Thursday, March 23, 2006
Visa Fraud Squad...
I recently pre-purchased 20 tickets to a large summertime music festival in Washington state. The total price of the purchase was $2400, and I used my Visa card. At first I tried online, and after filling in many pages of important information, I clicked "purchase" and waited for the next screen. It said "card declined."
I tried it again (filling in all the info a second time). Same result. "Argh, that means I have to actually call someone and talk to them about registering." Oh well, it's worth all the hassle to register 20 people who will camp together and listen to cool concerts over 4 days in July. I called the 800 number and spoke to Chad. After going through all the information needed to register our group (he was probably simply filling out the pages online like I had just attempted), he confirmed it all. Then he thoughtfully said into the phone, "hmmmm..." I acted like a psychic hotline expert and told him exactly what he was reading on the screen in front of him. "Card declined."
Okay, time to get to the bottom of this. I thanked Chad and called up Toni at Visa. I explained my problem and asked what was going on. She put me on hold and talked to someone in the office. Turns out, when I tried to make my purchase online, the Visa Fraud Supercomputer (I don't know if it's called that, but it's better than "Big Brother") flagged my account and froze my card. "You see," she explained, "the purchase looked larger than usual and suspicious, so we didn't allow it. Let me get an a-okay to release your card back to you, and give you permission to purchase your tickets." Why, thank you Toni. That would be nice.
On one hand, I'm glad that Visa has security measures in place that will "catch fraud" in the act. On the other hand, why is my credit limit over $10,000 if I can't even use it without prior consent? Maybe with Visa I can only make purchases that are priceless (and for everything else there's Mastercard)....
I tried it again (filling in all the info a second time). Same result. "Argh, that means I have to actually call someone and talk to them about registering." Oh well, it's worth all the hassle to register 20 people who will camp together and listen to cool concerts over 4 days in July. I called the 800 number and spoke to Chad. After going through all the information needed to register our group (he was probably simply filling out the pages online like I had just attempted), he confirmed it all. Then he thoughtfully said into the phone, "hmmmm..." I acted like a psychic hotline expert and told him exactly what he was reading on the screen in front of him. "Card declined."
Okay, time to get to the bottom of this. I thanked Chad and called up Toni at Visa. I explained my problem and asked what was going on. She put me on hold and talked to someone in the office. Turns out, when I tried to make my purchase online, the Visa Fraud Supercomputer (I don't know if it's called that, but it's better than "Big Brother") flagged my account and froze my card. "You see," she explained, "the purchase looked larger than usual and suspicious, so we didn't allow it. Let me get an a-okay to release your card back to you, and give you permission to purchase your tickets." Why, thank you Toni. That would be nice.
On one hand, I'm glad that Visa has security measures in place that will "catch fraud" in the act. On the other hand, why is my credit limit over $10,000 if I can't even use it without prior consent? Maybe with Visa I can only make purchases that are priceless (and for everything else there's Mastercard)....
# posted by Dairn @ 4:07 PM 
Comments:
<< Home
be sure to register all your leaders for the Youth Leaders tent -- sure the speakers and that are ok, but it will act as their source of refuge and free pop for the entire stay in George, Washington. :)
Also, bring hand sanitizer -- Honeybuckets have no sinks (despite popular belief)
Post a Comment
Also, bring hand sanitizer -- Honeybuckets have no sinks (despite popular belief)
<< Home
