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@boosnark wrote:I get a fraud alert every now and then and the worst offender is American Express. Good thing you can confirm a charge attempt online, though, without having to call in.
What's funny is when I travel, AMEX tells me they don't need to be notified, and at least for me my card has never been declined (minus the special ed gas station cashier that repeatedly tried to run my Amex as debit and tell me that "you clearly don't have the money for that [$2.00 coffee/donut]"). My CU in stark contrast blocks things when I visit my mother in Novi, less than an hour away, but I've flown to Ft. Lauderdale for a weekend, and Amex went through without a FA. So maybe YMMV? Citi is also pretty good to me in terms of approving charges without forewarning of travel plans.
As long as I stay within the US and Canada, Chase and AmEx have never dinged me with a fraud alert when traveling. I've never called to let them know we'll be traveling as it's pretty much every month or two, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, and sometimes for months - it's just part of my normal pattern as far as they are concerned. I'd be on the phone with them waaay too often if I were to try and contact them every time. And sometimes, like when we went decided to hop into Canada on a trip to Montana, I had no cell service for most of the week prior, so letting them know we were going wasn't really an option. I love going dark-side-of-the-moon for weeks on end - ah, camping and national park hotels.
When I went to new york, i had discover card declined due to fraud protection EVERYDAY. I had to call them afterward, and even when I told them "I" am in new york, card would still get declined.
@Anonymous wrote:When I went to new york, i had discover card declined due to fraud protection EVERYDAY. I had to call them afterward, and even when I told them "I" am in new york, card would still get declined.
Hmm...you may have just given me a solid reason to avoid Discover as my go-to card, if that's how they are about charges while traveling! Yikes!
Discover and Chase ding a friend of mine with fraud alerts practically every time he does mail order... to the same store he frequently places orders at .. Hes a photographer...Youd think they would learn his spending patterns...
_j
So annoying when that happens. My local credit union requires written notice several days prior to traveling if I am going out of the country. It's a royal PITA because they don't have 24/7 customer service and don't like to communicate electronically (Hello, 1984 called and wants its fax back!). Now I have a different and more travel friendly credit union that doesn't make you run the gauntlet.
I've never actually had fraudulent charges pop up while traveling far and wide. A few months after I came back form South Asia one of the big banks called me to see where I was, told them it's 7am and I am at home in bed. It was the fraud department and apparently the card had been cloned and someone was on a jewelry shopping spree in Chennai, India....somewhere I had never been.