2 fraudulent credit card purchases

How? It’s a computer generated device that could be enabled by the user. I enabled 2FA to access my bank account in seconds. Why not extend that to CC’s?

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I also have 2 factor authentication with my bank for signing in.

On my cell phone I have transaction alerts that tell a transaction has occurred, when, where and how much.

If they transaction was not authorized I can call in a fraud alert.

The could certainly be done with credit cards.

Precisely. I’ve asked the bank many times and they always give me their “bank answer”. “Our security is so good you can dispute a charge anytime.”

I try to explain that’s a fix taking my time and effort. I want a prevention.

My husband discovered, looking at his CC account online today, that the CC company will send an alert by text or phone call for:
international transactions
online purchases
gas station purchases
amounts over $xxx, which we can specify

He set this up today and we’ll see how it goes. It appears that, unlike 2FA, the alerts don’t require a response for the transaction to go thru.

I’ve been working more on what rjratnip said, and found that the first fraudulent purchase was made 6 hours after I paid my electric bill online with the CC. Could it be a coincidence that the P.O. Box where the electric company accepts payments by check is 2 miles from the restaurant? I’ve been assuming that no human at the electric company looks at the information I submit with the online bill pay, but maybe someone at the same check processing center also reviews the online payments?

I have alerts, both email and text, set for my cards at $1 for any transactions.

So the technology is not the same. When you log into your bank account online, its just you and the banks platform, protected by 2FA. This is a proactive security measure.

On a credit card transaction, there are multiple parties: Merchant, Payment Processor, Clearing Network, Issuing Bank. This is a real-time synchronous transaction. The only thing the Issuing Bank can do is accept or reject the transaction. Often times, the Issuing Bank will use AI and other algorithms to try and detect fraud. However, there is no place in the process for a consumer to interject their own approval process. You can get alerts or notifications, but those are reactive. Here is a pretty good diagram of the transaction:

Thanks. I did not realize it was that complex.

However, why do banks [at least mine] say a PIN is not needed because their dispute process is so good? [we’ll never know eh}

The first time I had fraudulent charges on my credit card, the only recent purchase was gas for my car.

The second time was shortly after i had purchased an ebook using my phone while at a restaurant. I had my wifi on at the time, and suspect that is how my card was hijacked.

We have all of our credit cards set up to immediately text us for all charges. Depending on the issuer, we have some of them set up to email for certain types of charges. While that would not stop the first charge, it would allow you to immediately know about, potentially notify the restaurant, and put a hold on your card.

As to how it can happen, a few years ago my husband left his wallet on the bus. It was picked up and charges started coming in. Because he had immediately called me, I had cancelled all of his cards so no credit card charges made it through. There was a charge made using his ATM card and our credit union “corrected” the number the thief typed in to purchase a pre-paid VISA. Because I had notified them and we had a police report, the money are refunded. Anyway, in our case the charge happened because a person “fixed” what they thought was a mistake my husband had made.

I’m surprised the cc company told YOU to call the restaurant. (Even though you can if you’re investigating yourself too). It’s happened to us too and the cc company handles the “dispute”, refunded the purchase amounts and then facilitated cancelling the card # used fraudulently and issuing us a new card.

We also have all our cards set up to notify me when anything over a penny is charged, so basically I have a double check immediately after use and can catch anything right away too.

Our cc online account also has the ability for me to temporarily freeze the use of the card on our own while I’m trying to figure out if it indeed was misused. (One time the card was correctly charged, I just didn’t recognize the name used on the statement).

I have both a Citi 2% Cash Back card, a Citi Costco CC. Both have ability to get notifications.