Erieversible

A call from the bank today, asking me to verify transactions made yesterday on my credit card.  In Spain.  Of course, it wasn’t me.  It wasn’t even my credit card, which was sitting snug in my wallet all day yesterday.  Some naughty little imp has been spending as much as they can on the card, including a plane ticket and some information services.  

Occasionally (twice, I think) I have been embarrassed by legitimate transactions on my cards being blocked as being suspicious.  In each case the embarrassment has been caused by having the transaction rejected and having to explain to the seller that I really do have the funds.  Honest.  Really.  

Today the bank’s fraud detection software was right.  That’s 1 out of 3 correct.  Is that a good ratio?  I think so.  By erring on the side of caution this latest, real fraud was spotted very quickly and although it took a trip to the bank this afternoon to complete all the paperwork it should now all be dealt with.  Minimal inconvenience to me.  I’d rather have the odd false alarm than not have fraud spotted quickly.

So, all I have to do now is remember all the online merchants that have that particular card held in their databases so I can place orders with ease (!) and go round them all changing the details.  What a fun time!