Credit card warning

It’s reassuring that banks are on the ball. I remember being a bit irked with mine though when they saw my paying a Center Parcs balance as suspicious activity and blocked it when I’d paid the deposit with the same card a few months earlier!

I have used the same bank since 1960 and up to date have been very lucky with all transactions as by now they would know my spending habits etc and I'm almost sure that if there was any jiggery pokery going on I'd be told post haste.

This time of year lots of additional spending is going on on all sorts of unusual things. I've very often made credit card bookings for hotels and holidays in general. It's never come up as a problem before.
My debit card was cloned once after I used an ATM but luckily I check my account online very regularly and spotted a charge I definitely hadn't made. The bank's fraud dept was very good and refunded the money and issued another card. I noticed that the particular ATM that I'd used was replaced very soon after I was affected. I suspect I wasn't the only victim.

The banks have systems that highlight any unusual spending and I have had phone calls to confirm that a purchase I have made is genuine.

Some years ago DD's card was intercepted and stolen in the post. The first she knew of it was a phone call from her credit card issuer asking if she had bough some very expensive hi-fi kit for delivery to an address four streets away. When she said 'no'. The transaction was cancelled and she collected her replacement card from her local bank branch rather than it being posted to her.

We had th opposite. I booked accommodation for a big family get together next summer. I filled in all the details, using DH’s card that we always use for online purchases. I hadn’t realised that the website had filled in my name as the card holder. Silly I know. I rang them in a panic, but apparently the payment had gone through without a hitch. Name and number not match8ng didn’t make a difference!