OT Read your bill

Eleven years ago when I had to make arrangements for my mother's
funeral [burial plot, mortuary, etc etc, and she was being flown in
from another state], I called my Citi credit card people to tell them
where I would be going and spending money on, so they wouldn't have any
conniption fits. Worked like a charm.

Often, if I know there will be some heavy usage, I will call them ahead
and let them know so they flag my card for the usage. I give them
specifics and will check in with them when out of town to be sure
everything is okay.

Ginger in CA
a verrry satisfied customer for over 25 yrs with them

Tiam Mary wrote:
I assured the guy that I was me (I answered all those odd
questions correctly) and I was trying to pay to have my recently DEAD
DBro cremated!!! The poor guy at MC was tripping over his words
apologizing to me and telling me that trying to charge bogus funeral
stuff was not unusual for LaLa Land.

When I moved from the US to the UK, I made a change of address with my
Us credit union before moving - covering both my accounts and the credit
card I had with them.

Three weeks later I got several letters in 2 days saying that they had
(temporarily) closed my credit card, since there were some strange
charges on it.

I had spent about $500 on furniture in IKEA!!! Obviously a computer made
the alert, and no human bothered to look at it before they closed the
card. But they were very quick to reopen it.

Later the same thing happened when I was on holiday in the US and
suddenly using the card there...

Last Summer I had a double billing from a US hotel on my UK credit card,
I called the hotel, it took them 10 min to figure out what had happened
in their system, and they immediately returned the money - with a
flunctuation in the exchange rate, I actually made about $5 on that
(even after figuring in the phone call).

Hanne in London

CATS wrote:
I have a VISA debit card, and I don't use it all that much.
So if I happen to "hit the sales" on the Internet and run up
charges on US sites I usually get a very polite call from my
credit union (sometimes within 30 minutes!) asking if I am
home or in the US, because of the unusual activity. I find
that kind of reassuring.

Last time I laughed and explained that I was a quilter and
that all the charges should be on quilt stores. The lady on
the other end of the line came out with . . . . . . . yep,
you guessed it - "Oh I'm a quilter too!" We had a nice chat
and I recommended a couple of sites that were new to her.
lol

Lets face it - some quilt stores do have "unusual" names!

I got three fraudulent charge from Amazon just before Christmas... still
waiting for those charges to be removed.
--
Debi

Chaos, panic and disorder ... my work here is done.

"Polly Esther" wrote in message
...
If you do online shopping, pay very close attention to your bill. I just
took a hit for $1,200 worth of software. Me? Yeah, right . . . I'm the
one who's still learning to take pictures of my thumb with the telephone.
What on earth would I do with a $1,200 software package? Fortunately, my
nice credit card company also knew that such a purchase was highly
unlikely and slammed the credit card account shut. Unfortunately, I had
ordered a beautiful navy blue dress that was 70% off. Now it's no longer
available. (sigh). Read your bills very carefully. Polly

My DH travels on business and uses credit cards in some out of the way
places. I can usually expect a call from Visa or Discover when he's on a
trip, especially when he's in the Philippines.
--
Bonnie
NJ
"CATS" wrote in message
...
I have a VISA debit card, and I don't use it all that much.
So if I happen to "hit the sales" on the Internet and run up
charges on US sites I usually get a very polite call from my
credit union (sometimes within 30 minutes!) asking if I am
home or in the US, because of the unusual activity. I find
that kind of reassuring.

Last time I laughed and explained that I was a quilter and
that all the charges should be on quilt stores. The lady on
the other end of the line came out with . . . . . . . yep,
you guessed it - "Oh I'm a quilter too!" We had a nice chat
and I recommended a couple of sites that were new to her.
lol

Lets face it - some quilt stores do have "unusual" names!

--

Cheryl & the Cats in OZ
o o o o o o
( Y ) ( Y ) ( Y )
Enness Boofhead Donut
http://community.webshots.com/user/witchofthewest
catsatararatATyahooDOTcomDOTau


"Polly Esther" wrote in message
...
: Mary wrote: The poor guy at MC was tripping over his words
: apologizing to me and telling me that trying to charge
bogus funeral
: stuff was not unusual for LaLa Land.
: You're kidding, right? No, I guess you're not. Don't
you just know
: that the guys at Master Charge have seen some really
strange charges? Polly
:
:
:

Ginger in CA wrote:
Eleven years ago when I had to make arrangements for my mother's
funeral [burial plot, mortuary, etc etc, and she was being flown in
from another state], I called my Citi credit card people to tell them
where I would be going and spending money on, so they wouldn't have any
conniption fits. Worked like a charm.

Often, if I know there will be some heavy usage, I will call them ahead
and let them know so they flag my card for the usage. I give them
specifics and will check in with them when out of town to be sure
everything is okay.

Ginger in CA

I do the same when I am traveling outside the USA. I didn't think to
do this the first time I left the States (trip to Tahiti) but the folks
there contacted the MC company and we got everything straightened out.
I was in the hotel gift shop and I think they had stuff like this happen
all the time. It helps to have your passport handy so that you can
prove your identity :-). The last time I called to let the credit card
people know where I was going, the nice young man on the phone looked
over my card activity for the last several years and told me that they
don't flag out of country purchases for me anymore *unless* they are for
a lot of money at one time OR are for non-touristy stuff -- I still call
them anyway. I suppose if I was in Europe and tried to buy furniture or
something like that, I would probably have trouble -- LOL! CiaoMeow ^;;^

PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^ (RCTQ Queen of Kitties)
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about
their whiskers!
Visit my Photo albums at http://community.webshots.com/user/tiamary

The same thing happened to us a few years back and it was a mess to
straighten out...I had somebody buying MP3 players form buy.com They did
straighten it out but they used my last name and called them self Roger.
They had the stuff shipped to Mailboxes ETC and I alerted them and so on. I
was eventually credited back but I changed my account numbers. My husband
watches our account every day.
Pami

Luckily, my credit card usually calls me when I've made a big purchase to
confirm it was me. Everytime so far, I have actually spent the money, but
still I appreciate them checking.

A friend of mine had her entire bank account wiped out because she used her
debit card (not credit card) to pay for a hotel room while on vacation. She
knew the hotel that was the source of the problem, because it was a small
place that still used the old method of sliding the receipt over the card,
so they had her full credit card number. Eventually, she got her money
back, but it was highly inconvenient to say the least. However, I do not
keep a debit card precisely for this reason. With a credit card at least
there is a buffer.

Glad your credit card company was so agreeable, Polly. Thanks for posting
on this important subject.
--
Michelle in NV
http://community.webshots.com/user/desert_quilter

"Polly Esther" wrote in message
...
If you do online shopping, pay very close attention to your bill. I just
took a hit for $1,200 worth of software. Me? Yeah, right . . . I'm the
one who's still learning to take pictures of my thumb with the telephone.
What on earth would I do with a $1,200 software package? Fortunately, my
nice credit card company also knew that such a purchase was highly
unlikely and slammed the credit card account shut. Unfortunately, I had
ordered a beautiful navy blue dress that was 70% off. Now it's no longer
available. (sigh). Read your bills very carefully. Polly