I was in Medellin and I tried to take out money with my Chase debit card. It did not work. I called the 800 number (see TPOL’s Tip: Use Skype for 800 #s Abroad) and was told that the fraud department was closed. Eventually, a text came through asking if I approved the transaction and all was well.
TPOL’s Tip: Get your Schwab together (see ATM Issues Abroad & Charles Schwab Debit Card: Use As Instructed)!
This week I made a few purchases on my United Business card, hoping to extricate myself from min spend hell (see Oops!… I Did It Again). The last purchase was a booking for a new year’s eve celebration. Each time I tried, I received a message that the card was declined. I called Chase at 1AM and received the following automated message: “Our fraud office is closed right now. We apologize for the inconvenience. Goodbye!” And then the phone disconnected.
Rage is the appropriate word to describe what I was feeling. How is the fraud department not 24/7? What if this were an emergency? Why wasn’t there a notification on my phone? When would they open again?
I called at 8AM and received the same message that the office was closed. I called at 9AM and they were finally open. Their excuse was that people were working from home during Covid so they can’t staff the fraud department around the clock. I replied, “When do you think most fraud alerts are occurring, in the middle of the workday?” They concluded with the words, “Don’t worry, we have lifted the block on your account. Your card is now available for immediate use.”
What garbage.
Has happened to me with Chase 3 times on what I consider relatively mundane purchases and took them forever. I probably spend 5-6 hours on the phone in total. And people working from home is even more of a reason they should be able to staff around the clock. (And – after flagging 3 legitimate purchases at merchants I spend at all the time they missed flagging a purchase at an international pharmacy when I have never had an international purchase on that card ever much less an online pharmacy . . .
It makes no sense. I can appreciate the days when i spent $3000 at CVS. That may be suspicious but come on, open table reservation suspicious?
My spouse lost their CSR at Thanksgiving dinner while traveling. The Chase app was giving us an error and when calling the line kept saying that Chase was closed for “training”. What!?!? Training on Thanksgiving night!?!? We tried for two hours and finally gave up. Had to report the card lost the next morning. Thankfully there were no charges.
How in the world is this ok? It shouldn’t be that complicated to turn a card off / report it lost.
That’s why they need training
Tons of companies are using “Covid” as an excuse for cutting services… And just like in this case, the excuse of not being open 24/7 because people are working from home doesn’t pass the stupid test.
But they think we’re stupid
I’ve never had really bad problems with Chase, but I did have a security issue with Citi a few months ago. Tried to make a transaction on an AA card I hadn’t used in a while and got a security block. Responded to their text message and said transaction was legit. Was told to try again. Blocked again. Called and was put through to an incompetent CSR who was obviously reading off a script and couldn’t answer my questions. Made a halfhearted follow up attempt with Citi’s Twitter folks, but dropped it because it wasn’t worth the aggravation.
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Seems like they have a bunch of delicate geniuses.
Almost time for festivus