Sure, but back then it was an expensive international phone call to be on hold for 15 minutes and then talk to a person who said: your card was used overseas, l

Sure, but back then it was an expensive international phone call to be on hold for 15 minutes and then talk to a person who said: your card was used overseas, looked suspicious. They are costing me money to protect themselves. A good heuristic might be that I spent 2000AUD on Qantas a couple of months ago. And yeah, their ads showed people on the other side of the world using their cards. No mention of this sort of stuff.