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> I usually laugh at them and tell them they they are the unverified party in this phone call, not me. This is one of the related reasons why I finally got my

> I usually laugh at them and tell them they they are the unverified party in this phone call, not me. This is one of the related reasons why I finally got my ducks in a row and switched away from Chase three years ago. Their potential-fraud-has-happened outreach department was, in my experience, terrible about this. It didn't help that their potential-fraud-detection department was similarly bad. ("You used your debit card at an AM/PM in Washington State!!!!" Yes, I know, it is about 900 feet from my house; I go there regularly.) Point being, I got quite a few calls from their (real) fraud prevention department about (supposed) fraud. Each time, the rep who called me would get mad at me for not handing over the last four of my SSN and my complete address to the calling party. I pointed out, each time, that they were the ones who called me so I should be verifying them. "But, sir, WE are the bank and you could be anyone who just answered your phone." The credit union I now use just presents a message with their name and a request to call back. "We may have detected a fraudulent purchase; please give us a call at the number on the back of your card and reference case number [digits]." Fortunately, their system is much better; I've only heard this message once.

CWuestefeld 8y ago
their potential-fraud-detection department was similarly bad. ("You used your debit card at an AM/PM in Washington State!!!!" Yes, I know, it is about 900 feet from my house; I go there regularly.) A year ago I had an awful experience with this. We were on vacation at Big Bend National Park, which is hours away from everything in southwest Texas. When trying to pay for breakfast, our card was denied. I tried to call the card company to tell them that it was OK, but couldn't get through - there was no cell service. Outside the restaurant was a pay phone (remember them?) that I was able to use to call their 800 number. I learned then that they'd actually flagged my card as stolen, so I could no longer use it at all, and to get it turned back on I needed to receive the code they were sending by SMS and read it back to them. The thing was, we were in a dead cell area, we couldn't get the SMS. And Big Bend is mind-bogglingly huge - 1,252 of square miles of mostly desert (there's a whole mountain ranged entirely contained within the park). As far as I could tell, I didn't have enough gas to drive out of the park to get to cell service to achieve this (the park is so big that it's got its own gas station in the middle, and I'd intended to use this - but without my card, how can I?). It seemed a perfect trap, there was no way we were going to be able to get out. What eventually saved us was that the hotel manager overheard me shouting at the card people, and came out to give me a map, with the places inside the park that can get SMS text highlighted. Using that I was able to fulfill their requirement. They never were able to tell me why they flagged the card in the first place. They told me that they advise all card holders to warn them when they plan to go out of state. But I live in Texas, and I was in Texas when the charge triggered. They just shrugged that off.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  As someone who travels in remote corners of deserts very frequently, I can say that you can never have too much water, fuel, or cash. And when you're in a scrape, you can often barter with all three.
  - chiph 8y ago
    If you're visiting remote parts of Texas, always have a hat with a brim (there's a reason that cowboy hats are shaped the way they are), bottled water, and a few hundred dollars in cash.
    - UpshotKnothole 8y ago
      I would add Imodium AD, analgesics, some power bars and jerky, condoms, tampons if you’re female or traveling with women, a compass, weatherproof matches, a small mirror, and a good knife.
      - ams6110 8y ago
        Condoms? No emergency so dire as to miss a chance to get laid?
        reaperducer 8y ago
        For keeping your matches in if it rains.
        UpshotKnothole 8y ago
        Never underestimate the value of condoms for purposes other than intercourse. They’re highly portable, durable, can hold a lot of liquid, and are waterproof. You can use them to waterproof anything from a car’s spark plugs to some tinder or even food. They’re useful as part of dressing certain minor wounds too.
  - KineticLensman 8y ago
    My wife and I (we are both Brits) were driving in the middle of nowhere in Washington state. We stopped at a garage to get petrol/gas and discovered that the credit card machines in the unmanned gas station only seemed to accepted credit cards issued in the US - IIRC the PIN equivalent was a US zip code. Our personal credit cards (UK cards) and cash (no teller) were thus useless. Luckily my wife had a corporate credit card issued in the US that we were able to use, on the principle that she could ask for forgiveness from her company when we got back.
reaperducer 8y ago
("You used your debit card at an AM/PM in Washington State!!!!" Yes, I know, it is about 900 feet from my house; I go there regularly.) Bank of America has an interesting optional feature where they geolocate the transaction, and if it's a certain distance away from your cell phone, it triggers the fraud process. I think if more banks did this, it could cut down on a certain percentage of these problems. The downside is that you have to trust your bank enough to let it track your phone 24/7. And having recently gone through the privacy notices of several of my bank apps and web sites, I'm not entirely sure that's a good idea, either.
- diggerNick6771 8y ago
  And for what? To protect their money. It's their responsibility to stop fraud and cover losses. Not mine. I'm paying them my monthly service fee to safely store my money. People don't seem to understand this. If I want to saddle all the risk myself I'll use cash in my mattress.
toast0 8y ago
> ... Chase ... It didn't help that their potential-fraud-detection department was similarly bad I dropped Chase after about the 4th time they flagged my monthly payment to my ISP as potential fraud.
sf_rob 8y ago
I contacted Wells Fargo because their survey emails come from a third party email address and link to a different third party site. I was very specific in my feedback that I thought the survey was legitimate but that they shouldn't habituate their customers to entering even general data on unaffiliated sites. They called me and I reiterated the above and even got a fancy case number. After a month I got a voicemail that they completed their investigation and the survey was non-fraudulent... Hooray.
- DenisM 8y ago
  Don’t despair. If large companies were efficient there would be no place for startups. And what kind of world would that be?
dvtrn 8y ago
I pointed out, each time, that they were the ones who called me so I should be verifying them. "But, sir, WE are the bank and you could be anyone who just answered your phone." There has got to be a word for this and similar behavior. Banks, credit card agencies, mobile phone companies are getting really aggressive with how they handle these sort of transaction based interactions and I'm leaning towards wanting to see them get slapped with regulation for it. I bring it up because a few years back I fell into some hard times, resulting in missing some payments. In a good faith attempt to get caught back up once I found a new job and could right the ship, I called my creditors immediately and tried to make payments and setup payment plans the first paycheck I got. None of them failed to ask what I thought was a very annoying and horrifically invasive question: "Why were you late on your payments?" Each time I rebutted asking if disclosing my living situation was required to make a payment or if I should request an escalation to someone who will just take the money. One creditor kept trying to say "We're asking because we want to do you a favor/we understand things are hard sometimes" and I kept asking them if failure to disclose my life situation would prevent payment until they gave up and took the payment. It strikes me as an offensive, invasive and utterly worthless question and whenever asked I just hang up and call back. Same thing when some entity calls and immediately starts asking for sensitive info. "Send me a letter in the mail with a phone number and I'll call you back when I'm good and ready, otherwise no I'm not just giving you my SSN because you called me at 7:30 on a Monday evening and asked for it". Fiduciaries are getting bold, I tell you.
- astura 8y ago
  The reason they are asking you why you missed a payment is because creditors have hardship payment plans for people in certain hardships. They were trying to see if you were eligible.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    "You should probably lead with that next time" is all I have to say in response to that. I'm far more likely to respond positively, even if ultimately I decline if they were to say "We have a program in place-if you think you're going to miss a payment that will help keep your account on track, would you like to enroll?" versus "Why were you late making this payment?" Of the two, when I went through that period of long-term underemployment, I only ever heard the latter, never the former. Such a curt and abrupt question to ask that comes across much more invasive than helpful.
Scoundreller 8y ago
The fellow that publishes YouTube videos under VinWiki was setting a NYC<->LA driving race record (the Cannonball). While making their second gas stop, their credit cards were being rejected because Amex erroneously thought it was impossible to legitimately use their credit cards between two locations that quickly. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZNddd9Pxc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZNddd9Pxc Supposedly they also track flights worldwide to assess legitimacy of card-present transactions through distance-time bounding.

CWuestefeld 8y ago

their potential-fraud-detection department was similarly bad. ("You used your debit card at an AM/PM in Washington State!!!!" Yes, I know, it is about 900 feet from my house; I go there regularly.) A year ago I had an awful experience with this. We were on vacation at Big Bend National Park, which is hours away from everything in southwest Texas. When trying to pay for breakfast, our card was denied. I tried to call the card company to tell them that it was OK, but couldn't get through - there was no cell service. Outside the restaurant was a pay phone (remember them?) that I was able to use to call their 800 number. I learned then that they'd actually flagged my card as stolen, so I could no longer use it at all, and to get it turned back on I needed to receive the code they were sending by SMS and read it back to them. The thing was, we were in a dead cell area, we couldn't get the SMS. And Big Bend is mind-bogglingly huge - 1,252 of square miles of mostly desert (there's a whole mountain ranged entirely contained within the park). As far as I could tell, I didn't have enough gas to drive out of the park to get to cell service to achieve this (the park is so big that it's got its own gas station in the middle, and I'd intended to use this - but without my card, how can I?). It seemed a perfect trap, there was no way we were going to be able to get out. What eventually saved us was that the hotel manager overheard me shouting at the card people, and came out to give me a map, with the places inside the park that can get SMS text highlighted. Using that I was able to fulfill their requirement. They never were able to tell me why they flagged the card in the first place. They told me that they advise all card holders to warn them when they plan to go out of state. But I live in Texas, and I was in Texas when the charge triggered. They just shrugged that off.

reaperducer 8y ago
As someone who travels in remote corners of deserts very frequently, I can say that you can never have too much water, fuel, or cash. And when you're in a scrape, you can often barter with all three.
- chiph 8y ago
  If you're visiting remote parts of Texas, always have a hat with a brim (there's a reason that cowboy hats are shaped the way they are), bottled water, and a few hundred dollars in cash.
  - UpshotKnothole 8y ago
    I would add Imodium AD, analgesics, some power bars and jerky, condoms, tampons if you’re female or traveling with women, a compass, weatherproof matches, a small mirror, and a good knife.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Condoms? No emergency so dire as to miss a chance to get laid?
      - reaperducer 8y ago
        For keeping your matches in if it rains.
      - UpshotKnothole 8y ago
        Never underestimate the value of condoms for purposes other than intercourse. They’re highly portable, durable, can hold a lot of liquid, and are waterproof. You can use them to waterproof anything from a car’s spark plugs to some tinder or even food. They’re useful as part of dressing certain minor wounds too.
- KineticLensman 8y ago
  My wife and I (we are both Brits) were driving in the middle of nowhere in Washington state. We stopped at a garage to get petrol/gas and discovered that the credit card machines in the unmanned gas station only seemed to accepted credit cards issued in the US - IIRC the PIN equivalent was a US zip code. Our personal credit cards (UK cards) and cash (no teller) were thus useless. Luckily my wife had a corporate credit card issued in the US that we were able to use, on the principle that she could ask for forgiveness from her company when we got back.

reaperducer 8y ago

("You used your debit card at an AM/PM in Washington State!!!!" Yes, I know, it is about 900 feet from my house; I go there regularly.) Bank of America has an interesting optional feature where they geolocate the transaction, and if it's a certain distance away from your cell phone, it triggers the fraud process. I think if more banks did this, it could cut down on a certain percentage of these problems. The downside is that you have to trust your bank enough to let it track your phone 24/7. And having recently gone through the privacy notices of several of my bank apps and web sites, I'm not entirely sure that's a good idea, either.

diggerNick6771 8y ago
And for what? To protect their money. It's their responsibility to stop fraud and cover losses. Not mine. I'm paying them my monthly service fee to safely store my money. People don't seem to understand this. If I want to saddle all the risk myself I'll use cash in my mattress.

toast0 8y ago

> ... Chase ... It didn't help that their potential-fraud-detection department was similarly bad I dropped Chase after about the 4th time they flagged my monthly payment to my ISP as potential fraud.

sf_rob 8y ago

I contacted Wells Fargo because their survey emails come from a third party email address and link to a different third party site. I was very specific in my feedback that I thought the survey was legitimate but that they shouldn't habituate their customers to entering even general data on unaffiliated sites. They called me and I reiterated the above and even got a fancy case number. After a month I got a voicemail that they completed their investigation and the survey was non-fraudulent... Hooray.

DenisM 8y ago
Don’t despair. If large companies were efficient there would be no place for startups. And what kind of world would that be?

dvtrn 8y ago

I pointed out, each time, that they were the ones who called me so I should be verifying them. "But, sir, WE are the bank and you could be anyone who just answered your phone." There has got to be a word for this and similar behavior. Banks, credit card agencies, mobile phone companies are getting really aggressive with how they handle these sort of transaction based interactions and I'm leaning towards wanting to see them get slapped with regulation for it. I bring it up because a few years back I fell into some hard times, resulting in missing some payments. In a good faith attempt to get caught back up once I found a new job and could right the ship, I called my creditors immediately and tried to make payments and setup payment plans the first paycheck I got. None of them failed to ask what I thought was a very annoying and horrifically invasive question: "Why were you late on your payments?" Each time I rebutted asking if disclosing my living situation was required to make a payment or if I should request an escalation to someone who will just take the money. One creditor kept trying to say "We're asking because we want to do you a favor/we understand things are hard sometimes" and I kept asking them if failure to disclose my life situation would prevent payment until they gave up and took the payment. It strikes me as an offensive, invasive and utterly worthless question and whenever asked I just hang up and call back. Same thing when some entity calls and immediately starts asking for sensitive info. "Send me a letter in the mail with a phone number and I'll call you back when I'm good and ready, otherwise no I'm not just giving you my SSN because you called me at 7:30 on a Monday evening and asked for it". Fiduciaries are getting bold, I tell you.

astura 8y ago
The reason they are asking you why you missed a payment is because creditors have hardship payment plans for people in certain hardships. They were trying to see if you were eligible.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  "You should probably lead with that next time" is all I have to say in response to that. I'm far more likely to respond positively, even if ultimately I decline if they were to say "We have a program in place-if you think you're going to miss a payment that will help keep your account on track, would you like to enroll?" versus "Why were you late making this payment?" Of the two, when I went through that period of long-term underemployment, I only ever heard the latter, never the former. Such a curt and abrupt question to ask that comes across much more invasive than helpful.

Scoundreller 8y ago

The fellow that publishes YouTube videos under VinWiki was setting a NYC<->LA driving race record (the Cannonball). While making their second gas stop, their credit cards were being rejected because Amex erroneously thought it was impossible to legitimately use their credit cards between two locations that quickly. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZNddd9Pxc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZNddd9Pxc Supposedly they also track flights worldwide to assess legitimacy of card-present transactions through distance-time bounding.