Amazon, ebooks, baskets and credit card companies.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Probably from how most people use credit cards it IS suspicious. I recall when mobipocket was an independent French company, buying an eBook from them, and 5 minutes later getting a call from my Credit Card company asking if this was a valid purchase.

On the whole, I'd rather they be safe than me be sorry.

So would I, but they really need to work on their fraud detection. One good example, I used to rent a server from a German company. I'd been paying for it monthly on my debit card for five to six months, no problem. Then it got declined by the credit union's fraud detection. Okay, fine, I called and got it sorted out.

They declined it again the next month, as potential fraud. At that point I'd been paying the exact same amount to the same company every month for half a year and had already called and confirmed it was a legitimate recurring charge a month previous. It was pretty obvious they had changed something and the algorithm was now "if charge is from another country, it's fraud."

I was able to bypass that bullshit by switching to paying by Paypal. Still got charged to the same debit card, but now that it was from a US company, they stopped declining it.

A friend of mine online had a similar problem but his bank would even decline the Paypal charges. Not every month, but every couple of months, with no pattern, he'd have to go talk to them and get it fixed. He'd been paying for his server for three to four years at that point. Monthly charges at the same price the entire time.

I'm not reassured that my credit union or his bank would catch any actual fraudulent charges.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Manabi

So would I, but they really need to work on their fraud detection. One good example, I used to rent a server from a German company. I'd been paying for it monthly on my debit card for five to six months, no problem. Then it got declined by the credit union's fraud detection. Okay, fine, I called and got it sorted out.

They declined it again the next month, as potential fraud. At that point I'd been paying the exact same amount to the same company every month for half a year and had already called and confirmed it was a legitimate recurring charge a month previous. It was pretty obvious they had changed something and the algorithm was now "if charge is from another country, it's fraud."

I was able to bypass that bullshit by switching to paying by Paypal. Still got charged to the same debit card, but now that it was from a US company, they stopped declining it.

A friend of mine online had a similar problem but his bank would even decline the Paypal charges. Not every month, but every couple of months, with no pattern, he'd have to go talk to them and get it fixed. He'd been paying for his server for three to four years at that point. Monthly charges at the same price the entire time.

I'm not reassured that my credit union or his bank would catch any actual fraudulent charges.

I live in Georgia and had $30,000.00 worth of charges on my Am Ex Card one December. All charges were in California and at Home Depots and Lowes all over the state. The charges were for large ticket items including Power Generators and Pressure Washers. Am Ex approved all charges without question and wanted me to prove I did not purchase the items.
Apache

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

I've heard people say they buy themselves an egift card then refill it to avoid seperate small charges. Would be nice to have the option of a cart though. I think my cc company has just accepted that this is not suspicious behavior for me!

This is what I do. I've found it quite useful for setting spending limits, too.

[haertig]

Some of the CC fraud prevention is a little overkill IMHO. My wife used to collect gasoline samples and ship them off to a company for analysis. This was just an on-the-side thing to do. If you're out and about and in no hurry, why not stop at a few gas stations along the way? The pay was quite good for this (assuming you could arrange the stations along a route you were already driving and didn't have to make separate trips).

Anyway, she'd stop at one gas station and buy a quart of gas (about 50 cents at the time). Then five minutes later she'd be buying another quart of gas down the street. Evidently this was highly suspicious to the CC company, because they would lock the CC on the third attempt to buy a quart. The deal with the company that processed these gas samples was they had to be paid for with a CC, and you had to include your receipts when you sent in the samples. Otherwise, cash would have been much preferable.

If I were the CC company seeing these transactions, I would be more inclined to write off the behavior as "stupid", but not necessarily "suspicious".

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by haertig

Some of the CC fraud prevention is a little overkill IMHO. My wife used to collect gasoline samples and ship them off to a company for analysis. This was just an on-the-side thing to do. If you're out and about and in no hurry, why not stop at a few gas stations along the way? The pay was quite good for this (assuming you could arrange the stations along a route you were already driving and didn't have to make separate trips).

Anyway, she'd stop at one gas station and buy a quart of gas (about 50 cents at the time). Then five minutes later she'd be buying another quart of gas down the street. Evidently this was highly suspicious to the CC company, because they would lock the CC on the third attempt to buy a quart. The deal with the company that processed these gas samples was they had to be paid for with a CC, and you had to include your receipts when you sent in the samples. Otherwise, cash would have been much preferable.

If I were the CC company seeing these transactions, I would be more inclined to write off the behavior as "stupid", but not necessarily "suspicious".

When people steal a credit card, a popular thing to do is try it at a gas pump to make sure it works, that way if it's declined they just walk away without being spotted. If it works, they work their way to bigger ticket items.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

I live in Georgia and had $30,000.00 worth of charges on my Am Ex Card one December. All charges were in California and at Home Depots and Lowes all over the state. The charges were for large ticket items including Power Generators and Pressure Washers. Am Ex approved all charges without question and wanted me to prove I did not purchase the items.
Apache

Interesting. I have frequently heard long time Am Ex holders brag about how good Am Ex was about fraud. I guess that's not always the case. Yea, that seems to be kind of a no brainer with regards to fraud.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by Apache

I live in Georgia and had $30,000.00 worth of charges on my Am Ex Card one December. All charges were in California and at Home Depots and Lowes all over the state. The charges were for large ticket items including Power Generators and Pressure Washers. Am Ex approved all charges without question and wanted me to prove I did not purchase the items.
Apache

You'd think the fact it was nearly on the other side of the country plus the large amount would have triggered any fraud detection, anywhere. My credit union did flag my dad's charges in Kentucky as potentially fraudulent when he went to an Army reunion there one year. We're in east Tennessee, so that wasn't all that far away. At least they got that part right, and it was easy to fix.

Regions Bank used to be the absolute worst. I'm an anime & manga fan, so back when I had money to spend, I'd import some stuff from Japanese stores that had a web presence and were willing to ship to the US. I could not use my Regions debit card. It would get flagged as fraudulent, and their fraud department would tell me, "Sorry, but we're not going to let you charge that." Their position was that I couldn't use my card in foreign countries unless I was physically visiting said country. I had to get my mom to let me use her credit card and pay her back. I do not miss being a customer of Regions bank, although I remain annoyed I had to cancel the checking account I'd had since high school because they bought my bank and screwed it up.

Originally Posted by haertig

Anyway, she'd stop at one gas station and buy a quart of gas (about 50 cents at the time). Then five minutes later she'd be buying another quart of gas down the street. Evidently this was highly suspicious to the CC company, because they would lock the CC on the third attempt to buy a quart. The deal with the company that processed these gas samples was they had to be paid for with a CC, and you had to include your receipts when you sent in the samples. Otherwise, cash would have been much preferable.

If I were the CC company seeing these transactions, I would be more inclined to write off the behavior as "stupid", but not necessarily "suspicious".

Since gas pumps do a test hold, usually around $100, before letting you pump, that makes more sense than it seems at first glance. Their fraud system was probably seeing it as multiple $100 purchases only a few minutes apart, so I can actually understand that one.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Manabi

Since gas pumps do a test hold, usually around $100, before letting you pump, that makes more sense than it seems at first glance. Their fraud system was probably seeing it as multiple $100 purchases only a few minutes apart, so I can actually understand that one.

One local gas station does a $200 hold on the account and it takes 48-72 hours before it gets reversed.

Fortunately, the only credit card fraud I personally suffered was quite a few years back. We drove down to California for a family trip. On the way home, we ate dinner at a restaurant in San Francisco where I paid by credit card. After we got home, the credit card bill arrives with two charges from the restaurant in San Francisco as if we had eaten dinner there two nights in a row. When I called the bank, the customer service person pretty much wanted me to prove that we hadn't done so. After a bit of back and forth including calling up their copy of the credit card statement, it was admitted that the charges for eating lunch in Ashland and renting a motel room in Salem and having dinner would have made it a bit hard to have had dinner in San Francisco on the same day. A couple of weeks later, we received a letter letting us know that a couple of enterprising employees at the restaurant had been supplementing their wages by running customer cards through the carbon copy card reader multiple times.

[rcentros]

I've never had huge amounts taken and I've always gotten back what was stolen, but I get frustrated. One time the thief bought something from a merchant. I called that merchant and told them it wasn't me, they refunded my money and told me where they were sending the items bought on my card (it was a Houston address). I called the credit card company and told them — this is where they are, they are waiting here for this package — and they weren't interested. It seems to me that they would be chomping at the bit to get the thieves.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Apache

I live in Georgia and had $30,000.00 worth of charges on my Am Ex Card one December. All charges were in California and at Home Depots and Lowes all over the state. The charges were for large ticket items including Power Generators and Pressure Washers. Am Ex approved all charges without question and wanted me to prove I did not purchase the items.
Apache

That's definitely not my experience with Amex. They called me when suspicious charges were coming in from Illinois. We went over the charges one by one on the phone and they immediately removed anything I said wasn't mine, no questions.

[Apache]

They did take everything off, but considering the fact that I was charging meals in my home town with the physical card on some of the same days should have raised warning flags. I still like having my Am Ex and it was a one time incident. Now I even get email alerts every time a charge is made without the card being present.
Apache

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Likewise, and no it doesn't in my experience. All of Amazon's digital merchandise is 1-Click even when you have 1-Click disabled on your account.

Yep, which is really annoying because I wanted all my ebooks to use gift card $$ and instead, it uses the credit card because you are stuck with the 1-Click, enabled or not. It's a minor inconvenience. As long as my credit card isn't charging me for doing a bunch of transactions, then I don't care. On the other hand, I have my brother pay me with Amazon gift cards (only way I seem to get money out of him) and then I can't use the gift cards on what I purchase most often!

About half the time I charge stuff at Kobo, my CC company calls to verify. I get why they would call when I geo-surfed to UK to buy a few books, but most of the time, it's the regular account. Strange.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Yep, which is really annoying because I wanted all my ebooks to use gift card $$ and instead, it uses the credit card because you are stuck with the 1-Click, enabled or not. It's a minor inconvenience. As long as my credit card isn't charging me for doing a bunch of transactions, then I don't care. On the other hand, I have my brother pay me with Amazon gift cards (only way I seem to get money out of him) and then I can't use the gift cards on what I purchase most often!

Why can't you use Amazon gift cards to purchase your ebooks? I do it all the time.

Just add the gift card to your account. You will see a credit for the amount of the gift card. Whatever purchases you make (including 1-Click) will go to the credit first and your CC after the credit is exhausted.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Why can't you use Amazon gift cards to purchase your ebooks? I do it all the time.

Just add the gift card to your account. You will see a credit for the amount of the gift card. Whatever purchases you make (including 1-Click) will go to the credit first and your CC after the credit is exhausted.

Same here. I use Amazon gift cards both because I dislike to see small charges and also to limit spending.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Same here. I use Amazon gift cards both because I dislike to see small charges and also to limit spending.

I use Bing as my search engine and you accrue points that can be turned in for a $5 Amazon credit. I tend to get one every month or month and a half.