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VISA's new fraud policy
Feb. 16th, 2009 07:21 pmapparently, VISA has recently introduced a new way to reduce fraud: preventative refusal. we ordered nearly $2,000 of computer parts from an online company with which we deal fairly often (a few times a year). VISA then called to inform us that the payment had been refused by VISA, because of possible fraud. they then wanted to refuse all transactions which came after said purchase, despite these being places like the Metro grocery store where we shop every week, and for a total of $30.
VISA's new policy is as follows: any purchase over $500 will be automatically refused unless you call VISA in advance and alert them to the fact that you will be making such a purchase. the only way to avoid this is to make such purchases regularly (i have yet to figure out how they define regularly: once a week? once a month? every 4.6 hours?) and therefore avoid being flagged.
no notice of this new policy has ever gone out to alert the customers. VISA maintains that it is within their rights to change their fraud policies in order to better protect the consumer. the closest i could find to a description of this policy is from the VISA website:
These neural networks have extremely powerful predictive capabilities designed to identify anomalies in spending behaviour that can help identify suspicious transactions as they enter the payment system at the authorization stage, allowing Visa to quickly alert card issuers of possible fraud.
Card Issuers then alert you, the cardholder, of suspicious spending patterns - often stopping thieves while fraud is taking place.
now, i don't know about you, but the idea that my credit card will be refused if i try to go out and actually (gods forbid) try to use my credit card to make a major purchase seems to defeat the idea of having a credit card in the first place. and let's not even talk about emergencies (which is one of the major reasons for having said card, for most people). the idea of having to call VISA every time, sitting on hold for several minutes, and then having to trust that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing...
there weren't enough things to worry about in my life, apparently; now i get to worry whether my card will be declined for absolutely no reason. charming.
VISA's new policy is as follows: any purchase over $500 will be automatically refused unless you call VISA in advance and alert them to the fact that you will be making such a purchase. the only way to avoid this is to make such purchases regularly (i have yet to figure out how they define regularly: once a week? once a month? every 4.6 hours?) and therefore avoid being flagged.
no notice of this new policy has ever gone out to alert the customers. VISA maintains that it is within their rights to change their fraud policies in order to better protect the consumer. the closest i could find to a description of this policy is from the VISA website:
These neural networks have extremely powerful predictive capabilities designed to identify anomalies in spending behaviour that can help identify suspicious transactions as they enter the payment system at the authorization stage, allowing Visa to quickly alert card issuers of possible fraud.
Card Issuers then alert you, the cardholder, of suspicious spending patterns - often stopping thieves while fraud is taking place.
now, i don't know about you, but the idea that my credit card will be refused if i try to go out and actually (gods forbid) try to use my credit card to make a major purchase seems to defeat the idea of having a credit card in the first place. and let's not even talk about emergencies (which is one of the major reasons for having said card, for most people). the idea of having to call VISA every time, sitting on hold for several minutes, and then having to trust that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing...
there weren't enough things to worry about in my life, apparently; now i get to worry whether my card will be declined for absolutely no reason. charming.
