Chase bank is REALLY on the ball

[kaitou]

Got a call today from Chase that they thought there was fraudulent activity on my credit card, and they closed my account. I'll get a new card in a few days. What really surprises me is that they were tipped off by 2 purchases, one for a song on iTunes...the rep said it was probably a test to make sure that their stolen info worked...and one for about $150 in tools. I really wouldn't have thought that either of those would have set off alarm bells. I mean...did they think 'hey this was for country music, and we know from our accounts that she doesn't listen to it?' Why that, and not when I spent $1000 on appliances when I moved into this house?

Still, I'm grateful that they were so on top of it, and caught it so quickly. Way to go, Chase.

Comments

[anthogna (from livejournal.com)]

I think of "Big Brother" as the aggregate tracking information (locations, stores, things I buy regularly) from all my bankcards. Like it helped that my purchases in Arizona on one card fit the pattern created by information from others, so it wasn't tagged.

I think the easiest tagger though (and it shows the fraudster was a total amateur) is that "small followed by large" thing. You just don't do that if you're going to use a stolen card. iTunes is something else that seems extremely amateurish, since Apple cross-checks CC numbers in the payment database. I would think the chances of a stolen CC number being already registered on iTunes would be fairly high, and Apple's system would only allow a number to be used twice as a way of "flagging" possible stolen numbers to the banks, especially if only one song is purchased subsequently...