Bank of America decided it detected "unusual activity" on my debit card

[Anonymous]

Yesterday I hiked to Whole Foods in our unplowed neighborhood and selected $45 in groceries (shop at WF pretty regularly). Debit/credit card turned down. WTF? Turned down at ATM too.
Slogged home. BOA had called...unusual activity on my account.

Called back; 1/2 hour on hold. What was this unusual activity? Why, I had paid for something on Pay Pal that was less than $50 over the weekend. And, I had just attempted to pay for something at Whole Foods! And then visited an ATM!

And "thank you for being a preferred customer of Bank of America! We keep your money safe."

Transferring....

[Anonymous]

Ugh.

Could you have called from the store? Being on hold for half an hour is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

If you sign up for their text alerts they will tell you when they have flagged your card. Also, you don't always have to call and can verify transactions online.

[Anonymous]

If you are not a regular paypal user and it was an international purchase it's a flag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you sign up for their text alerts they will tell you when they have flagged your card. Also, you don't always have to call and can verify transactions online.

They did send me a text alert....after they denied my card. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are not a regular paypal user and it was an international purchase it's a flag.

Nope.

[Anonymous]

They do that to me pretty often. It sucks.

[Anonymous]

They can't win - if they didn't protect your account you'd be pissed about that too.

[Anonymous]

I'm surprised it hasn't happened to you before. I think it's awesome banks try to hard to protect you from fraud. All you have to say is yes that was my purchase. Next time it will be someone else who had stolen your number and you'll be glad they caught it. Don't switch banks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised it hasn't happened to you before. I think it's awesome banks try to hard to protect you from fraud. All you have to say is yes that was my purchase. Next time it will be someone else who had stolen your number and you'll be glad they caught it. Don't switch banks.

EXACTLY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised it hasn't happened to you before. I think it's awesome banks try to hard to protect you from fraud. All you have to say is yes that was my purchase. Next time it will be someone else who had stolen your number and you'll be glad they caught it. Don't switch banks.

They are protecting themselves. Legally, they are on the hook, not the card holder. So, they are sometimes overzealous.

[Anonymous]

Chase does this to us regularly too - generally when we are at Wegman's where we shop nearly every week. Its aggravating as all hell (this is a credit card, I can dispute charges after the fact, don't make me abandon a cart full of groceries to sort it out.)

[Anonymous]

Op here. I have zero problem with unusual activity reports. But this was not unusual activity. And shutting off my card in the middle of a blizzard was totally inappropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chase does this to us regularly too - generally when we are at Wegman's where we shop nearly every week. Its aggravating as all hell (this is a credit card, I can dispute charges after the fact, don't make me abandon a cart full of groceries to sort it out.)

That's fine and dandy for you but as someone pointed out above, the bank is on the hook for the money. How about you pay 50% of every dispute so you don't have to deal with it right then. Does that sound fair?

[Anonymous]

I tend to avoid paypal and seller who has paypal as the only payment option.