Barclaycard declined for flight book despite in credit and confirmed it was me

usignuolo

I dunno. I booked a flight online to the US in October, using my Barclaycard which is all paid up to date and has plenty of credit on it. I booked flights and seats. (I go to the States every year at least once and always book on my Barclaycard.)

A minute or so after making the booking, which I confirmed with the Verified by Visa code at the time of booking, I got an automated phone call from Barclaycard asking me to verify I had made the flights and seats bookings, to protect against fraudulent use or some such words. I confirmed the bookings were both correct and I had made them.

The seats were in an area with others still available and I decided to check out if I wanted to change them for something better according to seatguru, so I typed in my booking number to United's online system and looked it up. No booked seats. So I phoned United. Sorry my card had been declined for the seats. !!!!!!?

Phoned Barclaycard customer services and got through to the Indian call centre. Explained situation to very helpful young man who confirmed yes my card had been declined for the seat booking and was now suspended. WTFF?

Got transferred to the Fraud team and after hanging on for an extended interval, spoke to someone there who explained that the booking I had made conformed to known fraud patterns (booking airline seats and tix online for 1 week trip to NYC?). WTFFFF? As a result the Fraud team had decided to suspend my card. WTFFFFFF?

I pointed out I had used Verified by Visa and the auto confirmation system to say it was me, and they agreed this was the case and as a result they would release my card and I should try again to book the seats.

I have had the same card for years, not reported it missing or stolen, plenty of credit and good credit record, regular spending pattern of travelling to NYC using the card (I visit NYC regularly because I have family there, ) and I had correctly confirmed I was the owner using Verified by Visa and auto phone call from Barclaycard.

Anyone like to tell me what is going on here? I did not get an apology BTW:mad:

Cycrow

I've had it happened a few times for me before.

They monitor the cards for fraud so I guess a computer is setup to look for certain patterns in spending (simlar to what virus checkers do)
And just like a virus checker, it can come up with false positives.

Of course, they could also just be randomly tagging cards for a fraud check