Update: US Bank is the absolute worst IMO, New CL

[Wavester64]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi All,

I just opened a secured card with US Bank with a CL of $5,000. It's been by far the worst experience I've had with a bank and I bank with citi who will shut your card down at even the slightest indication there could be fraud.

I tried to make a couple online purchases after I opened the card from well known retailers and they were declined. Fine I'll call in to confirm it's me. In order to get the transactions approved I had to talk to a supervisor to get a temporary override even though I verified both my identity and the transactions with the first person. The transaction still was flagged and auto declined by their system. This was literally like Nike.com for $200. 

I understand any bank has to mitigate risk and get to know your spending but this already seemed weird. Then I went to the bike shop to purchase a bike on Saturday. Again declined. I had to call in to verify it was me I thought. Wrong. Verification of the purchase and identity was not enough. I had to speak to three layers of managers and verify every piece of information they could think of before they put through an override. Previous managers flat out said there was nothing they could do after removing the fraud block for me to access my CL. I had to keep pushing. It took an hour on the phone at the bike shop and a lot of standing my ground to just get this one purchase approved. 

Terrible experience considering I hadn't been informed that my credit line was not usable for larger purchases or in first few days etc. The card is also secured so I just was very upset with the situation. Like if the fraud block is removed you should certainly be able to access a credit line you've been approved for. Does anyone know more about this here?

thanks for your help and reading my rant

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I feel ya - I am not a fan of theirs either.

First I try for one of their CCs, denied.

Then I try to establish a relationship and sign up for ther lame savings account -- denied yet again.

That's it for me for US Bank.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Makes me wonder why they'd be so finicky with a secured card... they're guaranteed payment ...

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... unless the charges are fraudulent, in which case USB would eat the charges.  

New customer, spotty credit -- no offense intended, but I'd be leery too. 

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They have a duty to keep their own and customer funds safe from fraud. They can't just say, not worried about it,  it's not our money lol.

[Remedios]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Makes me wonder why they'd be so finicky with a secured card... they're guaranteed payment ...

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... unless the charges are fraudulent, in which case USB would eat the charges.  

New customer, spotty credit -- no offense intended, but I'd be leery too. 

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They have a duty to keep their own and customer funds safe from fraud. They can't just say, not worried about it,  it's not our money lol.

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Unlike say Amex, who let a charge for pizza in Tokyo go through, even though I've used the physical card in WA state 45 min earlier.

Both approaches have some validity. 

Amex predicates theirs on the old, glory days where you didnt want to inconvenience your big money spending customers. 

Others, like Chase, will take the bite our of your mouth till they figure out if it's really you chewing. 

I haven't had an issue with Citi since turning advanced location on. It's harsh on battery, but high on convenience. 

[Anonymous]

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@Remedios wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Makes me wonder why they'd be so finicky with a secured card... they're guaranteed payment ...

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... unless the charges are fraudulent, in which case USB would eat the charges.  

New customer, spotty credit -- no offense intended, but I'd be leery too. 

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They have a duty to keep their own and customer funds safe from fraud. They can't just say, not worried about it,  it's not our money lol.

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Unlike say Amex, who let a charge for pizza in Tokyo go through, even though I've used the physical card in WA state 45 min earlier.

Both approaches have some validity. 

Amex predicates theirs on the old, glory days where you didnt want to inconvenience your big money spending customers. 

Others, like Chase, will take the bite our of your mouth till they figure out if it's really you chewing. 

I haven't had an issue with Citi since turning advanced location on. It's harsh on battery, but high on convenience. 

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I hope they didn't let it through the cracks, or maybe they're ok eating the charge so to not inconvenience the cardholder, or their algorithm missed it.

You could get to Tokyo that quick with teleportation. 

BoA shut my account down after I got gas and then another gas purchase occured 20 min later 1100 miles away. They might have slow text alerts for charges, but fraud alerts happen immediately. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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BoA shut my account down after I got gas and then another gas purchase occured 20 min later 1100 miles away. They might have slow text alerts for charges, but fraud alerts happen immediately. 

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That's nice, unless it's the actual cardholder's transaction that gets denied. lol

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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BoA shut my account down after I got gas and then another gas purchase occured 20 min later 1100 miles away. They might have slow text alerts for charges, but fraud alerts happen immediately. 

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That's nice, unless it's the actual cardholder's transaction that gets denied. lol

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Well, it's a simple check. I can't be in two places at once with a "card present" transaction. 

I think BoA now uses smartphone location technology, which might help with some of the other false positives. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks all for the responses! I'm going to change the title to US Bank is the absolute worst in my experience. 

I'm fairly confident things will improve, but I'm still pretty surprised they approved the CL if they were going to make the customer experience so poor in the beginning.

Similar to what's posted above I had an Amex Gold for years and it never got declined. Different approaches. 

[Anonymous]

Or they could have denied the application outright if they felt too uncomfortable taking that risk... 

No one says a bank MUST offer applicants up to $5000 CL for a secured card. Banks decide and choose to accept iffy credit with a secure deposit because they want the funds and they want to make interest off of any card balance, too. If it didn't benefit them to have this product, they'd kill it. 

If fraud is indeed their primary concern, then I agree with you. US Bank would be better off giving a $300 unsecured than a higher CL regardless if secured. 

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My comments were because I am aghast at the difference in customer treatment among card issuers. I'm an AU on my wife's CSR. My pattern of spending on little, everyday items (most things well under $100) threw a flag when I tried to buy her a purse (thankfully online, I think I would have dropped dead if it happened in an LV store) however, her card, wirh next to NO spending history on anything of any sort, was LESS restrictive and allowed the transaction ($1500). 

The "was this you?" text and call came with quite a delay, well after we'd made the second attempt and successfully made the purchase. 

[Anonymous]

Us bank and including their elan card business has treated me well. Better than any other issuer if I had to choose one. 

They seem to be the most strict in some ways but once you get in their good graces it's generally smooth sailing after that. I'd give it some time to see how the relationship develops. I know each case is different and some customers get treated bad while others better. 

For reference, in my case chase and Citi canceled my accounts never late. The Citi was prob lack of use and chase may have been a new app for another card. While chase and Citi canceled me, us bank/elan has given me a new card, the cash+ with a 7k limit. I have their elan run bmw MasterCard with a 30k limit, and their fidelity card with a 60k limit. 

My combined limits with 3 us bank/elan cards currently sits at 97k. I've knocked the stuffing out of the bmw card lately and they haven't batted an eye. They can be very stingy and hard to deal with at first but once it matures they seem to treat customers very very well, at least that's been my case 

I remember I asked if they wanted financial documents since I was charging a lot for home repairs. They said no and said the payments I made each month basically told them I could afford what I was spending. I'm not rich by any means but us bank/elan has let me use my cards without worry of a decline. They even said I could charge over my limit on my bmw card when I inquired about it since it's a world MasterCard. And that's with a 740 score, not perfect 

Mileage varies but if I had to keep just one issuer it would be them by far