Saturday, January 11, 2014

Fraud prevention is a pain

While I appreciate the efforts that banks take to combat credit card fraud, two different banks have now caused me inconvenience through poor handling of the issue:

Bank A: bounced a cheque because I did not pick up the phone when they called to query the payment as a suspected fraud. (I was on a plane at the time.)  What was not explained to me is why they thought it was a fraud in the first place? The cheque was payable to a reputable financial institution and to which I write several cheques of similar amounts each year so I do not understand why they would think it might be a fraud? At least they had the decency to reverse the dishonour fee.

Bank B: rejected a credit card payment. Sure the payment was to a new merchant and was for a meaningful amount. So I can understand the bank querying this one. BUT, if they can call me to tell me that they have stopped the payment why couldn't they have called me to query the payment before it was rejected (like Bank A does with cheques)? Bank B's approach of rejecting first and asking questions later is very unimpressive.

In both cases, I told the recipients that the bank thought payment to them was a fraud but I would rather they thought ill of the bank than questioned my financial standing.

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