Three Cheers for American Express Fraud Prevention!

After we got back from our paddle, I was checking email and noticed one from American Express. "Click here if it was you trying to charge $580 at Bloomingdales!" Yikes! No one has been to Bloomingdale's since they closed the one at Prestonwood about 15 years ago.

I was getting ready to phone American Express when I saw that there was another email asking me to verify recent charges. $356 at Macy's. No - not us. $290 at Kohl's - Again not us. Less than $10 for the Wall Street Journal - Okay, we charged that. Remarkably, the only one they let go through was the WSJ charge - the one that was legitimate. They had declined the charges at Bloomingdales, Macy's and Kohl's. Thank goodness!

I called the number on the back of the card and they confirmed the recent charges that were legitimate and went over the charges that were declined.

AE asked the appropriate questions - Did Mark loan his card to anyone? (Of course not!) Was it still in his possession. (Yes, it was.) The fraudulent charges were attempted at locations in Ohio. Did we know who might have done this. (I have no idea. We have friends and family in Ohio, but I can't believe any of our friends or family would attempt to fraudulently use our credit card.)

My theory is that someone noted or photographed the card information when we were in Ohio last summer thinking that they could sneak something through around Christmas time. But they apparently didn't realize that it was a business card (although it says "BUSINESS" right on it) and they may not have realized that the cardholder wasn't local. Just my theory. (And you have to have a theory so that you can do your best to make sure it doesn't happen again.)

Our best guess as to why the fraud prevention works so well is that they have a profile built for the card - it's a business card and is typically only used for gas, office supplies, and the odd restaurant. Department store charges probably sent red flags straight up the flagpole.

The charges were attempted only days before Christmas. I suppose the wannabe thief thought they could sneak it through because so many people were shopping that day and it might have gone unnoticed. I don't care whether they stole the credit card details or bought it on the dark web - I'm very happy that their attempt at thieving was thwarted.