Credit card fraud dept. called the other day...

[Henro]

We had been out shopping several days ago and our Discover card worked the first time, but not for the second purchase a little later...Hummmm. Guess well call about it when we get home.

Find a message from the Dicover Card fraud dept on the machine. Call us when you get in. We call...

"Do you recognize this purchase?"

Ask the wife, answer is no. Actually two purchases from the same store. Fashion stuff, each close to $200, a week apart.

We have not lost our cards. The discover person says distroy them, a new account will be set up. New cards will be coming in about 5 go 7 days. A bit of a pain, because due to the rebate we set up for some bills like electric, and so on, to be charged to our discover card account (pay the same either way, maight as well take the 1% rebate) We will have to make some calls when we get the new account number.

I hang up and wonder what flagged the purchases. They did tell me the purchase was made without a card being swiped. I figure it is probably a different bill to and send to address, or something like that.

Today we get a call from a Discover investigator of some type, and she wants to verify that we had both our cards and had not lost them. I tell her yes we did have them, but the first people we talked to said to destroy them, so they went through the shreader. She says that is no problem.

Seems like a friendly person, so I ask how the two purchases were flagged. Was it a different ship to and bill to address? She says no, probably either that whoever had the card number did not have the right expiration date, or maybe because the purchase was made in New York!

So I ask if we take a trip, say down towards Florida for a couple weeks if we should call and let them know, and she says that is probably not necessary, as they can see the paper trail of purchases and figure out we are on vacation probably. EXCEPT, THAT IS, IF WE ARE GOING TO NEW YORK!

Oh, you mean NYC right?

Answer: "No I mean anywhere in New York state!" /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

I left it go at that, but now I wonder what she was actually telling me. The whole state of New York is not that bad, is it?

I'm sure it's not...so I guess I will remain /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif until I get another call from them and I can ask more! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Henro, my sister lives in NYC and she's had her credit cards (and in fact her entire credit history) stolen without anyone actually physically taking her card. Somehow they got her number. It took MONTHS to get her records straightened out. Consider yourself very lucky that there were only a couple small transactions. Her card numbers were stolen by a professional ring of thieves, the FBI was involved because of the amount of money. Card charges ran from NY down to Maimi.

 

[jpm]

henro maybe the football thing from last sat /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Cliff_Johns]

Henro,

This happened to us just a few weeks ago with much the same scenario, except that the oddball purchase was from an internet store in england. My wife wouldn't talk to the caller and said she would call the credit card company back at the standard number to make sure it wasn't a scam call telling us there was a scam transaction!

Anyway, it seems that there a lot of scam charges at this web site, so they called us to make sure ours was OK, which it was NOT. We had to get the new cards etc as well.

A good catch on their part, I suppose. I wonder if the UK is as bad as New York?

Cliff

 

[beenthere]

Henro
What if this happened while you were on a 3 week vacation, and did not come home to find the message on the answering machine? You would be without a card (doesn't work) and may have to wait somewhere for several days for another card (if travelling, may not be at one location for several days).

Raises some tricky questions.

 

[thcri]

Henro,

Our business cards have been canceled at least three times in the last two years. It is funny because the credit card company will call me and verify a purchase. Now we buy out of state a lot but for some reason just about everytime there is a fraud they catch it. I don't know how but they do. The last one was in California. A distributor of heating and air conditioning supplies charged out card for some stuff. Now I am in heating and air conditioning, you would have thought the credit card would have not caught that one but they did. So far we have not had to pay any extra charges. Knock on Wood.

murph

 

[Egon]

Henro:

On one trip across Canada I used a credit card for purchases. At one fuel stop a warning came up and I had to phone the credit card company to verify that it was being used by myself.

Increase in activity at varying locations triggered the warning.

Egon

 

[btolle]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Henro
What if this happened while you were on a 3 week vacation, and did not come home to find the message on the answering machine?)</font>

When we travel I check my answering machine every 2 or 3 days. I did have a call from a credit card company on the machine once while we were on a trip and they just wanted to verify we were 3 states away from home charging gas.

We travel for 3 weeks at a time at least twice a year and that one time was the only time we have ever been questioned.

Not a problem, but I do carry an extra credit card (but not in my wallet like my usual credit card) in case something ever happened to the card I usually use.

As sophisticated as computers are now they may be able to track the geographic locatin of your purchases by zip code of the seller. As long as you are (as a guess) within 700 miles of home or your last purchase they will accept it but if a charge shows 2,000 miles away (further than you could drive in one day) the computer might flag the purchase. Just a guess since I don't know how they really track charges.

Bill Tolle

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

If the wife goes to the mall and buys a lot of stuff say for Christmas they have shut the card down. When she gets home she calls and they verify the purchases and the card is activated again. This year we called Visa and told them we will be shopping today and gave them the name of the mall. She got all the shopping done without a problem. Given all the fraud the card companies have to pay you can not blame them, but it is still a pain.

 

[dicker]

Good morning

About three years ago, I made two identical purchases at an electronics store about 5 minutes apart for about $400 each.
By the time I had returned home, there was a call from the credit card company verifying my second purchase.
I guess that put up a red flag.

Richard