Night before last, I bought a new mattress online with credit card no. 1. Yesterday morning, we got an email and a phone call from the CC company asking to verify the transaction. Then we had an appointment later yesterday morning for a technician to come by and do some repair work on an appliance. When it came time to pay, I hauled out CC #1, and it was declined. Okay then, I hauled out CC #2 (which has a very high limit, most of which is not in use), and it was also declined. I wound up paying the tradesman with a paper personal check. Which he copied with his smart phone and handed back to me.
Tradesman gone, next job was to unravel the CC problems. Long menu phone calls, much time involved times two CC's. I got both cards unlocked so they could be used again for regular commerce. CC #1 people didn't know why or didn't want to tell me why the card was declined. I got the idea the declination process is all done by computers that are electronically watching all the input data. CC #2 told me the reason for the declination was, the company the tradesman works for is based in Texas, with regional trade areas but all billing goes through the Texas address. And this is what hoisted the red flags for the transation. Now I will interject my opinion and say, the computer knows most of my transactions are local or online; when they see a transaction coming in from Texas, it thinks it's a scammer in a remote location trying to hack my card. Or something like that.
When Mrs. Merkt and I travel, we've taken to calling the CC companies in advance and letting them know of our plans and that we will be using the CC elsewhere. They put a note to this effect in our (electronic) "file."
It's not only inconvenient but also embarrasing to have two cards in a row declined. But I was thinking, it's very likely that this is happening with other customers of this particular tradesman. Yet he didn't let on that he knew anything about similar experiences with customers.
The mattress caper. That one I think I've figured out. I made a few small online purchases before the mattress. I've been told before that sometimes scammers will "test" a stolen CC with small purchases to see if it "works" before they get into purchases involving larger amounts. This might be what happened with the mattress.
Tradesman gone, next job was to unravel the CC problems. Long menu phone calls, much time involved times two CC's. I got both cards unlocked so they could be used again for regular commerce. CC #1 people didn't know why or didn't want to tell me why the card was declined. I got the idea the declination process is all done by computers that are electronically watching all the input data. CC #2 told me the reason for the declination was, the company the tradesman works for is based in Texas, with regional trade areas but all billing goes through the Texas address. And this is what hoisted the red flags for the transation. Now I will interject my opinion and say, the computer knows most of my transactions are local or online; when they see a transaction coming in from Texas, it thinks it's a scammer in a remote location trying to hack my card. Or something like that.
When Mrs. Merkt and I travel, we've taken to calling the CC companies in advance and letting them know of our plans and that we will be using the CC elsewhere. They put a note to this effect in our (electronic) "file."
It's not only inconvenient but also embarrasing to have two cards in a row declined. But I was thinking, it's very likely that this is happening with other customers of this particular tradesman. Yet he didn't let on that he knew anything about similar experiences with customers.
The mattress caper. That one I think I've figured out. I made a few small online purchases before the mattress. I've been told before that sometimes scammers will "test" a stolen CC with small purchases to see if it "works" before they get into purchases involving larger amounts. This might be what happened with the mattress.
