When Fraud Detection Shuts Down Credit Cards Inappropriately 345
reifman writes: On Sunday, Capital One declined a $280 travel reservation I charged at India-based ClearTrip.com and immediately shut off my card for all transactions until I contacted them by phone. It wasn't the first time that CapitalOne had shut off my card after a single suspect transaction. But, I'd actually purchased from ClearTrip.com using my CapitalOne card on two prior occasions. It was an example of very poor fraud detection and led me on a tour of their pathetic customer service. The banks want to cut their losses regardless of how it impacts their customers.
Having had my own credit card suspended out of an abundance of caution on a different credit card issuer's part (for legitimate charges), but having recently had some widely known scam charges get accepted, the fraud protection algorithms that the credit companies use certainly seem inscrutable sometimes, and so do the surrounding practices about communicating with customers. How would you like it to work instead?
This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:5, Insightful)
my credit union calls me in seconds. Cashiers shou (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been happy with my credit union's fraud prevention and detection (which is outsourced to some company). Sometimes I'm 100 miles from home when I spend about $800 on electronics at Fry's or Microcenter. (The datacenter is 100 miles from my house, for now.) The transaction sometimes returns a "call to verify" code. The merchant COULD call, they are supposed to, but most cashiers just say "it didn't go through". This is a training issue on the merchants' side, in my opinion.
At the same time that the cashier is saying "it didn't go through", my phone rings. It's the fraud department calling to verify the purchase. The cashier re-runs the card and it works fine. It seems to mainly happen when buying from an electronics retailer, as I also remember the same thing at Best Buy. I'm fine with that. I know that if a crook gets my card, the bank is watching out.
Occasionally, they'll call about an internet purchase or some other purchase after it happens (fraud detection). It's quick and easy to verify the transaction.
I used to do another type of fraud prevention and detection, not directly related to credit cards, and I know our false positive rate was under 0.1%, probably under 0.01% - we stopped at least a thousand fraudulent instances for every one we declined in error.
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I think that the fraud-detection algorithms need improvement.
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Also the bank is on the hook for the fraud so they rightly so will be as tight as they can get away with without losing customers. This is why I always have at least $200 in my pocket at all times. Might not be enough for tires but can generally get me food, a place to stay and a ride home should anything go wrong.
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At this point, I think everyone I know has had an instance of a false positive shutting down their account at some point. I've even had it over a $5 political donation in a state I previously resided. This is not "an amazing job".
If you installed a spam blocker that just uniformly deleted all your emails, then you'd never see any spam and I guess that would also count as "an amazing job".
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Yeah, it is completely broken. This is a problem more or less specific to America.
I have several cards. I travel constantly. I have never, not once, told my bank where I am going and I have never, not once, had my card declined.
How do they achieve this witchcraft? Well,
1. The cards are all EMV. The magstripe can be cloned, but you can't use it in most countries (other than America)
2. Many online purchases are protected by 3D-Secure, which basically just lets your bank put a login/ID verification screen afte
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The quality of the job they are doing is determined by both false positives and false negatives and both are far too high.
US credit card companies aren't doing an "amazing job", they are doing a piss poor job.
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And the reason this kind of fraud is so frequent is because your industry uses extremely poor security. Fraud detection software should be largely unnecessary if credit card transactions were properly pr
Re: This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:4, Informative)
As I was saying: "public key cryptography, one time card numbers, smart cards, pins, and instant notification". It means, among other things, that you don't ever get any credit card numbers or billing addresses. All you get is a one time code for a specific amount of money, valid for a limited amount of time and valid only for you. If anybody steals your customer and order database, they can't do anything with it. It also means that you can instantly verify that the payment is valid without contacting the credit card company.
On the customer side, it means that he needs to talk to his smart card credit card in order to generate that code, and that requires either a pin or even a second physical token. In addition, customers get notified of large charges as soon as they get generated (not when you process them), and optionally verify them via their phone.
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:5, Interesting)
I absolutely agree. They have THE WORST programmers/statisticians working on this.
How about adding a simple two-factor authentication? Instead of rejecting the payment outright and freezing the card, text message my phone IMMEDIATELY and I can read a 6 digit code to the cashier to allow the transaction. It isn't perfect, but that one simple step would make it about 90 percent better, more secure, and cut down on false positives. I swear this would increase customer satisfaction and increase the amount of money the credit cards make because they would then accept a higher number of legitimate transactions. What is wrong with that industry?
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:5, Informative)
How about an even better solution - insert your card into a reader, type in your PIN and that's the two factors right there. You know...... the system that's already used everywhere in the world except for America? It works pretty well. I think the USA is starting to roll it out now, albeit a slightly crippled form of it (they managed to take the 2-factor system everyone else uses and make it 1-factor).
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> The "fraud detection" is completely broken
I absolutely agree. They have THE WORST programmers/statisticians working on this.
How about adding a simple two-factor authentication? Instead of rejecting the payment outright and freezing the card, text message my phone IMMEDIATELY and I can read a 6 digit code to the cashier to allow the transaction. It isn't perfect, but that one simple step would make it about 90 percent better, more secure, and cut down on false positives. I swear this would increase customer satisfaction and increase the amount of money the credit cards make because they would then accept a higher number of legitimate transactions. What is wrong with that industry?
They'll never implement 2 factor auth because all the mouth breathing idiots will complain about it. Look at how many whinged when they talk about switching from signature to PIN (this has already happened in my country but the laggards still have a big cry about it). Its just too inconvenient.
I think the big players already have tried this (IIRC: Verified by Visa was the product name for Visa) but I haven't seen it in years because no-one wanted to use it.
The second issue with this is, if you make pe
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For example, I have had a couple of occasions of fraud on my account - they both happened when the "accounts got out" (massive breach of the credit union's credit card file). The first racked up three charges for $900.00 in Japan The next was a flight in India (in rupees) that came to well over $1,000 plus the foreign currency conversion fee. However, I have had the same card processor block the card and deny the purchases when I made two orders Newegg.com in the same day. The "fraud detection" is completely broken.
Isn't it likely that they blocked the new egg purchases because the account was hacked and previous purchases that day were fraudulent?
Closing the barn door after the horse got out-- but there may have been other horses in the barn that could get out.
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they say that they are refusing the sale because they thing something about my account may trigger Paypal's fraud protection.
File a complaint with eBay. Report them as a Non-Performing seller which is an eBay Terms of Service Violation.
A completed sale is contractual, the seller must go through with the transaction, otherwise they are violating the contract and can even be sued by you.
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:4, Informative)
Except that it seems not all banks accept that. I tried to warn my bank when I was going travelling for a year & they said the only thing they could do was put a note on my account - that would only be seen when I phoned up to complain about my card being blocked! Completely fucking useless.
In the end I had to just call my bank over Skype after every other transaction, to get them to unblock it again.
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:4, Insightful)
Both of my frequent flier-linked cards have expressly said that there is no need to call and notify them. It doesn't really change much aside from them adding a note to the account which may or may not be read by the fraud investigator--if there is one. Every time my cards have been blocked, it's completely automated, and the programs aren't likely to examine notes left in the account.
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"In the end I had to just call my bank over Skype after every other transaction, to get them to unblock it again."
Get Chase.
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:4, Informative)
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And somehow that still seems better than my bank, which allowed a series of purchases on a hacked Trion account when ArcheAge released - on a credit card that had expired a year before.
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It's even worse as an international merchant :-( (Score:2, Interesting)
I had my card suspended because i sent $2.50 over paypal to a kid in the UK for some software.
I'll see you that and raise you how it looks from a UK merchant's side. Running a simple on-line service with a small monthly subscription fee and a fair proportion of international customers, we literally lose more subscriptions because of unexplained card failures than all other causes put together, including active cancellation by a subscriber's own choice.
Worse, as far as we can tell, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. The system simply doesn't work reliably and there is no useful informati
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Maybe because it's not uncommon to test a stolen credit card with some trivial amount first, before making a huge purchase with it. That, combined with it being foreign, probably triggered the fraud alert.
Maybe it's obvious, but if you're having bad experiences with your bank, maybe you should... try a different bank? I can recall only a few instances where my bank has suspected fraud, and they've always called me before my card was deactivated. Once was when I moved halfway across the country, and I spent
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:4, Informative)
Doesn't work.
I travel to the same country about once per year. I call my credit card company in advance and usually, I can make one purchase in that country and after that, my card is blocked.
Sometimes, I even get a fraud warning txt for a small purchase in a US airport where I have a stopover. The tickets were bought using the same credit card, so the card company knows that I will be travelling (as well as my call to warn the credit card company).
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I have two Visa cards from my credit union. One I rarely use other than for purchases via the Internet; that one sits in my desk at home. The other Visa card I carry with me.
I always call my credit union before traveling. This past summer, we visited out daughter in Saskatoon, Canada. Going, we changed planes in Edmonton with a long layover. Returning, we changed planes in Calgary. Before the trip, I called my credit union and gave them the dates of travel and the three cities I was visiting. Treating
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If you're going to make out of the ordinary purchases for overseas, or travel overseas, you always want to call your bank ahead of time. This is a standard operating procedure, and nothing to complain about on Slashdot.
Nor should this be a problem for the consumer, or a burden to call "ahead of time".
Let me put this another way. Would you think it normal or necessary to contact your ISP ahead of time should you choose to start surfing secure websites outside of your country?
The burden of securing transactions should be within the framework that provides it. I sure as hell don't have anything to do with the bank vault security guard hours at my chosen financial institution, or anything to do with a banks security. It sh
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If you're going to make out of the ordinary purchases for overseas, or travel overseas, you always want to call your bank ahead of time. This is a standard operating procedure, and nothing to complain about on Slashdot.
Which kind of defeats the purpose and convenience of having a credit card.
It's also generally not necessary - I've gone on foreign travel on short notice and had no issues with my card, and even gone to some pretty unusual places and used various cards with no issues (the most difficult was that the card I prefer to use for travel didn't have a chip in places that were chip only). The only false positives I've had that turned the card off have been when I went to buy gas at a particular gas station in Mont
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If you're going to make out of the ordinary purchases for overseas, or travel overseas, you always want to call your bank ahead of time.
I do, and they still freeze it. I call the bank and CapitalOne, and they still freeze the card. This has happened to me about 10 times in the last 5 or 6 years, regular as clockwork.
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Always contact the bank before you travel with Visa or MC. American Express is designed for travel, so you don't have to notify them.
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I did this with my Bank of America VISA card. Called them and told them dates and places of travel.
They still blocked my card the first time I tried to use it.
They are clueless. I cancelled the card.
CapitalOne Website Instructions (Score:3)
1. Sign in to capitalone360.com.
2. Click on the 'My Accounts' tab.
3. Click '360 Checking' under the "Checking and Savings" section.
4. Go to the 'Debit Card' tab.
5. Click 'let us know' under the "Travel Plans" section.
6. Enter your Departing Date, Returning Date and locations for international travel.
7. Click 'Submit.'
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If you're going to make out of the ordinary purchases for overseas, or travel overseas, you always want to call your bank ahead of time. This is a standard operating procedure, and nothing to complain about on Slashdot.
Even that doesn't ensure that you don't have problems. We used to use HSBC. As we found out, their fraud detection algorithms are terrible. I returned from a trip to Mexico to be greeted by a flurry of voice mails from them telling me to call them and that my card had been shut off. I called them to straighten things out and was told that I should have called them before travelling to Mexico. I asked them where they would look to find this information and he responded that he would look at my customer accou
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My experience with Citi matches yours, but Chase seems to be on their game. Fraudulent transactions have triggered notifications within minutes of the transaction taking place, and they're very pleasant and professional when I call to discuss them.
Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism (Score:4, Interesting)
Ditto for me on Chase. They've caught real fraud quickly and got me a replacement card within a week. They've also made it very easy to authorize transactions that trigger their system (large purchases somewhere you've never shopped at will do it). You get a text message on your cell phone that you reply to then ask the shop to try again.
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I've had similar experiences with Chase. Once they caught someone buying a big screen TV from walmart.com on Dec 27. I was off on a multi-day bike ride and happened to check my email during a break and it had an email asking if I spent $2700 at walmart.com. A short phone call later and a new card was being fedexed.
Another time I did several legitimate but commonly fraud related transactions one morning (new cell phone, some software purchased by phone, a couple other things I don't remember) and they call
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Another Chase fan here. Just after I arrived in Ireland for a two-week vacation this past May, I get a notice from Chase that they're canceling my card due to (actual) fraud and sending me a new one. Except that I was depending on the Chase card while I was in Ireland. Their CS was extremely helpful and suggested a setup where they'd authorize card-present transactions while I was in Ireland but block others (unless I explicitly authorized them.) (And then I was embarrassed when my card was declined in Ulst
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BofA's viper system is really bad. I called both the bank and cardholder services, as well as opened a Lloyd's of London account and still encountered several refusals, having to call and confirm the note that I had already left with specific itinerary. I just started using my Amex and had no issues from that point on. What is the saddest is that after having returned home BofA refused a local charge because the previous charges had been in GB. They were quick to correct the issues when I did contact them t
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I have to second these experiences: I found Bank of America and Citibank to be absolutely horrible and incompetent.
HSBC are worse (Score:5, Informative)
I have had serious problems with the aggressively incompetent HSBC 'fraud' detection.
The 'best' was when they claimed the reason they had (again) blocked my card was that a whole batch of cards had been compromised and it wasn't just my card.
Sadly for the liar at HSBC was I'm a tech journalist, so I immediately contacted their PR department who denied any knowledge of the breach.
It was just made up to make me go away.
Re:HSBC are worse (Score:5, Informative)
It's likely that your card was used at a location for which an abnormal number of cards were found to have been skimmed. This is usually the reason that a whole batch of cards get cancelled. ("Kill every card used at Joe's Gas Station between Monday and Thursday.")
Ten years ago, the US banks didn't want the expense of switching to EMV. The cost would be that Americans would have to expect to have several cards declined at any one time because of fraud-fighting measures. The banks knew this was the future.
As it was, as all the world's bank card fraud organizations migrated to the US, the US was compelled to switch anyway. (You never want to be the last vulnerable man standing.) They'd have been far better going a decade ago.
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How did you determine which one was the liar?
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A perfect philosophical question, impossible for me to answer but ultimately it doesn't matter which bit of HSBC were lying.
Text message on use (Score:5, Informative)
No Bed of Roses (Score:5, Interesting)
The person who used my cellphone number before I got it had such a deal, apparently, with her bank. Unfortunately, she never notified the bank that she no longer used that number, so I got frequent calls from Chase Bank asking her to respond to credit card activity. At first, I called Chase's response number to alert them to the problem, but after several fails, I simply took to refusing all credit requests made in her name.
I'm sure that her experience was even more annoying than mine was -- and mine went on for months, during which time I found out quite a lot about her personal buying habits.
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The bank didn't update the phone number when the new owner of it told them. That IS the bank's fault.
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and when a truly bogus one does appear, I can notify the bank immediately.
Why is that critical, don't you have any consumer protection laws? I was in China early this year and someone lifted my credit card details. I didn't contact the bank for a good 6 weeks after it happened (because I didn't know about it), and after that quick phone call everything was sorted out, the 6 week old charges were reversed and everyone went on with their lives.
It seems like your system is a lot of effort for little gain.
American Express (Score:2)
I travel quite bit and I have found that American Express (AMEX) does the best job of fraud prevention & detecting bad transactions without losing the ability to use my card. :(
The only downside is how many merchants don't take AMEX at point of sale
Advice: Just cut up the card (Score:2, Interesting)
I've had this happen a couple of times now. Once I even spent a half-hour on the phone, while traveling, with customer service trying to convince them that I was who I said I was. Gave up and cut up the card. Highly recommend just having a lot of accounts and ditching cards after a set time investment (e.g., ten minutes) trying to get them re-enabled.
It doesn't matter what we would like. All that matters is having enough people ditch their cards to wake the credit card companies up to their lost profits
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Closing accounts can negatively affect your credit score by reducing available credit and time of oldest account (and possibly average age of accounts). If you try to maintain the same number of accounts, you also add to the number of applications, which is another negative against credit scores.
Chase cards text and email (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience has been actually very good with Chase cards...
They decline the transaction then text you asking to reply "1" for Yes or "2" for No if it was you. Then you just reply "1" and repeat the transaction and it goes through.
Simultaneously they send an email with a green "yes" and a red "no" button that functions similarly.
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OTOH, I would prefer the fraud software to err on the side of caution, but KISS...>
A simplified reversal process might also include a couple of test questions texted or emailed to a number/email on file.
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My experience has been actually very good with Chase cards...
Ditto. The only time they ever declined *us* using the card is when we used it out-of-state and forgot to call ahead of time.
We've purchased many airline tickets from them without a peep, but have had them detect and block attempted fraud three times (issuing new cards every time).
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You don't need to call them when you travel. I used their online banking to set the locations and dates when I would be traveling in Europe. I'm sure the same could be done for other states.
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Chase has an online system for setting dates and locations. We did that, but still got flagged.
Stupid computers. Now we call, and speak to a human. (Ignore the fact that the person we talk to types it into a computer...)
Cancel your card. (Score:2)
I had this problem repeatedly with my Bank of America Visa card (and so has my daughter). Whenever I would travel anywhere, my card would be declined (often at very inopportune moments) and I would have to call the get the card working again. This even happened when I took the time to call them in advance and tell them where and when I would be traveling. I finally got fed up and cancelled the card.
My other credit cards don't seem to have this problem. I guess they have a different fraud algorithm.
I wouldn'
Tell me about it (Score:5, Funny)
My pet frog used my card without me knowing. Do you have any idea what it costs to ship special-order flies, worms and a massively tricked-out terrarium from Bangkok?
Frog protection my ass.
It's happened to me several times... (Score:2)
and with different banks, occasionally to the point where they forced me to get a new card (and change a zillion automated payments). I wouldn't mind so much if this actually worked, but none of these cases involved a specific fraudulent charge - it was just done because they thought there might be one later. The irony is that I keep seeing the occasional fraudulent charge that they miss. So as far as I can tell they're pretty close to 100% false positives, and probably not many legitimate blocks.
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Unless you have one of those accounts that sends you a notice for every transaction done on the card, how do you know how many transactions are rejected without your knowledge? It sounds like the only ones you would encounter would be the false positives.
Chase one time... (Score:2)
Communication! (Score:2)
The article ask us what we'd like them to do. I'd like them to call me if there's a suspicious charge on my card. Ask me about it, make sure it's ok. If I can't be reached, then sure, reverse the charge and shut off my card, but at least make an attempt to contact and verify rather than just assume!
Last time I had a credit card stolen (Score:2)
It was Christmas Eve, somebody lifted the Visa card out of my wife's purse while we were at dinner. They bought coffee at a mall (successful), then tried to buy a TV at a Radio Shack 10 miles away (failed), and we got a phone call from the credit card company. It wasn't my home state (visiting family, and my mom actually did need a new TV :-) Successful detection!
But I've also had a couple of rounds of false alarms, where I've been traveling somewhere and gotten the "Card declined, call us" when I tried
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I would hope (probably a false hope) that the CC card company may know that I've bought an airline ticket, but not the details of the flight itself.
Chase is less bad (Score:2)
Chase sends me a text when a questionable charge comes in. I can text back to approve it.
Still have had false-positives, and still has never prevented fraud, but at least they make it easy.
So what do I want? Secure payments! (Score:2)
This whole fraud detection stuff is nonsense. It's just been cheaper for the banks to build this hack instead of actually implementing a secure payments system. Come on, credit card number + name + expiration date + security code? All information that doesn't change?
We're at the point where we can make a smart card that does everything with strong crypto. It could even have a USB connection or, possibly, Bluetooth, to let you make secure transactions from your computer.
two-factor authentication style (Score:2)
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Unless the one who stole your card also stole your phone. Which can happen if you keep them close-by. Resulting in 2-factor failure.
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Use cash. (Score:4, Insightful)
Use cash.
Seriously. I remember when we could get on a flight, sit down, then have a purser come by and pay in cash for the flight.
OTOH, I let 2 of my credit card companies know where I'll be traveling - they have an online tool for that. Amex seems to figure it out, though I've had 3 different CC refused because they weren't chip-n-pin in Turkey (away from tourist areas). It was embarrassing to take 12 people to a business dinner at a nice restaurant and not be able to pay. Amex, Visa, MC all were refused. I made a stink about this to the MC company and 8 months later, I was part of their early test group. Also got screwed in Amsterdam having to wait in line to get a train ticket from the airport because non-chip-n-pin CCs weren't allowed at the train kiosks. 10 line. Should have just gotten on for free - nobody seems to check for tickets into town.
Also remember traveling around Japan before they started accepting CCards anywhere. Cash was it. It was a hassle to carry the equiv of US$1000 to be able to pay for hotels, but necessary.
Was in Seoul a few years ago - the subway token machines only accepted cash, but a cash machine was available about 50ft away. Got the feeling they didn't want to be accused of tracking riders by name. I dunno.
I still use cash whenever it makes sense for trivial purchases under US$50 - except in transfer airports when I don't have any local currency. That $3 cup of coffee while waiting for a connecting flight just isn't worth it. Also feel bad tipping in USD, but sometimes that is the difference for the bellboy - $0 or US$5.
Why no Chip Card Reader at home? (Score:4, Interesting)
As EMV chip card readers get cheaper, I keep waiting for banks to offer an on-line verification service where they supply a chip card reader to the card owner, which can then be used to verify on-line transactions. After all, the system is already designed to survive the POS terminal being compromised, so the same should apply to what is effectively a home POS terminal.
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My UK bank does this for payments made through the bank's website. I have a small card reader which my bank sent to me. I insert my debit card, enter the PIN, then, I enter a number that the website gives me into the reader and the reader returns another number which is entered into a box on the
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As usual, Europe is way ahead of the curve for this. Widespread adoption (along with the mechanism to allow merchants to use this in the same way as the Visa and MC "verified" service) would pretty much kill card-not-present fraud dead.
even worse fraud detection: (Score:4, Informative)
I rented a huge U-haul on a citibank card. Day of the move, I was buying gas at gas stations every few hundred miles in a line across the US's major interstates. Citibank cut me off after 4 gas stations. Good thing I had a backup.
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Do you always go to the same brand of gas station, or was it different ones? Something something about when you stop for gas, the merchant puts a hold on your credit account for up to $150 - $250, then a few days later it actually clears for the exact amount you pumped. A lot of gas stations still have signs saying something like that if you charge credit.
So maybe it wasn't your card cutting you off, the vendor just hit their daily hold since you did so much driving in a big truck in one day.
But yes, alwa
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My bank uses a geographic fraud detection technique. So they'd probably flag this sort of activity as well. I just call the service number in advance and tell them I'll be traveling, where and when. I've never had a problem.
How would you like it to work instead? (Score:2)
How would you like it to work instead?
I once spent the better part of an evening trying to make a payment via PayPal. After having several payment attempts fail without explanation I first thought that something was wrong with my credit card and called the bank. When the card turned out to be OK I sent PayPal a support request and after a lengthy phone conversation with their support people we finally found out that their fraud detection algorithm had flagged the payment I was trying to make as suspicions because previously I had always made sm
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Oh, sheesh, I run into crap like this all the time just trying to use my HSA debit card to pay for prescriptions and copays and crap at my health care provider. You think it'd just be a no-brainer, paying healthcare costs with a VISA debit card who's only purpose is to pay healthcare costs. But more than half the time it gets rejected for some stupid reason and I end up calling both my bank and the healthcare administration. Even for routine stuff like fulfilling prescriptions which we've successfully do
Next time it'll be cash (Score:2)
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Given that this is an area with a large opportunity for fraud (the manually added tip), it's not too surprising. I'd rather have a verification from my bank than find out that someone put an extra zero on the end two weeks later.
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I wish my credit card did that. I tipped $5 on about a $20 bar bill. Someone in the bar apparently decided my tip wasn't big enough and instead changed my credit card a tip of $50 on a $20 bill.
Its not actually your money... (Score:3)
When you use a credit card you aren't actually spending your own money; you are borrowing money. Its no surprise they are antsy about fraud detection; its they who stand to lose the most.
Which is why I never use debit (Score:3)
People are always more careful with their own money. If I haven't paid my CC bill, the CC company is out that money. If it comes out of my bank account, I'm SOL until they get around to figuring it out. It's why I always decline when offered a debit card - WTF would I want *my* money on the line where a fraudulent transaction might occur?
Changing policy (Score:2)
I'd like to reverse the process (Score:2)
I'd like it if, rather than the merchant charging me and the bank having to figure out if it's legitimate or fraudulent, I send a message to my bank/card-issuer saying "Pay this merchant this much, here's their reference number and here's my TOTP authenticator code.". That should reduce the problem dramatically, and turn the physical card and/or knowledge of the account number into a last-ditch resort when I can't get a data connection, can't get a text message out, can't get a voice call out or don't have
Citi is the Worst (Score:2)
There's a gas station 1/4 mile from my home that I buy from 2-3x a month using the same credit card. Once or twice a year one of those purchases would get flagged by Citi and locked my card, even though there was a clear pattern of use.
On top of that, I had an absolutely infuriating experience using a Citi card on a decent-sized Newegg purchase (~$600). I've made about a dozen purchases from there over the past couple years. They declined the charge as potential fraud and sent me a fraud alert. I confirmed
Their algorithms are pathetic... (Score:2)
The problem is, reasonable fraud detection has a competent human in the loop and that costs money. Unless we get strong AI (which is highly doubtful to ever happen), that will not change. If they remove the human, both the false positive and false negative rates surge to unacceptable levels, but the cost is paid by their customers, not by them.
Hence the source of this problem is plain, old-fashioned corporate greed. I suggest you look for a different bank to get your cards from.
To illustrate what good handl
Re: (Score:2)
I said "competent human", not "human". There is a rather large difference. I also said "human in the loop", not "purely human". I am quite aware that the algorithms alone are better than humans alone and that they are critically needed to filter down the volume, but the combination of both is a lot better and currently the only way to reach a good outcome for the customer. 20 false positives per fraud caught is pretty bad. Please note that I had access to fraud data including full analysis in the past and
Re: (Score:2)
How do their algorithms take into account me phoning three days before my trip to Canada to tell them I'm going to Canada, and them still freezing the card as soon as I try to make my first purchase?
Credit Cards (Score:5, Interesting)
In the EU (but not the UK), banks will send you a text for EVERY credit card transaction. If there's a problem, you can contact the bank. It's also free.
Are you really telling me, in this day and age, that we can't have suspect transactions result in a text to your phone that you can then authorise - even before the web page refreshes?
Banking is so in the 1950s of computing that it's laughable. It's done deliberately in some circumstances to profit from charges, fees and the timings of clearing payments. But you can't claim fraud if you haven't taken SIMPLE measures against it.
Like asking the user to confirm suspect transactions using a secondary method (that can be phone for old people without mobile phones, text for those with phones, maybe even the bank's secure app if you so choose). Declining a card transaction because it comes from an unusual place is no longer a metric to decide on the suspicion assigned to a transaction. I've purchased from all over the world, especially in the run-up to Christmas when Amazon, eBay et al only stock the normal boring stuff and I want something a bit different.
In one instance, my Italian relative came over, went to a DIY store with us, paid for the transaction and KNEW BEFORE WE'D HIT THE DOORS that he'd been double-charged on his bank account. A text came through, then another, in a foreign country, before he'd even left the shop. And we were then able to cancel the second transaction.
Why the fuck isn't just this standard practice?
How it should work. (Score:2)
- Instant notification
Been there, done that (Score:2)
Yes, CapitalOne will turn off a card at the drop of a hat. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not.
I make regular trips to Cambodia and the first few times I did something like pay for a meal or a hotel room they (CapitalOne) froze the card. Okay, I get it, they're erring on the side of safety, and frankly I appreciate that. Better safe than sorry, right?
Soooooooo, the next few trips I called them in advance and told them that I'd be going to Cambodia, I'm gonna use my card there, yada yada yada. And t
I have this problem many times (Score:2)
I rarely travel, perhaps a flight every few years. My card gets swiped at the airport check-in and the next day I see 10,000 in flight charges. I call and tell them they are fraudulent charges. I have to fight with them for weeks to get the charges removed.
I personally would like an app where charges over $500 require a 2-stage authorization. Just ping me and I'll be the final cal
Capital one is actually one of the better ones... (Score:2)
Last year I told them I was traveling to Europe and India for two weeks. Found out in London that all their retailers use credit cards with pin numbers. American credit cards without pin numbers are authorized by the discretion of the retailer. Apparently if I use the card and deny making the charges, the merchant is in the hole in UK. Not sure if this is true, this what the piz
Possible solution (Score:2)
I got a prepaid, reloadable MC thru my bank (BMO). Since it can only be reloaded thru online banking and my purchases happen right after loading they might not be looked at as suspicious. The only time it was 'suspended' was when someone in another country tried to charge $1200 with a balance of 58 cents.
Happens to me all the time. (Score:2)
I live in Japan, but all my finances are US based. This happens to me a few times a year, and it's annoying because 1) the bank knows I'm in Japan, 2) I shop at the same 10 places. I'll get blocked for iTunes purchases even though I habitually buy stuff from iTunes. The whole thing is retarded. I could see if I suddenly made a purchase in India or Spain, but seriously WTF? At least now the bank I use allows me to clear it with the "app" so I just need to ask the cashier nicely to wait 2 minutes while
How would you like it to work instead? (Score:2)
How would you like it to work instead?
I would like it to approve 100% of the transactions that I do and decline 100% of the fraudulent transactions that someone else tries to do with my cards. Why would you want anything else?
Don't use 'em (Score:3)
I just don't use credit cards anymore.
'course, the bankruptcy helped with that decision ...
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have to be rich or be traveling abroad to experience this. I put down a deposit for renting a fishing cabin for 2 days on a lake 200 miles upcountry. The same day I was trying to buy gas at home with a credit card and the transaction got flagged and i had to call the card company before the gas purchase could be completed.