Frustrated by banks' hair-trigger fraud detectors

[shelivesthedream]

Every month for the past six months I have ended up stuck on hold to my bank to confirm that some trivial transaction was in fact me just trying to buy food in the same place I always do, or quite reasonably renewing my home insurance exactly one year after I last did it. I appreciate that it's some protection against some criminal going on a spending spree with my money, but it's happened so many times and it's always just been me! Argh!

[Fomerly known as something]

Yesterday I had to call my back to say yes, that donation I was trying to make to Red Cross was me.  Apparently, it was flagged because the Red Cross uses a Washington DC address.

[ketchup]

I've had a few fraud alerts that were real but only one false-positive (and that was trying to check into a Texas hotel when during the previous 18 hours I had bought gas with the same credit card in IL, IA, KS, OK, and TX... so I get it).

[marty998]

Our bank has a feature where you can advise online that you will be in X location between X days, so they will be able to flag and release any "unusual" transactions.

Very useful for holidays.

[GuitarStv]

Use a credit card for all purchases, not a bank card.  That way you can get rewards or cash back.

[ketchup]

Our bank has a feature where you can advise online that you will be in X location between X days, so they will be able to flag and release any "unusual" transactions.

Very useful for holidays.

I've only done this once, when girlfriend was going to Vancouver and then Brisbane, but it worked like a charm then.  Any other (domestic US) travel has all been "un-announced."

[Ramblin' Ma'am]

Our bank has a feature where you can advise online that you will be in X location between X days, so they will be able to flag and release any "unusual" transactions.

Very useful for holidays.

Mine offers this too, although you have to actually call, which is kind of annoying. My credit cards let me set travel advisories online.

[Neo]

Im sorry youre frustrated. I work in the card division of a large bank and i can tell you card fraud is a constantly evolving game of cat and mouse. Its tough bc you dont want to decline good customers but if you relax the rules fraud just explodes. We aim to keep our false positive ratio as low as possible but its difficult and we still lose millions a year in fraud even with tight fraud rules. They have to be constantly tweaked in almost real time to keep up with fraud trends that emerge. The fraudsters are so good at finding weaknesses in our rules and exploiting them. If they would apply half that ingenuity toward legit careers they would be wildly successful. There are some really cool tools coming in the near future that will totally change the way we use our cards. Hopefully they will help.

[Sibley]

I get it. Make sure you have 2 credit cards, so you can switch to the backup if there's a fraud alert on the main one when you're at the checkout.

Consider switching main cards too. I've had different experiences with different companies. Some are better than others.