Life lesson - In case you're not aware

Effy wrote:

FormerBoater wrote:

jkmac408 wrote:
We just got back from a 6 week trip and most everything was on our Visa. Didn't called anyone and never had an issue using the card. Wonder what the difference is.

The difference is the card issuer (the bank or Amex and Discover if the card is not Visa or Mastercard).

There is quite a bit of bad information on this thread.

-Visa and MasterCard make the rules for the banks, and convey the authorization requests from the merchant to the issuing bank. They do not employ any fraud detection protocols, rather they provide some tools for a fee to the banks to assist in fraud detection.

-There is ZERO liability to the Cardholder (you and me) in the event of a fraudulent transaction.

-Due to the amount of hacked cards at various large merchants, some issuers chose to tighten up their fraud protocols and inconvenience many of their cardholders using cards that were used at the very merchants that had been hacked. Essentially they transferred a large part of their responsibility to prevent fraud from their institution to their customers.

Many people (most folks on this thread) have no problem giving their issuer information about their travel itineraries.

Others (like me) believe it is none of their business.

In your effort to correct some mis-information you have offered some of your own. Visa and MC do NOT make the rules. They are processing vendors for the card issuer. Sort of a warehouse (although most of that is FDR or Fair Isaac) and a rules engine. But make no mistake the triggers and rules are set at the client (bank) level NOT at the V or MC level. And most of the risk rating triggers are proprietary and sometimes not even on the host. A lot of times they are in house ancillary processes. This is why ABC bank's rules will differ from CDE's. VISA and MC are transaction processing centers, not banks.

Further, there can be a lot of liability at the cardholder level depending on circumstances. Although the FCRA has seemed to level set some of this , it still happens.

Also most of the directives for fraud control are not proactive or voluntary. They are OCC mandated or affinity mandated. Despite fraud and losses, it's still less expensive to run the status quo than support billion dollar projects to support all the data cleanup, FTE, systemic and hardware changes for fraud prevention. So the OCC mandates or suffer fines. The fines aren't even a drop in the bucket it's the negative media exposure risks that prompt adherence.

Providing information about travel is not mandatory. The only risk is that if a transaction occurs outside of your behavior score it will trigger a block. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not, depends on the bank, risk score model, your behavior score and the merchant at which the transaction occurs. But personally it's way more of a hassle having it blocked when I am trying to fuel up and getting it turned back on than a simple phone call before I leave.

Those of you who think it's none of the bank's business need to remember, it's the bank that holds the risk. They are lending you their money. They are trying to prevent fraud, mitigate their own risk and following mandates by the Federal Guvmint. If you were on the hook for that I have to imagine you would want the guy you are lending money to give you as much information as you need. This is not an infringement on privacy. You entered into an agreement as a borrower and carry a live transaction tool that can be lost, stolen or hacked pretty easily. So yes, the bank has every right to know where their card is. You are carrying their money and they let you use it. They can revoke that privilege anytime to mitigate risk.

And frankly many of you think your information is far more important than it is. They could care less about where you are. They want to know where the card is.

Visa and MasterCard do make the rules. There are literally volumes of rules and regulations published by both Associations that dictate what Issuers, Acquirers and Merchants can and cannot do with regard to the payment system.

And yes, I did work for a Visa/MC member institution for many years prior to retirement.