Someone had a nice little day out.

914Driver wrote: Got a call last night that there were suspicious charges on my credit card so they put a block on it. Someone in Jamaica, NY bought a Coca Cola, $30 of gas at a Gulf station, got their nails done at a Vietnamese nail salon and bought a sandwich at an Italian deli. No idea how my information got out there, but a new card is in the mail, I don't have to pay these charges. Thoughts, suggestions? Dan

Truthfully, I don't worry about it. I've had my card heisted once, during the great psn debacle of a few years back. They bought farm ville credits. I caught it. I don't rely on anyone to check my stuff but me, and I refuse to be scared off by the threat of my card being stolen. I guess its probably a dumb attitude, but I'm not living in the shadow of some shiny happy person trying to get one on me.

Keith Tanner wrote: It's a stark contrast with things like SSN security and debit cards, where the only person to feel the pain is the customer.

Truth, my SS# was stolen 2 years ago and it's still a PIA now, I have a special code I have to add to my tax returns nos so they know it's me.

On the Debit card thing, this is one of the reason I don't like a lot of what Dave Ramsey has to say, he keeps touting that Debit cards are better than credit cards while forgetting to mention this major detail. I use my credit card for absolutely everything and pay it off every month.

Hal wrote: I have a card that I have had since 1977. When I first got it occasionally I would get a call asking if I had used it for a certain purchase, which I always had. A month ago I got a call that there had been a charge and they blocked it and were sending me a new card. The charge was for $0.79!

One of the times it happened to me I asked the CC company why the hell someone would charge something for less than a $. I was told they tend to try a few small transactions to see if the card is good then if it works go for the big ones fast before it gets blocked.

DeadSkunk wrote: My bank refuses my card anywhere out of state it seems. I have to call ahead before a trip to tell them to allow purchases. It's a PITA when you go from Michigan to the Challenge, but it seems to work so far.

Teachers Credit Union????

The friends I went with to the Detroit autoshow couldn't use their TCU cards in MI, OH, or IL without notifying them in writing exactly where they would be going through. I have never heard of something so fly by night as that, my FCU(perhaps that is the difference here) will shut it down over bizzare purchases, but will always reimburse no matter what. I've only had it happen one time, and that was after a trip to Ohio. berkeleying buckeyes are a bunch of thieves.....

Most of the orders that I process are done with credit cards from Caribbean banks. I have not had a bad one yet in a year. On the other hand, other sales guys here have had them, some quite egregious. One was for over 40K. Refused it, no loss. As Keith mentioned, the customer does not suffer, but the supplier gets hosed. Company policy here is to immediately delete all CC info as soon as the order is processed.

aircooled wrote: Use it at a restaurant? You know how they walk away with your card? Very easy to do then. Don't worry, soon (is it this year?) you will be required to enter a PIN to use a CC. More PW's to remember.. argh.

In Canada we were pleasantly surprised to see that the restaurants bring the CC machine to your table for you to run yourself. You can enter the tip percentage/amount and run that as well at the same time. Simple and clean.

Why. Why don't restaurants in the US/ROW do this?

BTW, the Credit Card companies are lobbying the governments to turn the responsibility of fraudulent charges over to the card owners as it costs them an arm and a leg to manage that.

So those of you relying on the banks and CCC's to take care of you, should probably change your process lest you get reamed someday when the rules are changed (they have the money and they make the rules, sorry folks.)

turboswede wrote:

aircooled wrote: Use it at a restaurant? You know how they walk away with your card? Very easy to do then. Don't worry, soon (is it this year?) you will be required to enter a PIN to use a CC. More PW's to remember.. argh.

In Canada we were pleasantly surprised to see that the restaurants bring the CC machine to your table for you to run yourself. You can enter the tip percentage/amount and run that as well at the same time. Simple and clean. Why. Why don't restaurants in the US/ROW do this?

I've seen it in the UK and the US, but not widespread. It still wouldn't stop the machine they bring recording your card info if someone at the establishment was shaddy. Still, while not perfect I can't wait for pin and chip to become universal over here.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: It's a stark contrast with things like SSN security and debit cards, where the only person to feel the pain is the customer.

Truth, my SS# was stolen 2 years ago and it's still a PIA now, I have a special code I have to add to my tax returns nos so they know it's me. On the Debit card thing, this is one of the reason I don't like a lot of what Dave Ramsey has to say, he keeps touting that Debit cards are better than credit cards while forgetting to mention this major detail. I use my credit card for absolutely everything and pay it off every month.

You're not the person Ramsey is trying to talk to. You don’t need him, you already get it. Similar to his paying off the lowest balance loan first rather than the highest interest loan—that isn’t good math, but as he said, if you were good at math you wouldn’t need him.

But yeah, I agree with you. Debit cards are safer than cash; credit cards safer than debit.

Everytime we go do a chump race I get my card declined.

Apparently getting a hotel and hundreds of gallons of gas hundreds of miles from home and paying for multiple expensive meals triggers some sort of alarm. Oh and lots of alcohol.

Weird.

I've only had my bank shut off a card once.

And it was after I withdrew $600 from a private atm in a liquor store across the country, in 2 separate transactions. They let me take the cash though.

I was just trying to get cash to get a tattoo

getting cash in a liquor store far from home to get a tattoo. Seems legit.

Sounds like a good story, actually.

I have a tendency to occasionally behave like a truck driver, heading cross-country and buying a bunch of fuel. The first time I did that with one of my cards, I came home to a letter in the mailbox saying "say, was this you buying 20 gallons of gas in Green River, UT?" Never turned down a charge and they apparently learned pretty darn quickly that this was SOP for me. I always found the letter amusing, it wasn't exactly instant turnaround.