Posts Tagged ‘credit card’

Chase MasterCard FAIL

It was just an average Sunday afternoon of errands with my wife: fish market, pet store, pharmacy, wine shop, and groceries. Everything was going along swimmingly until it came time to check out at the supermarket. I swiped my credit card to pay for our groceries…

…and my card was declined. I did an almost comical double-take, and swiped the card again. Declined again.

I sighed, used a different card to pay for my groceries, and went home to call Chase Card Services to ask what was going on. Giving them the benefit of the doubt (since I always pay on time, have never exceeded my limit, and pay off my balance each month), I was afraid that maybe they had detected someone trying to make fraudulent charges on my account, as happened last year.

I called the toll-free number and got an automated recording that told me, cryptically, that as a routine security procedure, Chase sometimes freezes activity on an account until its recent transactions can be verified. There was only transaction they wanted to know about: the one at my supermarket.

There was nothing unusual about this transaction, mind you. It’s in the same dollar range as nearly every other weekend trip I have made to this grocery store. My wife and I have been buying groceries there every week for nearly seven years. So why flag this transaction? I could understand if I was buying something unusual for me, such as a hot tub or a motorcycle, but this was my routine grocery run.

WTF, Chase Card Services?

Thank you, Chase Card Services.

I just got off the phone with Chase Card Services’ fraud-prevention group. They flagged someone trying to make purchases at a drugstore and a supermarket in Denver using a clone of my credit card.

Good catch by the credit-card company.  Two fraudulent attempts, and they caught both of them.

So now my credit card has been deactivated. They’re sending me a new card with a new number. I’ve made alternative arrangements to pay the balance from my old card, because I can’t send payments to the old account number now that it has been deactivated.

It’s inconvenient to lose this account number, since I have so many online accounts linked to it, but it beats getting ripped off.  Here’s hoping the scumbag in Denver who did this gets caught and convicted.

And that’s my excitement for the day.