Question
Has anyone else found FirstUSA/Chase/BankOne (who issues my Mileage Plus Visa and yours) overzealous and underproactive in its fraud prevention?
Witness the following message I sent to them on Thursday (and again earlier today, after 110+ of the promised 48 hours had passed):
Dear Sirs/Mesdames:
On Thursday, December 22, I attempted to charge a restaurant bill of $9.69 to my United Mileage Plus Gold Class Visa Card. This charge was declined. I instead paid cash and, while waiting for my order to be prepared, called Customer Service to determine the reason.
The automated system asked me for my card number, the first three letters of my mother's maiden name, and the last four digits of my Social Security Number. I was then presented a list of five 'suspicious' charges, and asked to confirm them. I then obviously understood that it was a temporary suspension for fraud protection. I am thankful for your efforts in preventing fraud, but they seem not to have been done in the way described on page 5 of the Owner's Manual I received with the card (here quoted):
"Your rewards and freedom come with peace of mind.
"24-hour protection from fraud.
"Our fraud early-warning service will help identify unauthorized activity on your card, 24 hours a day. You will then be contacted to confirm these charges."
As far as I can tell, I was not contacted by you. It would have been nice if fraud early-warning had been done as described above, so that first notification of your suspicions would come from you, rather than at the point-of-sale, in a public place.
As you can imagine, this was rather embarassing. In the absence of better information, the merchant was left to assume that I have not even $9.69. I require an apology. I will not object if, in the interest of goodwill, this apology is accompanied by extra United Mileage Plus miles.
In addition to the embarassment of the declined charge itself, because I instead paid cash I was also deprived of (and require):
10 United Mileage Plus miles from you for the charge itself;
30 American AAdvantage Miles (3 miles per dollar) from AAdvantage Dining by Rewards Network for dining at one of their participating restaurants (the merchant in question) and paying with a card (the card in question) registered with them. I imagine you may not be in a position to offer American AAdvantage Miles; I shall therefore be satisfied with the substitution of 30 additional United Mileage Plus miles (for a total of 40 United Mileage Plus miles).
Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Sincerely,
My Name
Has anyone else had such an issue?
In addition, was my 'nastygram' a little too nasty, brusque, indignant, or demanding?
Answer
IMHO, it's way too hasty, overzealous and way too demanding for something so miniscule. It's pretty much the standard of fraud protection for any card issuer, not just the issuers you had mentioned.
If anything, they are very proactive at looking out for their customers, which is why they stopped your purchase in the first place.
Had you called them right away, I am sure they would have processed your measly $9.69 restaurant charge.
Just imagine if those 5 charges were not your 5 charges, then you will be complaining how slow their system is, why so many fraudulent charges were posted to your account, and then you will be posting about how inept they are at preventing fraud.
Answer
by me, they once froze my card, (used it at gas pump twice in a row) and didn't call me. when i realized that it wasn't working later that day, I called them and got it working again
Answer
The fruad light goes off every time I go abroad, which has made things very difficult as calling the help line is not as easy out of country... I agree that it is a huge pain, but with so much much fruad going on right now, I am not sure what the CC companies can really do but make it hard on everyone...