Life lesson - In case you're not aware

mpierce wrote:
We have traveled to FL last winter for two months. Texas the year before. And, other travel. I have not notified cc's any time, and I have NEVER had them stopped. This is with the RV.

I also ride to a couple motorcycle events every summer. I live in ND, and over the last couple years, have gone to AR, WI, WV, MI, CO, IL. NEVER notified cc, and NEVER had an issue.

I see this response a lot. Again it's based on the behavior of the cardholder and subsequent deviations of that behavior score. If you travel a lot then that is normal behavior for your account.

Interesting tidbit as an example, not all gas stations are equal. Most are your typical entities, but some who have anchors to other businesses, like wire transfer offices etc are considered high risk entities by proxy. So a typical gas station might sell gas, but could be a high risk business if they have any sort of gambling, or wire transfer services, or are owned by a foreign national. Those are deemed high risk by the OCC. So that in and of itself could trigger a behavior score flag and you would never know why. And the OCC doesn't want the consumer to know why, because that consumer could be funding all kinds of illegal activity and high risk flags are not legally allowed to be shared with the consumer for obvious reasons. There are lots of reasons for triggers, why some get them and some don't. The algorithms for behavior scores are pretty complex. If you don't get flagged, I would consider that an indication that you are performing within your normal behavior. If you do, you're outside of the threshold of your "normal" behavior or you initiate a transaction at a high risk entity (you would never know this). All of which are easily remedied by calling your bank or card issuer and verifying you are the cardholder.

All of these - behind the scenes - risk models are built for the protection of the consumer, the bank, the entity and sometimes even the country. Don't kid yourself, about 100k accounts are opened almost daily, many more than you would guess with ties to foreign nations, and a percentage of those with a sole purpose of laundering and funding illegal and terrorist activity. Small inconvenience to us, but the implications of the lack of these models can have a big impact. Some thug stealing your card number to buy a TV is small potatoes. The real threat, money laundering, human trafficking, drugs and terrorist funding is more prevalent than you would care to know.