Posted on 05/22/2011 1:41:16 PM PDT by pops88
I tried to make a couple online purchases today and had my credit card denied. Living in a dead zone, I had to drive down the road and sit in a hot car to call Chase Bank. I was asked if yesterday I made a payment to "Friends of Herman Cain." I said,"yes." Customer service told me that is what triggered the hold, but could give no explanation why. It just triggered a hold alert despite my numerous online purchases. I'm furious. I told her it smacked of dirty politics. All she could say was, "sorry." I think this needs to be an alert to others, and I'd like to know if anyone else has encountered this problem. I don't like to be a conspiracy theorist, but this is just a little ridiculous.
Sounds fishy to me too. You get a hold and last election ‘Bammy’ got millions donated from overseas credit cards without a hitch!
Ask for a supervisor. Get an explanation that you find credible.
A purchase verified by you does NOT generate a hold unless this is perhaps a prepaid card.
If the supervisor (get the name) deos not satisfy your request, escalate one more time.
If no good answer, call the Better Business Bureau and your Secretary of State’s office to place a “where do I complain” call.
If the charge to the CC was not a typical expense for you it gets kicked into hold.
That is not a bad thing. Honest.
I bet that during the 2008 election, there were people that would sit on a computer all day long making $25 donations to 0bama, one right after the other. So that’s probably why we are where we are.
Use PayPal the next time. Credit card companies can be weird without a political agenda. My younger boy would use one which I had given him and I would invariably get a call from the company checking on it even when he had used it on the South side which was just about the only place he used it. They never turned him down or froze it but the calls were annoying nonetheless.
Friends of Herman Cain would be suspicious to those unfamiliar with him which would be about 90% of the people.
I have had a card put on hold numerous times- especially for online purchases. The online vendors are in a number of states and it often triggers a hold because the purchases fit a profile that could be fraudulent charges.
The person on the phone doesn’t really know which combination of charges or use created the hold because the algorithms are secret. All the really know is the charges they are supposed to check.
I have found this to be a real pain but on one recent occasion they did catch fraudulent activity that I might have missed for weeks if not months.
I spend money online regularly. I live an hour from a Walmart, 30 minutes from a grocery store and drive a 24 year old car. (I may have to invite the UPS guy to Thanksgiving at this point.) There is a note on our account that my husband is a pilot and spends money all over the world. They already know we have very unusual activity. I’ll be following up on this, but I was just so furious at the time I wasn’t thinking straight, and I had to leave AIM chat with my husband who is in Turkey to drive down the street to call.
“Use PayPal the next time. “
Trying to update my PayPal account was what alerted me to the fact there might be a hold. I was trying to buy birthday presents for my daughter from overseas. With the first vendor, it kept sending me to PayPal despite choosing the credit card option. I had my husband make the purchase with his PayPal account. The second purchase sent me a “credit card denied” notice, so I went to PayPal where I realized it probably wasn’t a glitch.
What amazes me is that I make purchases over $100 online that don’t get flagged, but $10 to Cain does?
Hmmm, I suppose all it would take would be for someone to complain about the group to trigger such actions. While I don’t doubt the RATs would pull these kind of stunts at every opportunity I don’t think the credit card companies would do anything on their own.
You are now on the government watch list and a group of TSA overweight overtime workers will be coming to your house to fondle you and force you to be in a union.
Your credit card company will be sued by the NRLB for processing transactions for a candidate that threatens union power over elections.
Please write us from the forced labor camps in Detroit.
So long.
Dimon => 0bama.
The connection there could not be tighter.
I had the same thing happen when I made a contribution to Free Republic. I explained that it was a more valid payee than the DNC but got no response.
This is not dirty tricks. Credit card companies know that people use their credit cards in habitual ways.
They only flag unusual transactions, so if you use your credit card to buy groceries, gas, car payment, they will flag your flight to Las Vegas if you’ve never done that before.
Same with your Herman Cain contribution. If you haven’t done that before, it gets flagged. Once you confirm it, everything will be fine.
My credit card company once flagged my purchase of a bicycle for that reason.
I have fraud protection coverage on my Chase cards and it has saved my butt big time. I got a call one day asking if I made a certain purchase online and I told them no. They said the purchase didn’t fit my shopping profile so they called to verify. The amount of the purchase was huge but I didn’t pay a penny of it. They also immediately cancelled that CC number and transferred my account to another number. I also have alerts on my cards and if a purchase is made that is over $50 I am alerted by email and text message. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.
I have fraud protection coverage on my Chase cards and it has saved my butt big time. I got a call one day asking if I made a certain purchase online and I told them no. They said the purchase didn’t fit my shopping profile so they called to verify. The amount of the purchase was huge but I didn’t pay a penny of it. They also immediately cancelled that CC number and transferred my account to another number. I also have alerts on my cards and if a purchase is made that is over $50 I am alerted by email and text message. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.
A couple of years ago I got a new Discover Card in the mail. When I went to get rid of my old Discover Card, I noticed that the new one had the same number and expiration date (several years into the future) as the old. So I swiped them both in a magstripe reader I had lying around. The only difference was the new one had a number one higher in one of the miscellaneous fields.
The mailer contained a 5% cash-back promotion. So I called the 800 number to activate the new card and put it my wallet.
Shortly after, out shopping, I used the card to fill up with gas. When I got home, there was a message from Discover Card security on my answering machine. When I called, they said a fraud alert had been raised because I hadn't used the card in quite a while and asked if the gas purchase was legit. They said fraudsters often use stolen cards to buy gas first so that they can quickly find out if the cards they stole are good. If so, they progress to bolder transactions.
So there you have it: Discover Card marketing (sending out a new card early to stimulate usage) making work for Discover Card security. LOL!
I don't know about the Cain part, but the pattern you describe sounds like what I have been told about the use of stolen CC numbers. When the fraudulent card number is first used a couple of minor charges are tried; if they go through then the card is used for more major purchases.
bump
It better not happen this time.
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