When Fraud Detection Shuts Down Credit Cards Inappropriately

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?

Comments

This is why you call your bank before tourism

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

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.

Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, but there is still a point here. 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.

Re:This is why you call your bank before tourism

[driblio]

They process billions of transactions a day. Thousands of them are fraudulent. Occasionally they get some wrong. But they do an amazing job - which is why you very rarely find out about fraud for the first time when it shows up on your bill. Most of the time, you never know about it at all. It is far from 'completely broken'.

Text message on use

[sunderland56]

My CC sends me a text message whenever it is used. It's quick (usually arrives before I've signed the slip), it's free, and it doesn't need some stupid app installed with insane permissions. So, *I* can decide which transactions are bogus, instead of some computer algorithm; and when a truly bogus one does appear, I can notify the bank immediately. The bank can then concern themselves with actual proven bogus purchases, instead of thousands of "suspect" ones.

No Bed of Roses

[Anonymous Coward]

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.