OT bank notification of debit card use, continued

OT bank notification of debit card use, continued

First, is there a newsgroup that specializes in banking, or commerce, or business, or anything for which this would be on-topic? And where people might know the answer to what I think is a very strange question?

Some of you may remember that I get notifications from the bank every time my charge card is used a) to charge more than some amount, maybe $100, or b) to buy something outside the 50 states.

And you may remember my complaining about being charged $110 for a car that only holds 10 gallons of gasoline, when every other gas station charged between 50 and 57. Did I mention that the overcharge happened twice, 110.19 and 109.74.

So today I went to the gas station and showed him a copy of the email the bank sent me, and said, What do you think abouty that? We dont' speak each other's language but he knows a little English and he said "You didn't pay that". I assumed he was referring to the foreign exchange commission, and I pointed out that no other gas station had charged more than 57. He also got the guy who works behind the counter, whose English was pretty good, and all he did was say the same thing and give me the gas station chain's phone number.

But by the time I got back, it was after 5, so I called the bank in the US.

(BTW, it used to be very hard to call an 800 number in the US, but with Skype you can call it like any other number. You still pay the

2.3 cents a minute for Skype, but you'd have to do that anyhow and you don't have to convert 800 to 8nn like you used to, (and in years before that, you had to find their non-800 number) .

So the girl at the bank, who seemed a little flighty, told me that on April 3, I hadn't paid $110.19, only $44.76, and on April 10, I hadn't paid $109.74, only $34.36. Plus in each case about 1.30 transaction fee.

I didnt' believe that, but I looked at the online monthly statement, and by golly it was true. What's going on? Why are they sending me emails saying I paid much more money than I did?

And what is the relationship?. The first one is 2.46 times the real charge, but the second is 3.19 times the real charge!!

Now I have to go look at all the other gas station emails and compare them with the monthly statement , and with the receipt fromn the gas station.

For that matter, there are all the non-gas purchases I should compare, restaurants, grocery stores, museums, and outdoor stuff like zoos.

The rentacar company keeps pinging my debit card account. For the 3rd time they pinged it for $2400 but so far I think they've only billed me for $650. I understand why they checked int he first place, and maybe they put a hold on 2400 but the hold only lasts for a month?????

But the rentacar company doesn't know how long I'll keep the car or how much damage I will do to it. The 800 extra is the maximum I have to pay if I damage it (though I was told 550, so there may be a fight.) But the gas station knows what the bill is 5 minutes after I start pumping. Why not check or even put on a hold for the largest tank any car has and then charge the actual amount 5 minutes later.

Reply to
Micky
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Exchange rate where you are at? Charged in dinars then paid dollars?

Reply to
Thomas

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Reply to
hubops

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Well, the clerk at the counter doesn't set policy, so talking to them is fruitless; they can't reprogram the pumps. It could be done by corporate, yes, but it's highly unlikely they're going to change for you. I'd guess the choice here is to use another station if the hold is creating other problems.

Well, the hold _was_ placed for at least a little while; the notification 'bot doesn't wait to see there's a later credit to match up with the merchant ID to send a net or to not bother with notification at all if that net is under the trigger. If this bugs you, I'd expect there's a way to shut off the notification entirely if you want but that may have ramifications on coverage protection in case of actual misuse if they're doing anything above the minimum letter of the law as service.

What's it hurt? Once you're aware of what's happening, it doesn't seem as though there's any real concern other than the potential for a transaction to be turned down elsewhere owing to limit while there's a high level set but seems like that's only avoidable by changing where you trade.

It's been a while since I've been overseas but used AmEx CC almost exclusively; never noticed anything at all untoward with it. I don't use debit cards owing to their limited consumer protection vis a vis credit, but that's my personal paranoia.

Reply to
dpb

(LOTS of snippage.) I'm not sure what we can do for you in this situation.

Doesn't your bank have a local office that you can speak to someone face-to-face?

Reply to
ItsJoanNotJoann

I answered your original question awhile ago...

Yep. So, how long did you have to wait to get a new card? Since you had the pin changed...Or, did you go in a local branch and fix it?

I feel for the person who took that call. I really do.

Your monthly statement is the only one you need to be concerned with. And, it's not your actual transaction history, but, I already covered this.

I suspect i'd be wasting my time explaining what happened. based on prior post to you. that, as far as I can tell, you didn't respond to.

Why? You have your monthly statement, right? That's what you *should* be going by.

Reply to
Diesel

I know. Call on me! Call on me!

When you use a debit card in a gas station they do no know how much you are going to pump. They put a hold on $XXX.xx in case you are going to fill up a truck or camper. Once the actual charge comes through, they adjust to the actual amount.

Yes, same deal. That is why it is not good to use a debit card for gas stations and car rentals. They can tie up your funds for a while.

>
Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

I had the same thing happen with a hotel, they reserve some amount of money in case you charge things to the room or steal the towels, whatever.

Of course, that was a credit card in my case. The pending charge disappeared after a few days.

nancy

Reply to
Nancy Young

Thanks, but no, I allowed for that. The email transaction alert is in dollars but it's 2.5 to 3 times what was actually charged the account. And it's twice what every other gas station alert was, though I still have to compare those alerts with the actual withdrawals.

Reply to
Micky
[snip]

Sort of... You're very close though. It can also affect a credit card transaction in the same manner. It's not restricted to your debit card. They don't know how much money your card has available, so, if you only had, say $20 available and you pumped $50 worth, they're eating $30; since they do the transaction AFTER you receive the gas.

They can't very well reverse the pump and get that gas back from you. So, they place a hold on your card that's settable by them, and

*should* cover however much you might use at their pump. Your bank and the ACH network determines how long that hold actually lasts, not the gas merchant. The merchant just controls how much of a hold they're going to place on you. Just to make sure you can pay for the gas you pumped.

If you want to avoid the entire process, go inside and swipe your card at the cash register. This also reduces the chances of your card being skimmed, since it's much harder to modify the cash register equipment (pending the cashier isn't in on it) than it is to play with the gas pumps card reader.

Don't take my word for it, see here:

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One little thing the article doesn't mention is what happens if you pump more gas than you can pay for using that card...Bring another card and/or cash with you, or just prepay for a specified amount and swipe your card for that amount, prior to pumping, INSIDE the store. Otherwise, if you pump the gas and can't pay for it, well, you won't be having a good day.

If your familiar with the vehicle, you should already have a good idea how much gas it can drink to full up.

Reply to
Diesel

I didn't say so but I talked to the manager, who I was told was also the owner. The counter clerk just did translating.

There's no doubt he was the manager. Not sure if the word "owner" was understood, even though the counter guy seemed to speak v.good English. "Owner" is the kind of word that varies in meaning depending on who's using it.

You're right, I'm sure, but if it's only a hold and not a debit, the bank ought to say that. It ought to alert me that way. Instead it says Amount $109.74 Debit/ATM card ending in nnnn Where: at this brand of gas in this town When: Date View details, A link which could go straight to the transaction in the email but instead just goes to Bank of America, where I have to page to find the transaction, and where I can't find it by looking for a matching amount because the amounts don't come close to matching. And where, when I do find the transaction, the added details are more about me than about them. It doesn't give the amount of the charge in the original denomination, It does give the lower amount, $34.36 and it does say: Description: CHECKCARD 0410 gas compny & town and a 23-digit number which I guess is the transaction number Merchant category: Service Stations (with or without Ancillary Services) Merchant category code: 5541 Merchant name: the same as on the email alert. No reference to a prior hold, 5 minutes earlier, that is now released.

That would be worse, because except for the rentacar and this gas station (and maybe the others, havent' checked yet) everyone else sends the right amount.

It took me weeks to figure it out, and I suppose the other 100's of thousands of BOA customers who look at the alerts are also wasting their time trying to figure it out. The gas station manager seemed to know about it when he said "You didn't pay that."

Plus for travelers, someone who had unexpected expenses, or who stayed longer than planned, might be getting near the end of his money in the debit account or credit in the credit account.

And most of all, now that I know and since I wasn't running out of money***, it's just so annoying to see a major institution, bankers who are supposed to know how to bank, who claim to report transactions but don't know how to report them.

It's like NASA had telemetry from the Apollo moon shots and the booster rocket sent back an alert, "About 93,000 gallons of fuel left", and that's not enough to get the ship out of earth's gravitational pull and the ground crew is thinking they should abort, about to abort. Then later Apollo adjusts the amount to say 270,000 gallons of fuel left, but doesn't bother to send that to the ground crew. Would that system be acceptable?

If they want to send a notice that there is a hold, that's a good thing but only if they follow with a notice, "Hold released / Actual charge is $nn.nn." Aren't the actual charges more important to me than the holds? Especially when the actual charge is only 5 minutes after the hold? Especially when the hold is 50 dollars more and I have over 5000 dollars in the account. What I want to know is how much I was charged.

The monthly statement online does have that information (though I'm not sure how soon), but it's much much harder to use than email, which just arrives with no effort. To look at the monthly statement, one has to be willing to do it on the phone, or he has to have access to a computer. Has to go to the webpage, log in, get to the summary page and scroll down looking for the charge. On April 10th somehow I had about 10 charges on that one day (counting the commission charges which are listed separately (a little over 1% for a $100 charges, 3% for 10 dollar charges, and people here use their card for everything. When I failed to ask for a plastic bag in advance at the supermiarket, and I had no change, he took my card and charged me for the bag. $0.03. I havent' checked yet what the commission was on that. ;-)

***Actually I added 4000 dollars to the debit account by writing a check on another account somewhere else and holding it up to the phone, and depositing it over net. Very strange. (I wasnt' running out of money yet, but in case it didnt' work, I wanted time to do other things.)

Oh, and the rentacar place caused the credit-card bank to send me another notice today "A transaction on your Voice Credit Card account nicknamed CC2827 with card ending in 2827 attempted a single transaction that is above the limit of $1.00 set in your alert preferences. " I hadn't noticed the word "attempted" before. Maybe that means they're just checking to see if I have enough credit, but they should be putting a hold on, and the notice should say hold, not attempt. Attempt makes it sound like they got the expiration date or the 3-number code wrong, so the charge failed.

Back to the first bank, Bank of America, when I got charged the same amount twice in 5 minutes, but one was cancelled, the woman at the bank said they didnt' send me a notice because the merchant cancelled it, not the bank. I explained that the merchant made the original charge to and they notified me about that, so they should notify me about cancellations. She seemed to agree and said she'd tell her supervisor or someone. I find it amazing that after all these years, their procedures are so bad. Maybe there is some benefit to the bank in having these mistaken procedures, but I can't imagine what it is.

If I went by the rentacar alerts only I'd think they charged me 5000 dollars by now.

And I don't know if I posted here that BOA doesnt' send alerts for some Ebay purchases claiming the PIN was used, even though it wasn't. Ebay doesn't know my PIN and certainly the various vendors don't know my PIN. I spent 2 hours on the phone with BOA about this, the second hour she had someone from Ebay on the phone with us, and the ebay woman explained things from her pov but the BOA woman just couldn't believe that BOA was doing it wrong. I finally got referred to the Electronic Payment Department, I think it was, but I need to rest up before another phone call of an hour or two. (I also cherish the weak hope that if I wait a month or two, the conversation will get back to someone in charge who will fix this without my having to call again.)

So this is 3 major or substantial mistakes in BOA policy. It's incredible.

Reply to
Micky

Not in this country.

I pays to post here. The reply I just made to dpb will function well either as notes when I talk to someone in person or on the phone when I get back home, or as the basis for a letter.

Much as I hate webforums, maybe I'll find a banking website with a forum and post there, but when I get home. Too much interesting and fun stuff to do here.

Reply to
Micky

I don't remember and I looked and coudn't find it. Could you tell me again of a newsgroup like that, or someplace people really know about these things.

I didn't lose the card, and the PIN wasn't involved in these charges. At none of the gas stations do they ask for the pin or have me enter it, and at only one of the stations did they ask for my signature.

When you pump it yourself, they do ask for you ID number, which I'm told is mostly for cases when the gas is a deductible business expense (and therefore if you enter a number that's no good, it doesn't hurt them, only possibly you yourself, but not me since my gas is not a deduction), and your license plate number, which I think has to do with if you reverse the credit card charge, or maybe the card is stolen so they can't use its info to find you, but at least they can find the car.

That's sweet of you.

I looked in the thread about gas and so forth and didn't find any posts by you that tried to explain this.

Why send me alerts if they are just going to be misleading? Why send alerts about holds if they don't send an alert for the actual charge? Why send alerts about holds but not call them holds, and why not send one when the hold is lifted?. One would think email notification just started 6 months ago and they havent' figured anything out yet.

Reply to
Micky

You in the back, chewing gum. You finally have something to contribute?

I think notifying me of a hold is good, but they should in the email distinguish holds from charges, and they should email me when the hold is lifted, and they should email me the actual charge. Otherwise, the whole email alert systerm is more lame than a 3-legged cat.

You're right.

In this case I made sure I had plenty of money, because it's illegal to work here when you're a tourist. ;-)

And most places insist on a credit card for car rental. I don't know why since I learned you can put a hold on debit cards too. And does't the hold on the credit card t ies up that amount of credit, which for some people is more likely to be spent than money!

Reply to
Micky

Serious questions:

Did the bank send you an email alert about the hold? (Well, do you have it set up for email alerts at all?)

Did the alert call it a hold or use the same words they use for an actual charge?

Did they send another email when the hold was lifted? Sending the first but not the second is like sending a letter, "Your baby has been kidnapped" and then never saying when your 2-month old child who can't walk to a telephone and can't use a telephone is released.

Did the bank send an alert about the final actual charge from the hotel?

Reply to
Micky

Questions that you could, perhaps, ask the credit card company ? Duh Huh ... John T.

Reply to
hubops

Simplify your life. Use your card to get a bunch of cash, pay in cash. When you run out of cash, get more.

Reply to
dadiOH

I tried the email thing once and it was just annoying so I turned off that option. Really I have no idea if they would have notified me of a block of credit on hold.

I knew this was common practice in some industries but I never noticed it in action before.

I only noticed the pending charge because I checked my statement for some other reason. I use a credit card so it doesn't overly concern me as I can dispute it later. If I used a debit card I'd be checking all the time because the money would disappear from my account if there was fraud.

Not a fan. Good thing you had enough cash in the account but maybe traveling is a good time to use credit cards.

nancy

Reply to
Nancy Young

On 05/05/2017 4:16 AM, Micky wrote: ...

Well, even if he were, it's a franchise operation. The net is I am certain he has no say in corporate policy regarding the amount set for coverage on at-pump sales.

...

And so, as said, it's a temporary inconvenience that you get the notification; the actual amount is transitory. _Could_ they reprogram the 'bot? Sure. Are they going to? Most unlikely. It is, after all, BOA, about the most worthless outfit going for consumer banking.

...

...

Doesn't seem that difficult; annoying perhaps, but not difficult. The monthly statement is the final arbiter and you seem to be "whole" in the end which is all that really matters to BOA.

Did I say before BOA sucks?

BTW, if you don't want the excessive hold, at least most stations will set an upper limit on the pump if you ask instead of just the "free-pump fillup". If you aren't insistent on topping-off, just go for what you're certain can take and that's all the charge will be; the pump will shut off automagically when gets there.

When gas prices skyrocketed there were so many driveoffs and card limits exceeded before the limits were enacted the industry reacted and often over-reacted as this particular one you've encountered. Here, at least, with the stabilization in prices and the backing off from the most extreme, the problem has abated and most, if not all, stations are pretty reasonable.

BTW, if I haven't mentioned it before, BOA is terrible...find a "real" bank.

Reply to
dpb

On 05/05/2017 8:09 AM, Nancy Young wrote: ...

+1

And, of course, the second rule is to have at _least_ two with sizable limits, "just in case"...

Reply to
dpb

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