My wife who is Russia has an e-passporte account (www.epassporte.com)

She is married to me, I am a UK citizen and we both live in UK.

We have been having nothing but trouble with this company since they 'blocked' my wife's account when she tried to use her card in Russia (even though we had told them that she was going to visit her parents)!

They blocked the card while she was in Russia which caused her a lot of problems, not having access to HER own money and being stranded and not having enough money to get back to where she was staying. After calls from myself they refused to unblock my wife's card as I was not the account holder, even though I was asked 5 different security questions.

When i called e-passporte they said that because the card had been used "in a restricted country" the card is automatically blocked and they asked my wife to simply call them!... from Russia!... hmm, easier said than done I explained. Firstly she has NO money and secondly it would from her mobile $3 per minute and she only had a few credits left on her phone.

After Inga came back to the UK clearly upset because this spoilt what should have been a happy and nice time with her parents we have tried to call e-passporte again to explain that she wants her money and it has been 4 weeks, maybe 10 emails and hours on the phone, only for them to say "sorry we need you to send copies of utility bill, passports etc" all over again.

We are so angry, and even though we emailed all the documents, we simply get an email back saying "thank you for using e-passporte, your documents will take up to 7 working days to process and only then can we unblock the account. Even one week ago we sent them only to be told "sorry we did not receive the attachments" I said ok then I will send them now and stay on the phone until you get them, I asked for the customer support persons name I was talking too and he said "better to call back in 5 minutes"

I called back after 5 minutes only to be told "Robert has gone to lunch" - very rude and very unprofessional.

It is totally wrong that they should be virtually 'stealing' and keeping HER money even though we have provided all the relevant information. I called the ombudsman here in the UK about this company but unfortunately they cannot deal with this as the company is an American company.

Hope someone can help because this has gone on too long. We are hoping to ask for some sort of compensation and or interest on the money, any help or support would be much appreciated.

David Wilson