<p>At my office, a group of shoppers tries to take the first Friday in December off every year to do Christmas shopping, and they do a marathon day of shop shop shop. The winner of the office’s claim to fame super shopper award is Ms. M., who one year bought so much that by mid afternoon her credit card company canceled her card. They couldn’t reach her because they only had her home phone number and she was at the mall, and there was so much activity on the account their algorithm deduced that the card must have been stolen. </p>
<p>In all fairness to Ms. M., she had husband, three children, daughter/son in laws, and a fair number of grandchildren to buy gifts for… :)</p>
<p>owlice, do you have any idea how your cc number was stolen? I have received calls from the cc fraud folks and it is usually a little awkward. A person unknown to me calls me and claims to be from the credit card company and asks ME to confirm my identity… sorry, I don’t think so! LOL</p>
<p>Kelowena, you are correct: The credit card companies don’t do it as a courtesy to us; they do it as protection to themselves, since they are ultimately responsible for the phoney charges.</p>
<p>I know that this doesn’t seem fair to those who end up paying finance charges on their credit cards - but I am very thankful to my credit card company (really!) - we just cashed the $297 cash-back check, and have another one for over $200 coming from the other credit card we carry (it’s an annual rebate). And I do feel very grateful. For those who have the means to use credit cards and pay them off every month, it’s like a xmas present.<br>
And fraud alerts; once DD started off the day charging something in Armenia, then later in the day in London, then later in the day in New York… yep, it triggered a fraud alert. The ones I’ve really hated, though, are when she has alerted the company that she is out of the country, but they still call and try to verify the purchases (at our HOME phone number) and when I tell them to check their records and that she can’t talk to them about it because she is in a foreign country, they won’t do that because she’s not the one telling them that - and I’m not on her account. Sheesh :eek:</p>
<p>NJres, I don’t know how/when the number was stolen. </p>
<p>I was on the computer while talking to the person from the credit card company, and logged into my accounts; the one we were talking about had already been taken off-line. The company was very fast in snagging the account.</p>
<p>futurenycstudent, yes, it’s their job, and I’m glad – and thankful – they did it well. I have no problem thanking people, or companies, for doing their jobs well. I’m sorry you do, and hope that you don’t go into management!</p>
<p>H and I just arrived in Mexico today. Went to make my first purchase (I forgot to bring a hat) with the credit card and remembered I’d forgotten to call the credit union and alert them we were traveling out of the country. But the charge went through, and I will be calling them first thing in the morning to let them know the purchase was legit. For all I know, there could be a message on my machine at home right now. We, too, have been called by them when our spending was not our typical pattern.</p>
<p>It also pays to pay attention to your statement. Several years ago we went to CA- booked flight/hotel/rental car through online place. Two months later there was a charge for an airline ticket. I knew my H wasn’t planning any flights, called the card company… The ticket was purchased for a flight between two states remote from us by a woman we had never heard of. They reimbursed us and did the fraud investigation. The stupid criminal had to give her correct name, etc for the airline ticket so tracing her was easy for them. It turns out that some car rental agency employees at the Oakland airport were taking credit card numbers from the data required on rental forms (even if prepaid they need a way to get any extra charges)- my call helped break up a crime ring! It seems to me that was before you were required to give other data from the back of your credit card for absentee purchases, although if the criminals were doing the transactions themselves they could flip the card over and copy the data.</p>
<p>Our MasterCard’s fraud alert algorithm was useful to us one evening a few years ago. My husband and I were both at home in Ohio and I answered the phone and was able to confirm that neither of us had just purchased a refrigerator in France. (Love the easy ones. And there were no further attempts to use the card - we watched carefully to make sure no one used it to buy an oven in Germany…)</p>
For those who have the means to use credit cards and pay them off every month, it’s like a xmas present.<br>