Credit card declined!

[Scott R Nelson]

My wife just got back from spending a week in Las Vegas with my two daughters who live there, and their families. On the way home from the airport she mentioned something about being declined when she went to buy gas for one of them this morning. I didn't think much about it.

So this evening, her VW Beetle was beeping at us with the low fuel light on and we headed to the gas station to fill it up. My credit card was declined. That's never happened to me before. We have plenty of money in the bank and excellent credit, so this is a new experience for me. But not a problem, I have that University of Utah Credit Union credit card in there, I'll just use that. What? It's expired? In 2009?

I was just going to leave the car empty, but my wife convinced me to try the one other card that we have, an ATM/Debit card through the same bank as the first one that I mentioned. It took that.

As soon as I got home I called the bank and it took 20 minutes to straighten it out, including giving many numbers and quite a few bits of information - twice. It turns out that when my wife was in Las Vegas, she stopped off at Walmart and bought some stuff for both of our daughters. She wanted separate receipts for each in case they wanted to return anything that didn't fit or otherwise wasn't quite right.

It turns out that if you make two purchases of over $100 within three minutes at Walmart in a different town than the one you live in, the fraud protection kicks in and your card gets shut down until you contact the bank and straighten it all out. (My wife now has instructions that if she ever gets declined again, call the bank immediately and get it fixed.)

At least I found out tonight and got it fixed, because tomorrow night I'm leaving for a week in Mexico and it would have been a bit difficult with no functioning credit card. The bank has been notified to just accept any charges in Puerto Vallarta and surrounding areas until after the day we return.

I didn't realize that you should also notify them before spending time in another city in the USA too.

[Moliere]

Ha! Funny, but only funny since it ended well and wasn't too troublesome.

MJ and I once lived in the midwest for a summer and on our way back to Provo we stopped somewhere not to far west of Denver to fill up. This was before most pay at the pump stations, or at least before they were installed in along I-70 west of Denver. I pumping the gas I went in to pay and my card was declined. I had to call a number and give some information. Turns out the CC company had noticed we were using the card all along I-70 and put a hold on the account in case the card was stolen by someone making a cross country trip. Although it was somewhat bothersome, it's nice to know suspicious activity does get caught once in a while.

[Paperback Writer]

Got nothing but good things to say about my CC service.

My CC company called me asking if I had made a large appliance and furniture purchase in another part of the country. While we were sorting it out (it was not a valid purchase) another purchase request came through for a large purchase in Europe. So we were able to issue a new card right then and then go through my recent purchase history to validate. Was happy that customer service called me before turning off my card since it was obvious someone had sold my CC number. I was notified later that they traced the culprit to a fast food drive through that was taking pictures of CCs with a cell phone and then selling the numbers.

Another incident with a happy ending was when we rented a car for family vacation since our car was unexpectedly in the repair shop. We put the transaction on our CC. Upon our return from vacation we returned the car but their office was closed on Sunday. So we parked the rental car in their lot exactly where we found it when we leased it. The next morning, 20 minutes before I arrived at the office to sign the paperwork and return the keys, someone lost control of their car while speeding through their parking lot and clipped the rental. It was a hit and run in broad daylight and one of the office workers got the license plate of hit-and-run vehicle. I thought I was clear since I had returned the vehicle and it was parked in their lot and their employees had witnessed the accident. Wrong - I hadn't signed the paperwork yet so I hadn't returned the car in their eyes even though it had been sitting on their lot for 12 hours. The rental company went after me for the $500 deductible not covered by my insurance. The hit-and-run driver would not respond with his insurance information when contacted and my discount insurance made little effort to pursue it. They wouldn't even get the police involved and when I did the police didn't make much effort to find the hit-and-run driver since there was no personal injury involved (even though they had an accident report). My discount insurance said my only recourse was to sue the hit-and-run driver in civil court for the $500 - they weren't going to do anything more on the case.

I made a call to my CC company since I had charged the transaction and they promptly paid the $500 with little hassle. Needless to say, I have a new auto insurance carrier and will never lease from that car rental place again. I did keep my CC.

[wuapinmon]

humblebrag

[old_gregg]

Got nothing but good things to say about my CC service.

My CC company called me asking if I had made a large appliance and furniture purchase in another part of the country. While we were sorting it out (it was not a valid purchase) another purchase request came through for a large purchase in Europe. So we were able to issue a new card right then and then go through my recent purchase history to validate. Was happy that customer service called me before turning off my card since it was obvious someone had sold my CC number. I was notified later that they traced the culprit to a fast food drive through that was taking pictures of CCs with a cell phone and then selling the numbers.

Another incident with a happy ending was when we rented a car for family vacation since our car was unexpectedly in the repair shop. We put the transaction on our CC. Upon our return from vacation we returned the car but their office was closed on Sunday. So we parked the rental car in their lot exactly where we found it when we leased it. The next morning, 20 minutes before I arrived at the office to sign the paperwork and return the keys, someone lost control of their car while speeding through their parking lot and clipped the rental. It was a hit and run in broad daylight and one of the office workers got the license plate of hit-and-run vehicle. I thought I was clear since I had returned the vehicle and it was parked in their lot and their employees had witnessed the accident. Wrong - I hadn't signed the paperwork yet so I hadn't returned the car in their eyes even though it had been sitting on their lot for 12 hours. The rental company went after me for the $500 deductible not covered by my insurance. The hit-and-run driver would not respond with his insurance information when contacted and my discount insurance made little effort to pursue it. They wouldn't even get the police involved and when I did the police didn't make much effort to find the hit-and-run driver since there was no personal injury involved (even though they had an accident report). My discount insurance said my only recourse was to sue the hit-and-run driver in civil court for the $500 - they weren't going to do anything more on the case.

I made a call to my CC company since I had charged the transaction and they promptly paid the $500 with little hassle. Needless to say, I have a new auto insurance carrier and will never lease from that car rental place again. I did keep my CC.

Geico?

[Paperback Writer]

Geico?

As Oberst (Colonel) Hans Landa would say, "That's a bingo!"

[Scott R Nelson]

In a few days I'll be on my fourth credit card since moving to Idaho. (Moving here has nothing to do with it.) I really liked the number that we had three years ago and pinned that card to our bulletin board as a reminder.

My wife just can't resist the offer of "something for nothing", and ordered some sort of health product that she learned about on Facebook. As soon as I found out she had made this order I knew it had to be something shady, but was hoping maybe it wasn't after all. Supposedly you just had to pay for shipping on something that should have cost a lot more. So a month or so later they go ahead and charge you the full price which was in the neighborhood of ninety-five bucks. Way more than the five bucks it was originally supposed to be.

The person I talked to at Wells Fargo said they've had quite a few cases like this recently with that particular company. The charge was declined and we were sent a note about it - Wells Fargo does a good job of looking out for us. She said we could try to contact the company, and try to get them to delete our card number. I chose the more sure way of handling it and just cancelled the credit card.

So now the wife has strict orders to not enter a credit card number on any web site that isn't a major business. Amazon has a whole list of our old cancelled credit cards. I'll have to update this new one before buying anything else from them.

But at least we're not stuck without a credit card while waiting the few days for the new one to show up. I ordered a second credit card a year or so back that we never use just for this case. So I can still buy gas and things like that in the mean time.

Such is life with someone who is a little too trusting of others...

[Pelado]

In a few days I'll be on my fourth credit card since moving to Idaho. (Moving here has nothing to do with it.) I really liked the number that we had three years ago and pinned that card to our bulletin board as a reminder.

My wife just can't resist the offer of "something for nothing", and ordered some sort of health product that she learned about on Facebook. As soon as I found out she had made this order I knew it had to be something shady, but was hoping maybe it wasn't after all. Supposedly you just had to pay for shipping on something that should have cost a lot more. So a month or so later they go ahead and charge you the full price which was in the neighborhood of ninety-five bucks. Way more than the five bucks it was originally supposed to be.

The person I talked to at Wells Fargo said they've had quite a few cases like this recently with that particular company. The charge was declined and we were sent a note about it - Wells Fargo does a good job of looking out for us. She said we could try to contact the company, and try to get them to delete our card number. I chose the more sure way of handling it and just cancelled the credit card.

So now the wife has strict orders to not enter a credit card number on any web site that isn't a major business. Amazon has a whole list of our old cancelled credit cards. I'll have to update this new one before buying anything else from them.

But at least we're not stuck without a credit card while waiting the few days for the new one to show up. I ordered a second credit card a year or so back that we never use just for this case. So I can still buy gas and things like that in the mean time.

Such is life with someone who is a little too trusting of others...

If you have Amazon Prime, then you should get the Amazon Prime card through Chase. 5% back on all purchases at Amazon and Whole Foods. I only use it for Amazon and have removed all my other payment sources from my Amazon account.

[Bo Diddley]

If you have Amazon Prime, then you should get the Amazon Prime card through Chase. 5% back on all purchases at Amazon and Whole Foods. I only use it for Amazon and have removed all my other payment sources from my Amazon account.

^^^This.

I just counted and I have seven credit cards, and the missus has 5. It'll be time to get a few new ones soon and reap the benefits of introductory points and what not. I've picked-up thousands of dollars in perks over the last decade or so. I should keep track.