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My trick is to get text messages/app notifications live when a credit card charge goes through (Chase at least supports this). Then, I either dismiss the messa

My trick is to get text messages/app notifications live when a credit card charge goes through (Chase at least supports this). Then, I either dismiss the message, or deal with it immediately. I find this much easier than going over a statement at the end of the month. Usually the context for the charge is front and center, instead of and puzzling whether "AMZN MKTP US*TO10VLA93" is something I really bought 28 days ago or if someone used my CC.

em-bee 3y ago
my bank used to send me an sms for every transaction, until they decided to only send an sms for transactions over $50. i found the change very irritating. i would have accepted a lower limit of say $10 or $15. and it would have been bearable if they had sent an sms every time $50 in transactions accumulated, but as it was, i could go for weeks without any notification as long as every transaction was below $50. getting this live confirmation was very useful because it also included the remaining balance.
- googlryas 3y ago
  My bank was like that for my debit card...I ended up just using dev tools to remove client side validation and put a 0 in there, and I guess they don't do any server side validation for that field
- zsz 3y ago
  I'm not saying this with any certainly, just suggesting that it's a possibility: in the early days of cell phone service, people had to pay a fixed amount for each SMS sent (and, I believe, received as well)--perhaps $.1, or so, per message. Then, a few years later, you could pay for more expensive plans that included a certain number (some variants included baseline plans with a la carte options). Eventually this was abolished, in favor of plans that included unlimited SMS (the proliferation of HS Internet access probably had a lot to do with these changes as well). However, it is also true that when it comes to commercial accounts, pricing for certain options like SMS may still follow the original scheme--i.e. the telecom may charge a fixed amount per individual message. I'm not saying this is definitely the case, nor that it is reasonable, if it is the case (the contention early on was that SMS were part of some other communication that occurred automatically, so people should never have had to pay anything for this "service," which was periodically ongoing by default). I'm just pointing out that this is how it used to be for private accounts, and i wouldn't be surprised if it was still the case for commercial accounts.

em-bee 3y ago

my bank used to send me an sms for every transaction, until they decided to only send an sms for transactions over $50. i found the change very irritating. i would have accepted a lower limit of say $10 or $15. and it would have been bearable if they had sent an sms every time $50 in transactions accumulated, but as it was, i could go for weeks without any notification as long as every transaction was below $50. getting this live confirmation was very useful because it also included the remaining balance.

googlryas 3y ago
My bank was like that for my debit card...I ended up just using dev tools to remove client side validation and put a 0 in there, and I guess they don't do any server side validation for that field
zsz 3y ago
I'm not saying this with any certainly, just suggesting that it's a possibility: in the early days of cell phone service, people had to pay a fixed amount for each SMS sent (and, I believe, received as well)--perhaps $.1, or so, per message. Then, a few years later, you could pay for more expensive plans that included a certain number (some variants included baseline plans with a la carte options). Eventually this was abolished, in favor of plans that included unlimited SMS (the proliferation of HS Internet access probably had a lot to do with these changes as well). However, it is also true that when it comes to commercial accounts, pricing for certain options like SMS may still follow the original scheme--i.e. the telecom may charge a fixed amount per individual message. I'm not saying this is definitely the case, nor that it is reasonable, if it is the case (the contention early on was that SMS were part of some other communication that occurred automatically, so people should never have had to pay anything for this "service," which was periodically ongoing by default). I'm just pointing out that this is how it used to be for private accounts, and i wouldn't be surprised if it was still the case for commercial accounts.