2oldman wrote:
I was merrily traveling south last fall and using my Chase debit card for various purchases. Around the first of this year, my card started getting declined. Ok, that's weird, but I have other cards. I tried using it several times with always the same result - declined.
I get this secure message saying I had to "Call us immediately!" about my card. Oh, really? Your (and my) security depends on speaking to me on the phone? If you want to know it's me buying stuff, then send me a text, a message, an email..anything.. but I refuse to call you. Why? I don't know - I'm just stubborn about that. If you want to talk to me, then YOU CALL ME.
The final blow? They declined a regular monthly debit for my electric bill, at home. Fine, that's easy to fix. I transferred almost all my money to another bank. Now, if they refuse to accept my monthly retirement pension deposit, then I'm in trouble.
If they call you, how will you verify that it's really them and not a scam call? Our bank and credit union both ask us to call them on occasion at verifiable numbers, and we're then asked for certain security codes to establish we are who we say we are. The last time that occurred was a couple of years ago when one of our debit cards was declined unexpectedly. On calling them and verifying who I was, it turned out that a renewal card had been mailed sooner than we expected, and the "Do Not Forward" envelope had been returned by the post office, prompting the deactivation of the card prior to it's expiration date until I could verify the situation with them. The old card was promptly turned back on, and the new card sent on request once we no longer needed our mail forwarded. The only part that irritated me was that they had no provisions for sending a card to an account holder that was traveling.
