#cnpfraud — Public Fediverse posts

Credit-card fraud may be less frequent; it definitely seems easier to deal with

Checking your e-mail in the middle of a baseball game is a selfish and crass thing to do. But it paid off–in a selfish and crass way–Sunday afternoon when I glanced at my device between innings and saw a new message from Chase Fraud Alert with the subject line “Action Needed: Please confirm this transaction.”

That e-mail reported an “online, mail or phone” charge of $326.91 on my business card from “RAZ*CL EDUCATE LIMITED.” My first thought was “who?” My second: Wow, it’s been a while since somebody’s tried to commit fraud with one of my credit cards.

After some quick searching confirmed that I’d had no prior interaction with this firm (apparently an Indian knowledge-services company), I tapped the “No, something’s wrong” button in the e-mail to swat aside the charge. Then I returned my attention to the game, an enjoyable 7-1 rout of the Cincinnati Reds.

About an hour later, my phone buzzed with another notification: Google Wallet had my replacement Chase card ready for tap-to-pay purchases.

The last time I had to deal with this nonsense happened long enough ago that I had to search my e-mail for evidence–which instead reminded me of how often Citi’s fraud-detection systems have nagged me with false-positive alerts. The last for-real incident may have been in 2018.

Back then, getting a fraud notification and having to cut up the compromised card felt like an annual ritual. The financial-services industry deserves a golf clap for the progress it seems to have made since then.

My replacement physical card arrived in the mail Friday, as predicted by Chase’s app on my phone.

That app, however, also showed that I still had a charge from this miscreant enterprise, so I had to call Chase to get that fixed.

After some automated gatekeeping–I was amused to hear the interactive voice-response system ask me to “enter the last three digits printed on the signature panel on the back of your card” when this card, like many, has no signature panel–a rep fielded my call and then handed me off to the bank’s fraud-response department.

After some additional verification–the last four digits of my Social Security number, as if that hasn’t been data-breached around the Earth, plus my mother’s maiden name and a one-time code texted to me–the second rep told me they’d seen “multiple transactions for this from the same company” but had somehow missed this one. She said they’d wipe that out.

If that happens–and if, better yet, this problem can refrain from recurring until 2034–that would be great.