to get annoyed with my credit card company for so called fraud prevention?

[KFW]

I swore I'd never post in this section because sometimes a frightening amount of slating goes on, but here goes...

I just received a call from a lady who claimed to be from American Express fraud department. She asked me for my mother's maiden name. I told her that I didn't know who she was and wasn't prepared to give her that information unless I knew it was definitely a call from AmEx. She suggested that I call the number on the back of my card, so I did.

I then got through to the Fraud Department and, having gone through the security checks, the guy asked me about a transaction on my husband's card.

He told me what the company was and the amount before I could stop him, so I now know my birthday present from my husband.

Now, I don't mean to be childish, but that is a bit annoying. Isn't it?

The thing I am most annoyed about is that it seems to have been a stupid thing to query. We have just been abroad on holiday. We spent lots on petrol etc and in random shops/hotels and did anyone query any of those transactions? No. Some of them were for far more than my birthday present and were in a different country FFS. We have also just been buying loads of stuff for the nursery and no one has challenged any of those transactions either. And they were definitely for a lot more than the present as well.

I am sure it's probably my hormones and I wouldn't normally care about knowing for sure what my birthday present is, but really, it is clear that their system is a bunch of sh1te anyway and totally illogical as the transaction they singled out seems to be a perfectly sensible one and inline with my husband and my spending habits. I got a bit annoyed on the phone and told the company that I thought it was a stupid thing to query and that they should "engage their brain" when querying things.

Do you think I can ask for a second present from DH ... I think that probably would be unreasonable, but I am happy to be persuaded otherwise!

I think you are being very unreasonable.
You can hardly blame them. Blame your dh for not having the wit to sort it out on a separate card or paying with cash.

but it's all about the airmiles moondog. I am happy for him to be using that card.

I still think their system is crap. How do they choose which transactions to single out? I thought, perhaps wrongly, that they were supposed to query things which are not in your usual spending habits. Why let all of the stuff slide on holiday?

We get occasional calls at odd times, despite the fact we are very often in different countries spending wildy different amounts.

I still don't get it-don't you check your balance online anyway? I know my dh does probably nightly so if I wanted to surprise him, I would pay with cash.

I do check it of course. I leave it to him to check the transactions on his card because he puts all kinds of weird company expenses on it which I don't have a clue about anyway.

I just think that if I were them, I would be querying unusual transactions and/or for larger sums of money.

...And if they are really worried about fraud, why on earth are they encouraging people to disclose their mother's maiden name to an unidentified cold caller?!

Presumably this is a card in joint names (ie two cards on one account): otherwise they shouldn't be talking to you about his sole name card.

The working of fraud systems is such that it may not be obvious, and indeed may not be possible to determine, the precise reason why a given transaction threw up a flag. They work well overall, but may have some anomalies. On the other hand, that it picked out a birthday present (once a year, presumably) from a flow of other transactions is quite impressive, no? And amongst the things that get stirred into the pot are the identity of the merchant (ie some shops attract fraud or indeed encourage it), the time of day and a whole stack of other stuff. I've fished out a paper on the topic, but unfortunately it's behind a paywall.

"And if they are really worried about fraud, why on earth are they encouraging people to disclose their mother's maiden name to an unidentified cold caller?!"

Quite, and it's a topic often discussed in security circles.

Moreover, for an increasingly large proportion of the population, their mother's maiden name is their own surname...

I too find that strange, them expecting you to give security details to a cold caller.

I once bought intercity train tickets and my card was blocked as (they told me) it was suspicious as the train I booked was not leaving from my geographically nearest station. I had to point out to them long distance trains only make limited stops.

Hi Tokyo

It's an account originally in my name, with him as an additional card holder with full permission to speak to them.

The only thing I can think is that it must be the identity of the shop that set the red flag. I do have some understanding of these things (I work in fraud - that sounds wrong; it's legal honest!), and perhaps that is why I am so unimpressed. I don't think that ithis particular transaction demonstrates anything unusual as regards our spending habits, so I can't imagine how it would otherwise have been flagged. (It's the sort of thing I would and do buy myself!) It doesn't really give me any comfort regarding their procedures at all.

Looks like I am not getting any sympathy and will blame my hormones for me being unreasonable then. Dammit! Still think I might try and wangle a second present...

YABU to be too annoyed really as they are bieng diligent. I agree about the ringing you up and asking for the maiden name thingy.

Perhaps they "knew" you were on holiday - if you do the airmiles thing with them do you also get the travel insurance free thingy?

More to the point though, whilst it will sometimes randomly chuck out a perfectly reaosnable transaction, generally when a truly dogey one comes up, it gets that too and that is the main thing.

One of my cards is so annoying I've nearly cancelled it and stopped using it. It seemed to thing everything was suspicious. But they wouldn't ring and ask you (probably for the reasons you've complained about - so its no picnic if they actually dont, as I will explain) - they'd stop your card, not ring you, but write to you, which could take up to 3 or 4 days to get to you.

So in the meantime, your card is stopped, you are in a shop trying to use it, it gets declined, and its very

They would then wait for you to call, confirm that that transaction for petrol at your nearest service station was in fact you, send you out a new card and pin, which would take about 10 days in all to come, and then you could resume only to go through the same thing again the next month.

I think they have lightened up a bit because it hasn't happened for uh at least 5 months

I can't type today, sorry about all those transposition errors.

Ha Amex phoned me several years ago and the conversation went like this:

them: This is Amex Fraud we just wanted to query a few purchases on your card.

me: sure

them: Did you spend £104 in waitrose this morning?

me: yes

them: and that was where?

me : named branch in London

them so you weren't in Paris?

me no

them so you didn't spend 11,000 Euro in X jewellers this afternoon

me: er no.

them Oh well someone did we will have to cancel your card.

Fecking fantastic one cancelled card, three hundred forms/phonecalls later I am no longer an Amex customer.

I mean you'd think they could call when the fecking transaction was being made!

YABU to be annoyed that they told you about the birthday present. That's DH's fault for using a joint card - if you want the airmiles then you have to take the risk of disclosure that comes with it!

YANBU however to be annoyed about them asking for security details when they phoned you.

I once had a call from our electric supplier asking me to pay a final bill (we'd moved). She wanted my card details over the phone. Seemed surprised when I said I wanted to phone her back via the company number as for all I knew she could be a fraudster...

nancy: yikes!

sloany your credit card company sounds as annoying as my bank. Although they are slightly the other way round (and this is one of the big banks now owned by the tax payer, not a wieny little one)...

The most amusing error they made was after I changed my name to my married name. I went into the bank with my husband and we sorted out joining our accounts and changing my name. Weeeeeeeeks later (and after having stopped my other card and closed the account so that I was without access to any cash), they sent me a debit card for the new account in my maiden name. Hopeless. I went in and they said that they had no record of our marriage certificate. I pointed out that I had had a meeting with them and that they definitely had a copy of it. She detected the irritation in my voice and asked me what my married name was. She then typed it into the computer and changed my name! I could have told her anything and she didn't see any documentation, she just trusted me. I nearly pointed it out, but I was so relieved to be my new name that I let it slide.

It's not the questioning that bothers me with this, it's how they go about it and how random it is.
And the fact that they ruined my surprise birthday present. Did I mention that?

We can't possibly say whether you need a second present without knowing what the first one is!

@ atswimtwolengths, i agree -

tell us

It's a Pink Lining changing bag for the bump who is due to arrive in October. I didn't really feel I could justify buying it for myself when there are lots of cheaper versions around. It's a leather brown one. (If he got the right one, that is. I didn't even think about that possibility !)

I wonder whether the name Pink Lining sounded a bit suspect??!

then yup ask him for a second pressie that is just for you, jewellery or something to make up for it

"I wonder whether the name Pink Lining sounded a bit suspect"

Card not present transaction made as the first transaction between him and the company? Man buying handbag? Any number of reasons to trigger the matcher. Google for Naive Bayesian Classifier if your maths is feeling up to it.

Is it a joint account? If so, YABU. If not then they're in breach of data protection act.

Tokyo - he has bought me plenty of things before from shops which may seem to be unlikely purchases for a man, but it has never been picked up before. I imagine that they don't follow up every suspect transaction, but it's still weird that it's never happened before.

What I meant by "suspect" was the name Pink Lining
Once I wrote it down I then realised that it sounds a bit dodge!

You may be right, but I guess we'll never know. Unless I ask them what triggered it ... tempting.

"Unless I ask them what triggered it ... tempting."

They may not know. Naive Bayesian Classifiers are weird things. Because they combine many factors, a small nudge to each may tip the combined result over the edge. You see the same thing with spam suppression (the Junk Mail feature in things like Outlook): they work very well, but cannot provide any justification for a mis-classification.

I checked out Naive Bayesian Classifier and it was a bit mind bending, even though I like to think I am not too bad at maths.

Thanks Tokyo. You learn something new every day!

BTW, I have told husband what happened and he had apparently dutifully bought some other things anyway, so that is fine by me. Shallow person that I am. Easily pleased.