Last night my husband and I were enjoying a wonderful dinner out celebrating our anniversary when I got a call from Chase Bank. It was an automated message from the Fraud Department stating they suspected fraudulent activity on my credit card and to return their call as soon as possible.
My husband wanted me to call them back right away, but I wanted to wait until we were home where I could put my full attention on the matter. An hour wasn’t going to make a big difference if they’d already detected suspicious activity. We had already planned on using another card to pay the bill.
Fraud Department Call
When I called the Fraud Department, an automated process identified me by last four of my card number and social security number. It detailed two declined charges and said to press 1 for valid transactions, 2 for customer service and 3 for fraudulent charges.
No, I was not attempting to transfer over $1,000 via Western Union and didn’t want to buy gas in Illinois!
I was then transferred to a live representative who then went over all the activity on the card that day. Yes, I did make charges to Amazon and RoadRunner Sports but no to the other three transactions. One had gone through, but they removed that charge.
Resolution/Next Steps
My card was immediately cancelled. I was given a choice of rush or standard delivery for the new card. There was no need to rush a card as we will just use our American Express is needed before the new one arrives in 4-5 days.
I was also told my account wouldn’t be accessible online for 3-4 business days during the card number transition. I was asked to carefully check my statement when available for any additional fraudulent charges.
Having your personal financial information stolen is never fun and I have no idea how it happened. I’m thrilled Chase Bank noticed the suspicious activity and took action. They turned a potentially horrible experience into a positive customer service interaction.
Have you ever experienced fraudulent use of your credit card or other financial accounts? How was it resolved?
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I’ve had the fraud department call me before but it was just me using my card online.
This is one reason to like credit cards. Their fraud departments are great (until you’re in Europe and you bought a plane ticket with a different credit card and all of a sudden you have no credit!)
This has happened to me a couple of times. Restaurant skimmers most of the time. It stinks! But I haven’t lost money yet.
My wife’s debit card was once used to withdraw a few thousand dollars in the Phillipines. I was surprised at how long it took to get it resolved, even after they ruled that we were responsible. My wife didn’t even have a passport at the time. Sounds like your experience will be easier than mine.
Actually the fraud department called me 2 times and saved me from someone who had gotten my id. It’s not fun to hear them call but it’s like a smoke alarm. It wakes you up.
Interesting. I got the same call from Chase a couple of days ago. I couldn’t answer the call- so they sent me a letter that arrived the next day.
Thankfully, the charges they questioned were all mine.
It may be a bit inconvenient- but I’ll take a little inconvenience for great protection!
That has happened to me a number of times. It is inconvenient, but I am glad they are on top of it. I try to use one card most of the time so I can accumulate frequent flier miles.
I had an issue with someone trying to use my card to buy a plane ticket to somewhere in South America. My husband spotted it and contacted me at work. When I called the bank, they said I’d have to submit a fraudulent charge claim after it posted, but they declined it and I saw a credit for a few days, then both entries disappeared. resolution was easier than I’d thought.
We received a call from our credit card company once but it was due to a purchase that we made. Glad Chase handled it quickly for you Kay!
Just got hit today with a fraudulent charge, and Chase caught it immediately. It was from some fake company named Mallard IX LLC that was listed as an airline/travel company, and the charge was only for a few bucks and change. Looks like they were either testing the waters before laying a big charge on, or just applying small charges to lots of credit cards to see if they could stay under the radar. Didn’t work, it was caught right away by Chase. Huge pain, because now I have to get a new card number and update all of the companies that I have automated billing set up for.
Unfortunately it seems to be more common than we’d like to think. My wife had two instances where her Citi Dividend card went through this. Last year my debit card with Fifth Third went through the same thing as well. It didn’t impact us very much and was more of a nusiance than anything, but it does make you wonder how secure we really are.
I’ve never had my credit card compromised – but my credit card company has frozen my account twice.
One time, I was buying liquor for our wedding. I spent $800 at the liquor store, and then tried to spend $500 at the beer store, but it was declined. Another time we were on a road trip and after filling up with gas in 2 different cities… when I tried to fill up in a 3rd city, my card was declined. Each time all I had to do was phone my credit card company to verify the info, and they reactivated the card.
I think it’s fantastic that they were on the ball with things! In my experience they were legit charges, but could have very easily been fraudulent charges.
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