Ridiculous Credit Card Verification

>> Sunday, November 16, 2008

Just now I did an online transaction, using my credit card. I put my billing address and CCV2 code and stuff. But I think I'm away from my billing state, they wanted to "call me" and verify some details to avoid fraudulent transactions.
I got a call after about 5mins and the only question they asked was my address. What?? I filled that on the online form, and is that the way to verify the identity? I know they can't do more than that, then why do they wanna have to verify by calling me. This is ridiculous, and anyone who stole a credit card and have the address can cheat them.

At the same time, couple of weeks ago, my bank contacted me to verify a transaction I did. The questions they asked were wonderful. They mentioned me an address in Alabama and asked me the duration I was living there. That was a wonderful question, coz I've never lived (or been) over there.

1 comments:

Andrew Nov 17, 2008 7:21:00 AM  

If you're not geolocating as part of your card not present acceptance process you are getting robbed blind (or will - it's just a matter of time.)

Merchants do phone verification that way because is cheap. Just making sure you've got the customer's phone number (and that it's not a prepaid cell which is what they were really checking for) is a significant percentage cut in fraud.

Your credit card company paid a couple of bucks to ask you those questions...

You're doing something which looks either out of character for you or makes you look like a fraudester. (Mostly likely like a family remember who's committing family fraud.)