, though.

Ugh. Good luck!

Oh NO!! Do you have any idea how to find out? I'm so sorry...hopefully it's gone through just fine though

My solution for these sorts of things (after a fair few instances like yours) is to have one card that I put all large purchases on, and then to call my card company before making the purchase to let them know that I will be doing so.  It's a pain in the ass, but I haven't had to deal with ever-so-helpful "fraud protection" freezes since.

Also, by the way, most credit card companies use automated fraud protection, which means even if you do call them ahead of a trip or large foreign purchases, they will probablly freeze your card anyways if the "computer says no".

I told my UK card I was going to Hong Kong, it was frozen when I got there and they wanted the hotel I was checking in to call them.  It was a huge ordeal on my husband's cell phone to call the CC and they kept asking if I was the retailer. 

I told my US card and there was no problem.

I didn't tell my UK I was going to Cyprus and they never froze it.  Lesson for me, never tell a UK card company anything. 

I had the same thing happen, I had to end up using my dad's credit card to pay for it and pay him back the cash =(

I go to see my family about 4 or 5 times each year, and I always withdraw Euro from the same cash point (my parents bank, just round the corner from my house), so that's quite a regular pattern for my card. Few weeks ago they froze my card while withdrawing from there. I had to phone from my mobile as well, and they said as far as they could see, there was no problem with it. But it still wouldn't work. I came back to UK, and again in Luton my card was rejected (I had forgotten about it and tried to use it again... :-> ) I then tried to withdraw cash at my branch, just before going in for my appointment with them, and it worked!!! And when I went in and asked explanations, they said I have to tell them each and every time I go abroad... So there you are, also Luton airport is "abroad"!!!