are credit card companies actually doing their jobs?

[gorobei]

i ordered a laptop recently and had discovercard block the charge until i confirmed with them(fraud protection kicked in). my mom went on a vegas trip a little while ago and had the credit card charge denied for the hotel bill(fraud protection again). the hotel charge was barely $100. I could understand a $1000+ laptop being flagged, but $100?

did some kind of legislation pass that makes it harder for creditcard companies to write off or pass on the losses? i dont remember them being this absurdly persnickety on purchases. i've charged all kinds of more expensive purchases in years past.

 

[silverpig]

i ordered a laptop recently and had discovercard block the charge until i confirmed with them(fraud protection kicked in). my mom went on a vegas trip a little while ago and had the credit card charge denied for the hotel bill(fraud protection again). the hotel charge was barely $100. I could understand a $1000+ laptop being flagged, but $100?

did some kind of legislation pass that makes it harder for creditcard companies to write off or pass on the losses? i dont remember them being this absurdly persnickety on purchases. i've charged all kinds of more expensive purchases in years past.

They all have their fraud detection models, so I guess your spending patterns were far enough out of sync with your purchase that it triggered.

 

[Puppies04]

i ordered a laptop recently and had discovercard block the charge until i confirmed with them(fraud protection kicked in). my mom went on a vegas trip a little while ago and had the credit card charge denied for the hotel bill(fraud protection again). the hotel charge was barely $100. I could understand a $1000+ laptop being flagged, but $100?

did some kind of legislation pass that makes it harder for creditcard companies to write off or pass on the losses? i dont remember them being this absurdly persnickety on purchases. i've charged all kinds of more expensive purchases in years past.

What you will probably find is that the hotel in question had been flagged for having been subject to CC fraud recently. The company I buy all my computer components from had a spate of fraudulent transactions a few months back, the first thing they knew about it was one day where every single(and I mean every single one whether it was for £5 or £5000 on credit or debit card) transaction was automatically blocked by the bank (lloyds TSB) until you phoned them and confimed your ID. By the time I got there in the afternoon the guy behind the counter had already dialed the number for the bank before he even swiped my card.

 

[boomhower]

It happens every now and again. Had Discover deny a Woot purchase due to fraud, so I just used Amex instead.

 

[Lonyo]

$1000 purchase.
Smaller out of state purchase.

Seems pretty reasonable.

 

[Mungla]

I make a lot of purchases with my corporate card and they regularly deny transactions and I have to call them to confirm and release the block.

 

[gorobei]

for larger purchases it makes sense. but i have a 20,000$ credit limit on that card. i think my mom's is roughly the same. 1/20th of 20k, ok have em confirm that. but 1/200th for a hotel bill? just seems like they are inconveniencing the customer into not using that particular card.

i would like to hope that its because of govt credit crackdown and companies not being able to sell off losses in derivatives anymore that's making the cc guys pinch every penny, but i doubt we consumers are that lucky.

 

[DrPizza]

for larger purchases it makes sense. but i have a 20,000$ credit limit on that card. i think my mom's is roughly the same. 1/20th of 20k, ok have em confirm that. but 1/200th for a hotel bill? just seems like they are inconveniencing the customer into not using that particular card.

i would like to hope that its because of govt credit crackdown and companies not being able to sell off losses in derivatives anymore that's making the cc guys pinch every penny, but i doubt we consumers are that lucky.

That would make sense, if the customer agreed to be on the hook for any fraudulent use of his credit card.

 

[HeXen]

Lots of small purchases kick mine on. I think they go by frequency of your spending habits and not the amount, don't use it for 2 weeks then suddenly use it 6 times on petty items could trigger it.

Sucks though when it happens and you're at Walmart or wherever standing in a long line with no cash. At least for me as i only carry 1 cc.

 

[T9D]

I was shopping at the Mall before and only bought a suit coat. They declined the purchase. Ridiculous. That's embarrassing too. I had to eventually call them to see what happened. Some lame fraud detection.

I have credit on there! You know the lady helping me in the store was thinking "yeah I've heard that before".

 

[Dulanic]

The reason they deny weird or suspicious smaller transactions is because cards usually are tested with smaller transactions. Do you think someone isn't going to stand out of their card gets denied and they just walk away? It's not like they can pull out a card with a different name and try it after.

 

[gorobei]

except that i had just bought a $130 psu from the same retailer a month before. so clearly a certain amount threshold had been exceeded. most of my purchasing is pretty irregular time wise (sometime months between orders), so that psu should have set it off since i hadnt bought anything over 20$ in at least 6 months.

 

[Itchrelief]

for larger purchases it makes sense. but i have a 20,000$ credit limit on that card. i think my mom's is roughly the same. 1/20th of 20k, ok have em confirm that. but 1/200th for a hotel bill? just seems like they are inconveniencing the customer into not using that particular card.

i would like to hope that its because of govt credit crackdown and companies not being able to sell off losses in derivatives anymore that's making the cc guys pinch every penny, but i doubt we consumers are that lucky.

When my CC was stolen, the thief didn't ring up a $2k purchase, he rang up 20 $50-$100 purchases, all within the span of 3-4 hours.

 

[Exterous]

Are they actually doing their jobs as in making the banks a lot of money? I would say so.

i ordered a laptop recently and had discovercard block the charge until i confirmed with them(fraud protection kicked in). my mom went on a vegas trip a little while ago and had the credit card charge denied for the hotel bill(fraud protection again). the hotel charge was barely $100. I could understand a $1000+ laptop being flagged, but $100?

did some kind of legislation pass that makes it harder for creditcard companies to write off or pass on the losses? i dont remember them being this absurdly persnickety on purchases. i've charged all kinds of more expensive purchases in years past.

It all depends. Maybe they had a rash of fraudulent charges in that area - not necessarily from your card but from trying a lot of different cc numbers. Some card companies are more strict than others. It can also vary by card. Certain chase cards will let almost everything go through. They let $700 in charges in Tunisia go through even though there were store charges in MI the same day. That's the trade off I get for knowing my card will never be declined while traveling and not being required to notify them of travel ahead of time. Unusual spending patterns will do that too.

 

[HeXen]

When my CC was stolen, the thief didn't ring up a $2k purchase, he rang up 20 $50-$100 purchases, all within the span of 3-4 hours.

A smart thief would just simply try to spend high amounts first to get the purchase through before it's found missing or flagged to hold the account after a few cheap purchases.
No i'd go for the gold first.

When my wifes was stolen, they shopped at QVC for a lot of stuff after they purchased a new Iphone...all of them shipped out, no clue if the bank did anything, i doubt it.

 

[kamikazekyle]

I've only had one credit card ever flag anything for follow up. Some things they always flag like purchases from Apple or overseas purchases/purchases in foreign currency. I think they flagged a purchase once because I made purchases at home earlier in the day, but NY later on after my flight. It all makes sense IMO. Ironically, that's the only card I've ever had fraudulent charges on that passed without scrutiny, though that wasn't their fault.

Never a peep from my other cards no matter what the spending pattern.

 

[sourn]

You're lucky kamik. I've had mine blocked about 5/6 times now. It pisses me off every time, but at the same time I understand. It's not usually that hard to get your account back up and going as long as you got a smart phone with you.

I've actually never had it blocked for anything big, just small stuff that I went to different store/gas station to buy. They said it wasn't normal for me and that's why they did.

 

[darkxshade]

I've had this happened to my Chase Freedom card twice. Both times, they sent me a text to confirm a purchase and to call them if it was not authorized. Both times the purchase had not even been made more than a couple of hours ago. Called them and got a new card the same week.

I honestly don't know what their algorithm is to determine but I do feel confident using the card on anywhere. I've used it in various states buying all sorts of stuff and the fraud protection never kicked in but it did its just the 2 times it did.

 

[highland145]

did some kind of legislation pass that makes it harder for creditcard companies to write off or pass on the losses?

A write off just means they don't pay taxes on the $$. They're still out their $$. The card company or the merchant is getting screwed which makes the consumer pay more in the end.

Since SC gave away our tax returns, which included my bank info because of direct deposit, the manager has asked me to open a new checking account. If there's fraud, I'll get my $$ back but the bank is SOL.

 

[Ben90]

The card company or the merchant is getting screwed which makes the consumer pay more in the end.

It's definitely not the card companies getting screwed. The privately owned company I work for gets hit for around $200 Million in CC fees annually.

 

[highland145]

It's definitely not the card companies getting screwed. The privately owned company I work for gets hit for around $200 Million in CC fees annually.

For card swipes? Bet it's passed on to the consumer.

The point was that the thief steals the $$ and the card company or the vender pays....then the consumer.

 

[SithSolo1]

For the past two years I've been flagged by "fraud protection" on Black Friday. Its not the amount, its that I'm making multiple purchases from different sites in a short amount of time. I have to call them up, prove its me, and remake the purchases. They give the usual "Sorry for the trouble but its just our algorithm trying to learn your purchase habits." It happens within 10mins of the purchases and only takes a quick call to clear up.

The only other time I was flagged was for making a few low value purchases from a webstore that was hosted overseas. Once I ok'd the site I never had another issue.

 

[umbrella39]

For me... yes. I have a Citi card and around certain times of the year if I use it too much too quickly it gets flagged by their fraud department. Kind of annoying when you are in line making a purchases but small price to pay I guess.

 

[cronos]

I'd rather they do this than not having any protection at all.

 

[KlokWyze]

I usually get flagged when I purchase stuff out of state. Purchased a few random things on the west coast last week and nada. Honestly, I'd rather get flagged than not just to be safe. I've had people hijack my card #'s before.