BofA Weirdness-Fraud Alert

[OptimasPrime]

Just wanted to share the following.

Yesterday I got a phone call and email from bofa about suspicous activity on my account, stating that they placing a hold on my account until I verified some recent purchases.

I knew that there was no fraudulent activity since I check my balances daily, sometimes twice. Funny thing is -including pending charges, the balance is only about $35.

I recently pc'ed over from a non rewards card, so in BofA's defense my spending habits have changed a bit (I've been using it for misc. non-bonus spending), but still $35 dollars seems inconsequential enough that it shouldn't trigger a hold. Also, one would think that bofa would anticipate that my spending on the card would increase, since the point of a rewards card is to push through spending to accrue points.

Long story short I called the number they emailed me and cleared everything up, so no real problem just a minor irritation. Personally, I think its good practice that BofA is at least paying attention/looking for fraud, just wish they would have been more objective in my particular case. Also noticed they softed me on TU the same day, but util is about 2% with no recent accounts, so I highly doubt any sort of aa.

So,my question would be- has anyone else had experience with BofA getting a bit overzealous with their fraud monitoring, or is this more of an isolated incident.

[creditnocash]

it has happened to me with my debit card (dont have any credit products with them) 

i live on the border of mass/ct. 

i drove over the line and withdrew well tried to 1000 out of the atm. i was denied. 

then tried again for 450 and gave it to me. 

then the same thing my account was put on fraud alert. 

i just called in verified my recent use and they took the hold off. 

its nice and an inconvenience all at the same time. 

[OptimasPrime]

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@creditnocash wrote:

it has happened to me with my debit card (dont have any credit products with them) 

i live on the border of mass/ct. 

i drove over the line and withdrew well tried to 1000 out of the atm. i was denied. 

then tried again for 450 and gave it to me. 

then the same thing my account was put on fraud alert. 

i just called in verified my recent use and they took the hold off. 

its nice and an inconvenience all at the same time. 

---

Interesting. I live in MA (on the MA/RI border) but commute to RI pretty regularly for grad classes. Maybe buying lunch a couple of times in RI had something to do with it?

[jsickz32]

they did the same thing when i used my BofA amex at the strip club. they called me next morning to ask if those charges were correct and thats it. they also SP TU. they also sent me a new card for my bofa plat plus cuz  the last place i had used my card at (western union online) got hacked and they did it just in case my card number was stolen from wester union system. awesome!

[creditnocash]

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@OptimasPrime wrote:

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@creditnocash wrote:

it has happened to me with my debit card (dont have any credit products with them) 

i live on the border of mass/ct. 

i drove over the line and withdrew well tried to 1000 out of the atm. i was denied. 

then tried again for 450 and gave it to me. 

then the same thing my account was put on fraud alert. 

i just called in verified my recent use and they took the hold off. 

its nice and an inconvenience all at the same time. 

---

Interesting. I live in MA (on the MA/RI border) but commute to RI pretty regularly for grad classes. Maybe buying lunch a couple of times in RI had something to do with it?

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its possible. i was just in smithfield all week for work. and used only my amex. but since its a newer card. not sure. have not had any problems. 

but in my case i think its the fact it was for 1k. 

the purchases this week in total were less then 250

[OptimasPrime]

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@creditnocash wrote:

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@OptimasPrime wrote:

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@creditnocash wrote:

it has happened to me with my debit card (dont have any credit products with them) 

i live on the border of mass/ct. 

i drove over the line and withdrew well tried to 1000 out of the atm. i was denied. 

then tried again for 450 and gave it to me. 

then the same thing my account was put on fraud alert. 

i just called in verified my recent use and they took the hold off. 

its nice and an inconvenience all at the same time. 

---

Interesting. I live in MA (on the MA/RI border) but commute to RI pretty regularly for grad classes. Maybe buying lunch a couple of times in RI had something to do with it?

---

its possible. i was just in smithfield all week for work. and used only my amex. but since its a newer card. not sure. have not had any problems. 

but in my case i think its the fact it was for 1k. 

the purchases this week in total were less then 250

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Hmm....Small world. 

Its pretty unlikely that amex would put a fraud alert on an account.  I have traveled domestically without notifying them and still been able to spend without issue

[creditnocash]

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@OptimasPrime wrote:

Hmm....Small world. 

Its pretty unlikely that amex would put a fraud alert on an account.  I have traveled domestically without notifying them and still been able to spend without issue

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guessing you go to bryant? lol

and i think it all depends on company policies. 

ive been to the west coast and never got declined myself but ive heard stories about people going to fl for a couple weeks and their account put on hold because of out of state activity. 

[bobebob]

The amounts of the charges aren't what concerns the CCC's about fraud, at least right away.

Once a card is skimmed, the clone cards that are made are usually tested out for very small purchases a customer is unlikely to notice to make sure they work before they are sold.

What flags the purchases first is the distance from your home the purchases occur.

[Revelate]

The fraud detection is all automated. It's happened a few times with my card but I don't care in the slightest: they caught it the one time my CC number was hacked out of an online retailer's database.

Far as I am concerned the aggravation and annoyance of having a legit charge trigger a fraud alert is completely obviated by the fact their system does work.

Also my baby Zync has already triggered a fraud alert too, so it's not just BOFA anyway.

[creditnocash]

hmm just put a 600 dollar restaurant bill on my cc. in ct (literally 3 minutes over the border) 

ill let you know how this plays out.