So I bought a clothesline last week on my visa card, the sale went through fine.
Today I had a call to confirm that I was the cardholder and that I was legit?
I have never had a follow up from an online transaction before. Is this a thing now?
Who called you, the seller? Or your bank or whoever issued the credit card?
I’ve had this happen once myself. About four years ago, I purchased a laptop from an online vendor on my credit card. I had a call from my bank (the issuer of my credit card) to confirm I’d made that purchase.
So I guess with two anecdotes, maybe it’s a thing now.
My guess is, there were several fraudulent purchases at the same store the same day. A clothes line is below the threshold for requiring a signature.
I’ve had it happen a few times. In my case, in a few cases it was a purchase from a foreign company, and in a couple of cases it was a purchase that my bank’s algorithms flagged as unusual activity for me.
It’s a bit of an irritating hassle, but my bank did pro-actively catch legitimately fraudulent activity on my debit card once, so I don’t complain, even when they’ve blocked my card on a couple of other occasions due to transactions that were legit but that they flagged as potentially fraudulent.
Yeah, if it’s the card issuer calling you, that’s normal. If it’s the vendor calling you, that would strike me as odd, to say the least.
I had my card locked when I used it a couple of times in Vegas. Turns out that’s a high fraud area, and it’s on the far side of the country from where I live, so they blocked it until I called them. Now i know to call them before I travel to unusual places.
The Druidess had her card number stolen somehow. She got a call from the bank asking if she was buying hardware in Miami, which she wasn’t. They closed that card permanently and sent her a replacement. My card for that same account was also replaced.
I don’t call them because it seems unnecessary (and I read something somewhere that backs this up*****).
Still, a few years ago I flew to St Martin. My credit card people knew I’d purchased my plane tickets using a cc. I was there for two weeks, using my card a few times every day in bars and restaurants. It was a wonderful two weeks, but I eventually had to fly home.
Checking in at the airport, I had to pay for our luggage. Fifty or sixty bucks, and my card was declined! My phone chimed and it was a text from my credit card people asking if I had just used my card. I checked “yes” and they told me to go ahead and rerun the card.
So, after using my card in the Caribbean for two weeks, a small charge at the airport made them suspicious?
*****From here.:
I get text messages from my CC companies to validate irregular charges. Sign up for texts.
My wife got a call from the cc company and it was a fraudulent charge, so they advised cancelling the card and having new one issued. Interestingly, they specifically advised AGAINST giving any identification information to the person who called and told my wife to call the number on the card.
The call was not from my bank or from my cc, it was from the vendor itself.
And yeah, I always notify my bank when traveling overseas ‘just in case’, but in this situation the vendor is right here in Aus.
Tres weird.
Clotheslines can be used for manufacturing meth. Expect a visit from the local narco unit.
Seriously? How?
I run an online shop so can give some insight into how this can happen.
The platform I use (Shopify) has some built-in fraud prevention analysis and it flags orders that might be an issue. It will tell me if the order is low risk (most of them), moderate risk, or high risk for being fraudulent. When it flags the moderate or high risk orders, it’s up to me as to what to do about it. General best practice is to call or email the customer to try to figure out if it’s legit. This is obviously a delicate thing - you don’t want to sound like you’re accusing a non-fraudulent customer of being a fraud.
What I usually do is email the customer and use either a pretense of needing to verify the order (and if he replies back with anything I consider it good) or tell him that the bank requires that I verify the card he used.
I have also used Google and Facebook to verify a few orders. A very interesting case was resolved due to my close ties to the greyhound adoption network. I got an order from Taiwan that was flagged by the system as high risk. Nothing about the order was unusual except that Taiwan is a geographical area known for scammers. I googled the customer’s name and found an article about someone with that name who adopted one of the Irish greyhounds that was shipped to the Macau racetrack (which was a shitstorm in social media because they’re known for running dogs to death there). I checked also on Facebook and was able to verify that she did in fact adopt one of the dogs rescued from there. So I happily processed her order.
How do you know? Was it because of the CID? Or did the number match the name in your cellphone’s internal directory?
In either case, it is unwise to discuss ANYTHING with someone who calls you. Instead, hang up and call back using the number on your card or statement.
They can also be used to dry clothes. Expect a visit from your local coin laundry.
kambuckta, here’s why you should be suspicious of anyone who calls claiming to be your CC company, bank, or vendor. It looks like some financial institutions are pretty liberal about giving out some vital information. With this minimal info and possibly matching it with public info online, the crooks can call other financial services or even the same bank, pretend to be you, and get complete access to your bank accounts.
This is why you should never talk to anyone who calls you. Hang up and call back using the number on your CC or statement. Even if the number shown on your phone matches, you have no way of knowing if that is true or not. Your entire bank balance hinges on that knowledge.
While that’s true for when someone calls claiming to be from your bank or credit card company, if they say they’re from a shop you made a purchase at (like within the lst 24 hours), you might want to talk to them or you’ll find your order will be cancelled. See my post above.
Now I’m as security-conscious as you, so I will say that the vendor should NEVER ask for anything more than the last 4 digits of your card if they need to verify the card. If they do ask for details that are none of their business then, yeah… hang up and cancel your order and never shop with them again!
TD bank visa also did away with “travel notification” some years back and then CIBC visa did so a little later. There used to be a requirement when travelling outside Canada that you notify the bank the CC is through of the dates you’re gone.
then, on a trip to Vegas recently, my wife’s CIBC Visa CC is declined in the outlet mall and she had to call CIBC visa and sure enough, it was because there was “usage” of her card outside Canada. She got a profuse apology and her card unblocked quite quickly.
The problem here is you don’t know if they really are from the vendor. My advice is to be as sure as you can, and don’t just take someone’s word for it, or think that a CID is validation; it isn’t.
If you read the link I posted, you will see how giving an unknown party the last 4 digits of your card can be used to your disadvantage. Don’t do it if you can’t verify the caller.
Why would a vendor ask for the last four digits of your card? Don’t they already have it from the transaction? If they ask, that is a red flag that something ain’t right.
My wife got our card temporarily locked when she was at a convention in Vegas, leaving me at home. I’m guessing the algorithm saw me charging at home and someone making a purchase in Vegas and tripped an alert.
By the time I OKed it via text to turn the card back on, she had decided she didn’t need whatever it was she was going to buy.