Gulp, just had a call from Barclaycard ( never had a call from them before ) about my empeg transaction. Initial panic was followed by realisation that I already had empeg :-) However interesting that they were checking goods had been delivered. I obviously responded that I was *very* happy with service from empeg. Wonder if it was a genuine spot check ?


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Rod, UK Mk2 Red S/No.341

Yeah, sometimes if there's unusual activity on a credit card, the company will call and make sure that your card hadn't been stolen or something. It's nice of them.

Just don't ever give out personal data (such as your address or any identification numbers) on an unsolicited call, just in case it's not really the card company.

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Tony Fabris

Hehe, I went to Japan about 2 years ago, and after a couple withdraws they called my house. My dad said they were just checking because when the Olympics were held there alot of cards got stolen. Of course, I suppose they could have checked back a couple years and seen that there weren't any transactions made then, but I don't mind. It's nice of them to do that anyway.

DiGNAN
13653

Agree was nice of them to check, but my spending pattern was not that difference this month to previous months.

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Rod, UK Mk2 Red S/No.341

I can go you one better...

Few months ago I flew from Alaska to New York to pick up a car I had purchased (on ebay, can you believe it?) and my credit card company tracked me down in Oregon (visiting relatives) to tell me my card had been compromised. (They were right -- some criminal genius hacked into the email of a firm I had done business with, got my card info, then proceded to use it to make long distance phone calls that could easily be tracked back to him. He was already in jail when my card company got hold of me). So we had to cancel the card. No problem -- I had my emergency reserve backup card to get me back to Alaska.

Three quarters of the way through Canada, that card stopped working -- seems that since the card hadn't been used in two years, and all of a sudden there's activity in two states and two provinces over a three day period, they figured it must have been stolen. So I had to pay cash for my gas for the last 600 miles of the trip.

I guess you had to be there...

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I can go you one better...

When I was living in London, a few years ago, one friday afternoon I got a phone call from the bank asking if I or my wife, were shopping in the Hammersmith area with the renewed bank card they had just sent. We weren't and had never ever visited that particular area.

It turned out the bank's systems monitor all card transactions and filter out exceptional ones, that get investigated. Very impressive they found out about the abuse immediately when the card started to be used (Friday afternoon/two-ish). They blocked the card immediately and none of the transactions ever showed up on our statements . Very frightening to know that they hold a profile on you that's so accurate.

This was with NatWest, believe it or not.

Exactly the opposite happened with AMEX. Suddenly they started billing for air tickets, cash advances and hotel expenses for pretty expensive trips between London and Moscow. It turned out their travel dept had credit card numbers mixed up. Funny enough, AMEX-cards were unable to stop AMEX-travel doing this. In the end I just gave up the card. They kept sending reminders and ultimately started legal proceedings. Their law firm stopped this once they had a real look at the file. AMEX themselves were utterly hopeless -- they not even apologied .

This proves that abusing card info doesn't require a criminal genius to hack into an e-mail system. Disclosing card information to a --presumably reputable -- travel agency can be just as dangerous . . . .

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6