Credit Card Anti-Fraud systems

reclusive46

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Also remember that merchants also act very different from each other as well as card companies.

There is no actual requirement for merchants to obtain authorisation for transactions, no requirement for them to use security measures and they dont have to put through transactions in realtime (as long as they don't store certain data elements).

Card companies look at all sorts of factors when deciding which transactions look genuine and which look questionable. I find it amusing that I can pay my Barclaycard and Amex bill fine each month but every single time I pay off my RBS card the transaction is declined due to fraud concerns

Haha, I've had the exact same problem with paying RBS gold credit card with my debit card before.

Anthorn

How anti-fraud systems work is very simple: They do data mining on you and build up a spending pattern. This is related to not only where you spend but on the type of goods and services you buy and when you're likely to spend money. If a charge occurs that's not within your spending pattern they telephone you to verify it.

This has happened to me once and the bank saved me £276!

Your bank and credit card issuer probably has a very good idea of when you're going to spend money, where you're going to spend it and how much you're going to spend

bigadaj

Whilst such systems are necessarily secretive they are obviously not fool proof. Much of mu spending is regular but I do frequent one off purchases on odd things in unrelated areas and I've never been contacted once to check on these. I haven't knowingly suffered fraud, so that could be an indication it still works for me, but it is difficult to prove a negative.

Also I think you'll find the bank save the £270, as you wouldn't have been liable, though they probably saved you sone hassle.