Life lesson - In case you're not aware

[Tinstar]

I'll relate my recent experience for those of you that are unaware of some "new" policy with credit cards.

We made a recent trip from our home in the Dallas area to Carlsbad N.M. These transactions were on our MasterCard. On the way, I fueled up once without a problem. We got to the campground and paid for a couple of nights, went out to eat that night, paid our admission to the caverns and all is good so far. Later the next day, I had to buy a couple of tires due to a blowout on the way out there. When I went to pay the bill, my card was rejected. I had them run it again because I had a $10K credit limit and hardly anything on the card. Rejected again so I end up paying for the tires with a Visa and immediately called MasterCard. The customer service said it was rejected because I was out of my home area and the purchase was over $100,,,,, but I could now use my card to pay for the tires. Well, I had already paid for them with the Visa so that wasn't much help. Next day, I head back to Texas to continue my vacation. I get to a Travel Center and try to fuel up. My card is rejected, I go inside and try the card at the register,,, rejected. I fuel up using the Visa BUT before I got back in my m/h to leave I receive an automated message from Visa wanting to verify my identity. I go through all the prompts that I was me and I was the one making the purchase for fuel. When I get to my destination, we go out to eat and not only can I not pay using my MasterCard, now my Visa has been shut down.:M I go to my third card (another Visa) pay for our meal without a problem.

Next morning, I call MasterCard. I have to put in my information before I can talk to anyone. That triggered the call to be directed to their fraud department. I talk to a very nice gentleman that explained the whole thing. He said the Customer Service agent with whom I spoke with when in Carlsbad is not authorized to lift the fraud alert from my card and could only authorize a one time purchase. My account was flagged since I was out of my home area. They didn't call me to straighten it out because I had never given them permission to call me.:h Needless to say, I gave them permission and the flag was lifted. He said I need to go on-line or call them when I'm going to be out of my home area in the future so my account won't be flagged. That's not a problem for me and I appreciate them watching out for fraud but it would have been nice if I had known that in advance. Maybe they sent something in a bill and I just missed it,,, who knows? For the next week, I had no more problems with my MasterCard.

I now call Visa. Same story, they shut down my card because I was away from my home area. They authorized the one charge for fuel then shut the card down. I need to fill out the form with them when I'm going to be away.

OK, now I know. Just wish I knew before I left. I thought I was going to have to spend a few days at the tire shop changing tires (or washing dishes) for them to pay for the tires. For me, it certainly paid to have more than one or two cards. I actually carry 5 with me but normally never use anything other than the MasterCard.

Bottom line, if you use cards you might want to check with them and make sure you don't get flagged and shut down when you're away from home.

[FormerBoater]

Effy wrote:

FormerBoater wrote:

Effy wrote:

FormerBoater wrote:

jkmac408 wrote:
.

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.

Well you are just plain wrong. No other way to really say that.
Not sure what member institution you worked for or in what capacity but it obviously wasn't the IS flow.And what in the world does onboarding or acquisitions have to do with this?

V and MC are processors. They are not a governing body. They may house rules in their engines but they do not make them. That's the FED, OCC and the banks. Sure they'll provide supporting documentation of how your client profiles are set but they do not tell the banks what to do. It's the other way around. They aren't even the ACH. They process transactions, some of which are payments based on transaction codes. One code = payment, one = block, etc. There are hundreds. The flow goes something like this - card members are on boarded at the bank - either at a branch or on line, a profile is created and warehoused (in house or FDR or some other repository). An account profile and customer profile are separate and linked by a primary key (usually systemically assigned and indigenous to the bank), statuses, rules and any other behavior is set at the BANK/ISSUER. Not at the processor. The profile might be sent to the processor for transaction purposes but it's sent to the processor NOT the other way around. The BANK tells the processor (V and MC) how to behave. Again, not the other way around. So when ABC bank says set this population of accounts (grouped by product keys, FIMP or some other demographic code) to perform with this set of codes, that's what the processor does. it follows instructions based on settings defined at the bank/issuer level. Payment processing (which is not what we are talking about) is defined at the ACH and FED level and the processors behave accordingly. But no mistake about it, V and MC are not telling banks or the FED how they will process payments or any other transaction. It's the other way around.

Visa Inc. (/?vi?z?/ or /?vi?s?/) is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Foster City, California, United States.[citation needed] It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards and debit cards.[3] Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash-access programs to their customers.

In summary, the banks are customers who use VISA and MC to process transactions. VISA is a vendor. The bank is the customer. The vendor(Visa/MC) does work for the customer(bank) based on what the customer(bank) needs. VISA may have rules for merchants as far as minimum charge processing etc. But VISA can't even enforce that. The Bank/issuer enforces that to the merchant.

I worked for an Acquirer who also served the processor function in the payment system and is subsidiary of the largest financial institution in the USA.

Visa and MC are simply huge switches in the payment system. They set the rules and the data/message formats.

MC publishes its rules and Interchange rates for merchants.

http://www.mastercard.us/merchants/support/rules.html

Visa's 1,149 pages of rules/regulations can be found here:

http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/Public-VIOR-15-April-2014.pdf

Both V and MC route the authorization requests to the Issuers recieved from the Acquirers and processors based upon the BIN (Bank Identification Number). The Acquirers and processors recieve the authorization requests from the merchant.

The Issuers are the only part of the payment system which can approve or decline an authorization requests. If your Issuer declines the transaction based upon location (out of home area), it is purely up to their discretion.

As far as enforcement of the rules, both V and MC have the ability to levy penalties for any merchant that does not comply with their rules.

Merchants have been fined hundreds of thousand of dollars by V and MC when data integrity rules have not been followed by the merchants.

Visa's Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP)rules can be found here:

http://usa.visa.com/merchants/protect-your-business/cisp/index.jsp?ep=v_sym_cisp

The bottom line is that the majority of the plethora of rules and regulations are designed to protect us, the Cardholder. V and MC want their brands to be as ubiquitous as cash.

If your Issuer is declining your authorizations based upon your location, this goes against the purpose of the payment system and you as the Cardholder have every right to protest this policy with your Issuer.

My experience with 2 separate Issuers is that they will change their policy for the Cardholder if you object.

[Effy]

FormerBoater wrote:

Effy wrote:

FormerBoater wrote:

jkmac408 wrote:
.

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.

Well you are just plain wrong. No other way to really say that.
Not sure what member institution you worked for or in what capacity but it obviously wasn't the IS flow.And what in the world does onboarding or acquisitions have to do with this?

V and MC are processors. They are not a governing body. They may house rules in their engines but they do not make them. That's the FED, OCC and the banks. Sure they'll provide supporting documentation of how your client profiles are set but they do not tell the banks what to do. It's the other way around. They aren't even the ACH. They process transactions, some of which are payments based on transaction codes. One code = payment, one = block, etc. There are hundreds. The flow goes something like this - card members are on boarded at the bank - either at a branch or on line, a profile is created and warehoused (in house or FDR or some other repository). An account profile and customer profile are separate and linked by a primary key (usually systemically assigned and indigenous to the bank), statuses, rules and any other behavior is set at the BANK/ISSUER. Not at the processor. The profile might be sent to the processor for transaction purposes but it's sent to the processor NOT the other way around. The BANK tells the processor (V and MC) how to behave. Again, not the other way around. So when ABC bank says set this population of accounts (grouped by product keys, FIMP or some other demographic code) to perform with this set of codes, that's what the processor does. it follows instructions based on settings defined at the bank/issuer level. Payment processing (which is not what we are talking about) is defined at the ACH and FED level and the processors behave accordingly. But no mistake about it, V and MC are not telling banks or the FED how they will process payments or any other transaction. It's the other way around.

Visa Inc. (/?vi?z?/ or /?vi?s?/) is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Foster City, California, United States.[citation needed] It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards and debit cards.[3] Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash-access programs to their customers.

In summary, the banks are customers who use VISA and MC to process transactions. VISA is a vendor. The bank is the customer. The vendor(Visa/MC) does work for the customer(bank) based on what the customer(bank) needs. VISA may have rules for merchants as far as minimum charge processing etc. But VISA can't even enforce that. The Bank/issuer enforces that to the merchant.

[teleman2]

Just called my visa to report traveling and recording said if traveling in 50 USA states no need to report only if out of country

[FormerBoater]

Effy wrote:

bshpilot wrote:
its not the bank or the clearing house (knowing where i am or how long I'm away) that i care about....its the EMPLOYEES that have access to that information that concerns me !

the bank has a need to know & validate charges - they DO NOT have a need to know how long i will be gone or where else i will be traveling to.

I travel EXTENSIVELY for business - my corp card (while backed by my company with a personal liability) has NEVER had the issue & its used as much if not more than my personal card(s). Not ONCE in over 35 years of traveling (for business) have i EVER been contacted by my corp travel card provider to validate my charges....and not ONCE have i had to call them to notify them of my travel plans !

Of course not, it's a corp card with a whole different set of rules, many of which are travel allowances. And lets exercise some logic here. If you live one place and transactions are occurring at another, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you are not home. If a customer service rep a 1000 miles from where you are (if not off shore) wanted to target your home while you are away, they already have all the information they need. The letting them know thing is to prevent your card from being cut off in a pre-emptive measure. That's all. It's not an invitation for a raid on your home. In your case it's a moot point if you are using a corp card so you don't have a dog in this fight.

It was my personal cards that were used while on business travel. Only place where I could not use the cards was outside of major metropolitan areas in mainland China...they only accepted cards issed by Chinese banks at that time. Today it is likely that non-China issed cards are more widely accepted.

[FormerBoater]

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.

[Effy]

bshpilot wrote:
its not the bank or the clearing house (knowing where i am or how long I'm away) that i care about....its the EMPLOYEES that have access to that information that concerns me !

the bank has a need to know & validate charges - they DO NOT have a need to know how long i will be gone or where else i will be traveling to.

I travel EXTENSIVELY for business - my corp card (while backed by my company with a personal liability) has NEVER had the issue & its used as much if not more than my personal card(s). Not ONCE in over 35 years of traveling (for business) have i EVER been contacted by my corp travel card provider to validate my charges....and not ONCE have i had to call them to notify them of my travel plans !

Of course not, it's a corp card with a whole different set of rules, many of which are travel allowances. And lets exercise some logic here. If you live one place and transactions are occurring at another, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you are not home. If a customer service rep a 1000 miles from where you are (if not off shore) wanted to target your home while you are away, they already have all the information they need. The letting them know thing is to prevent your card from being cut off in a pre-emptive measure. That's all. It's not an invitation for a raid on your home. In your case it's a moot point if you are using a corp card so you don't have a dog in this fight.

[bshpilot]

its not the bank or the clearing house (knowing where i am or how long I'm away) that i care about....its the EMPLOYEES that have access to that information that concerns me !

the bank has a need to know & validate charges - they DO NOT have a need to know how long i will be gone or where else i will be traveling to.

I travel EXTENSIVELY for business - my corp card (while backed by my company with a personal liability) has NEVER had the issue & its used as much if not more than my personal card(s). Not ONCE in over 35 years of traveling (for business) have i EVER been contacted by my corp travel card provider to validate my charges....and not ONCE have i had to call them to notify them of my travel plans !

[Effy]

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.

[FormerBoater]

JimFromJersey wrote:
FormerBoater, you sound like someone who's never had to wrestle with Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax to get an erroneous credit report entry removed.

Yes, ultimately, the wronged consumer is not liable for fraudulent use of a card, but RIGHTING that wrong can be a much bigger pain in the ass than preventing it in the first place. And it's hardly a breach of security to call your issuing bank and tell them you're going to be on vacation - does anyone seriously think the danger of some schlep in a customer service call center telling his friends, "hey, drive on over to southern Idaho - I hear Joe Kamper is going on vacation...yeah, I know we're in North Carolina, but he may have a TV or something we can steal..." is worth worrying about?

You call the bank and tell them that it's ok if a charge shows up in Yellowstone or wherever. You call your local police and tell them you're away for three weeks and could they keep an eye on the place. You ask your neighbor (if you trust them...) to keep an eye on the place. You're good to go.

An fraudulent charge on your credit card has NO effect on your TransUnion, Experian or Equifax credit report.

As far as neighbors and local police go, you obviously do not live in Fort Lauderdale.

I do.

[bshpilot]

JimFromJersey -

Houston, Texas, only a few yrs ago - people were calling in to the Houston Chronicle subscription department to stop the delivery of their newspaper while they were away on vacation....

it tool local police quite a while to correlate break-ins & robberies back to the subscription desk.

we once, ourselves, had a credit card company call us about potentially fraudulent credit card charges while we were traveling....the credit card company wanted to verify that we made the charges and then wanted to know how long we would be out of town (red flag)....i wouldnt tell a stranger on the street this information - I'm not gonna tell someone i don't know on the phone !

[Branson_in_Tucs]

Just went through that. Were headed to Yuma Az from Nashville, had to call credit card company and tell them every state I'd plan on traveling thru.
they then enter it and said I have to up date every 6 months when we travel.
A pain but it is the way of times these days.

[JimFromJersey]

FormerBoater, you sound like someone who's never had to wrestle with Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax to get an erroneous credit report entry removed.

Yes, ultimately, the wronged consumer is not liable for fraudulent use of a card, but RIGHTING that wrong can be a much bigger pain in the ass than preventing it in the first place. And it's hardly a breach of security to call your issuing bank and tell them you're going to be on vacation - does anyone seriously think the danger of some schlep in a customer service call center telling his friends, "hey, drive on over to southern Idaho - I hear Joe Kamper is going on vacation...yeah, I know we're in North Carolina, but he may have a TV or something we can steal..." is worth worrying about?

You call the bank and tell them that it's ok if a charge shows up in Yellowstone or wherever. You call your local police and tell them you're away for three weeks and could they keep an eye on the place. You ask your neighbor (if you trust them...) to keep an eye on the place. You're good to go.

[FormerBoater]

Tinstar wrote:

bshpilot wrote:
the only reason the bank (or cc company) is calling is out of concern for themselves.
the card holder is not liable for charges they didn't create.

To me it's not just who is liable. I am always concerned if someone steals my credit card info and makes purchases under my name? Anything that concerns my credit card company concerns me too. I figure it's a partnership and they are not only looking out for themselves but for me too.

I know what a hassle it is to try and reestablish my identity and restore my credit because if it's stolen, my credit will suffer, at least in the short run. Sometimes it takes a couple of years to accomplish it too. I'd rather not have that hassle.

Your credit would not be affected. Your issuer will credit the bogus charges immediately or you can lodge a complaint directly with Visa or MasterCard.

This thread is not about identity theft...it is about your card issuer denying authorizations when you, the cardholder are attempting to make a purchase because you are on the road.

Prior to my retirement, business travel took me to Europe and Asia. Never had to notify my issuer(s)...all was well.

After the breaches at the big retailers, had my diesel fuel purchase denied in South Carolina...not acceptable IMHO.

[Tinstar]

bshpilot wrote:
the only reason the bank (or cc company) is calling is out of concern for themselves.
the card holder is not liable for charges they didn't create.

To me it's not just who is liable. I am always concerned if someone steals my credit card info and makes purchases under my name? Anything that concerns my credit card company concerns me too. I figure it's a partnership and they are not only looking out for themselves but for me too.

I know what a hassle it is to try and reestablish my identity and restore my credit because if it's stolen, my credit will suffer, at least in the short run. Sometimes it takes a couple of years to accomplish it too. I'd rather not have that hassle.

[tahiti16]

For us when that has happened, usually because we sue a card or card we keep empty for travel and or emergencies, when we call in they reauthorize the card and we tell them where we will generally be traveling, states we will be going through, and for how long. No more issues for the rest of the trip.