lol Capital One Fraud Protection

[DarkScythe]

Hey there, everyone,

Thought I'd brighten everyone's evening with a humorous story this evening of Capital One's funny logic.

I have a Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards card (the one before the new green one.) $1500 CL, a year old, and despite what anyone says, I love this card because it fits my purchasing style. Will app for the green cash rewards towards the end of the year, give some time for my inqs and 2 new accounts to age.

Anyway!

I placed an order today from CDJapan.co.jp. They charge in Japanese Yen, which is the whole reason I love the CapOne - no foreign transaction fees!

Not a big deal, because I've purchased from them before - in fact, December was a huge order for a whopping 19,623 JPY ($252.29 USD.)

However, this time I included a pre-order for a few items that haven't been released yet. I usually pay with PayPal, but PayPal charges your card immediately because that's how they operate. This means the order is immediately finalized, and I can't add items to the order in the coming weeks to combine for shipping.

SO, this time, I decided to pay straight with the credit card, as they will only place an authorization, and then wait until all items are ready for shipment before charging.

I add the Capital One to my account and proceed to checkout.

Once the checkout process completes, I get a confirmation screen that says:
Status: Credit Card Authorization Approved

Excellent.

I then check my email as I've received an email confirmation of my order.

Order Confirmation #************** (This number is not important. )

Everything is normal, except almost immediately afterward, I get a new message popping up in my inbox:

Capital One Fraud Protection Alert

Umm, what?

It says it's detected suspicious activity, and needs me to call a number to verify the charges.

Keep in mind, 35 minutes earlier, I had placed an order at another shop that had already successfully charged the card 6,542 JPY, but through PayPal.

Okaayyy...

I call the number and reach Capital One's Fraud Protection department. Apparently, that first charge was completely fine, but it was the second CDJapan charge that tripped the system. Not too difficult, verify some info and if I recognized the merchant that made the charge, and they removed the block and let me on my way. However, something's bugging me..

The card has detected what it deemed to be suspicious activity. It was a fairly large charge in a foreign currency (14,543 JPY) so I completely understand a possible flag. However, I have purchased from this merchant before, and EVERY charge that has ever hit my Capital One card has been in JPY. The only thing that I changed was removing PayPal from the mix. But more importantly, if it deemed the charge suspicious, why did it approve the authorization and then decide to lock down the account? Why not block it from the very beginning and fail the authorization if it triggered a red flag?

I asked the representative this. And of course, she was unable to answer. In fact, her voice began sounding shaky as she was unable to figure out the logic, while she continued reading from her script about how the system decided these things. In the end, the only tidbit I got was perhaps there was a mismatch with the CVV2 code on the back of the card. This made sense, as for whatever reason, CDJapan did not ask for the code. But the main problem is if this is supposed to protect my card from unauthorized use, what good does it to do protect me after a charge has been approved? In either case, it was clear she had no idea, so I thanked her and went about my business.

3 minutes later, I receive a phone call on my home phone (I called via my cell.)

"Hello, this is Capital One's Fraud Protection department...."

... I'm pretty sure I just dealt with this. Cue all of the above happening again with a second representative. Except, at the very beginning I told her i literally just handled the issue with their department. She decides we have to do it again, anyway. Oh well.

Nothing overly bad, I guess. Just a humorous story.

Have a good evening, everyone. xD

[Anonymous]

I experienced the same thing with BofA - charge was approved only to be unapproved later that day. What's worse I didn't hear from them at all. Found out b/c the item was supposed to ship same day and it never did so I called BofA and they told me the charge was blocked for suspicious activity. They couldn't even reverse it for me. Talk about horrible customer service.

[aussiesareforever]

Pretty funny. I can always count on a Cap1 story to make my night.

I guess it is good to know that they are at least checking

[Anonymous]

LOL!

[LS2982]

Well at least they called....It's the thought that counts!!

[navigatethis12]

Fraud protection is indeed weird. A few weeks ago I made a charge of $5000 on my PNC card and it went through no problem. Fast forward a few days, I buy something for around thrity dollars and an hour later they ring me and say the charge seemed suspicious. Yet $5000 can go through with no problem at all. I may be because I don't use the card for small purcharses but still, it seems backwards to me.

[LS2982]

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@navigatethis12 wrote:

Fraud protection is indeed weird. A few weeks ago I made a charge of $5000 on my PNC card and it went through no problem. Fast forward a few days, I buy something for around thrity dollars and an hour later they ring me and say the charge seemed suspicious. Yet $5000 can go through with no problem at all. I may be because I don't use the card for small purcharses but still, it seems backwards to me.

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They look at your spending patterns and if you come off if it just a little they get spooked. I use my Barclays for high/low charges and haven't heard a peep.

[DarkScythe]

I'm glad everyone's getting a good kick out of this! xD

@dyv8914 - Wow that sucks! If it were me I would've gone ballistic on them, but partly because I hate waiting for shipping, haha. I guess it's a good thing I avoided BofA cards, though, judging by how many threads here are overwhelmingly negative about them. Thankfully for me, it was only an authorization, so even if it was revoked after it got approved, it didn't make a difference, as the actual charge will come in a few weeks.

Fraud protection can get wonky, but my main issue was why would this so-called protection kick in after the fact, and not before?

In my mind, it's like letting a suspicious person out the bank doors, and THEN locking down the entire bank. And in dyv8914's case, having a guard run after the guy and drag him back inside. Yes, that suspicious guy could've been a thief, or he could've been a legitimate customer who decided on some very bad fashion that day. But it makes the most sense to lock the place down and confirm BEFORE he leaves through the doors.

I guess the takeaway here really is that spending patterns are being heavily observed.

As far as I can remember, this may have been the one and only time I've ever NOT used PayPal when charging to these Japanese stores.

As well, at least for Capital One, make sure your shop asks for a CVV2 code, and that it matches, because the rep singled that one out as a definite flag raiser.

[navigatethis12]

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@LS2982 wrote:

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They look at your spending patterns and if you come off if it just a little they get spooked. I use my Barclays for high/low charges and haven't heard a peep.

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I figured that, but still, I would not be too concerned if someone fraudulently charged $30. It's money yes, but easily disputed.

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@DarkScythe wrote:

Fraud protection can get wonky, but my main issue was why would this so-called protection kick in after the fact, and not before?

In my mind, it's like letting a suspicious person out the bank doors, and THEN locking down the entire bank. And in dyv8914's case, having a guard run after the guy and drag him back inside. Yes, that suspicious guy could've been a thief, or he could've been a legitimate customer who decided on some very bad fashion that day. But it makes the most sense to lock the place down and confirm BEFORE he leaves through the doors.

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I thought the same thing. After the fact is a bit silly. The example you gave happened to me in highschool, except in a hospital. My telephone was turned off (as instructed to do) and we toured around the whole building. After we were back on the bus they wanted me to go back into the hospital and relinquish it because I could have killed someone by interferring with life support machinery.

From what I understand with the fraud department though, is that there is a list of accounts with charges that humans go through manually. So it isn't instant that it is declined because a human has to check it. If the system thinks it is really out of the ordinary it will automatically move it up the list though. That is what a friend told me anyway that works in a fraud department.

[Walt_K]

I don't find this that odd.  They have a history of you charging with PayPal.  They don't have a history of you buying things online from a Japanese website.  When you remove PayPal from the mix, it changes the transaction, and that's what I would think woudl trigger the alert.

As to shutting it down afterward, it's really more about protecting them.  You're protected from fraudulent activity.  They need to shut the card down to limit their losses.  So it's not that weird to shut it down afterward.  Otherwise, the person keeps on charging.  And I'm assuming they could process a chargeback or something since they acted fairly quickly (I don't know how CC processing works exactly).