Prime Rate Credit

I can’t help but notice that both mine and my boyfriend’s credit cards seemed to have stepped up their security measures lately. Perhaps it is because credit card and identity theft and fraud are on the up this time of year, when the holidays have people putting record amounts of cash on their credit cards, but we have both experienced our credit card companies temporarily shutting down our credit cards until we called them to verify that our last few charges were, indeed, valid and desired charges on our credit cards.

They didn’t think the activity was normal I guess, because we happened to have a lot of charges, all in a row, that came from online and over the phone. I guess that any time many creditors see activity that seems out of the norm or a little higher than usual, their radars go up and they kick in to protective mode now, because I don’t remember having to verify so many charges before this.

An example is that today, a usual charge that appears monthly on my business credit card charge, was declined. I knew that I was well under the maximum spending limit on the card, and was more than on time with my credit card payments, since I usually just pay the existing balance whenever I can during the month, so I knew that it couldn’t have been declined for any reason on my end, but I had a hunch that they were just doing some random security check and froze the account.

Although I do wish they could do this some other way without freezing the account, I do understand also that they are doing it for my security. Further more, the particular charge they declined is a customary charge that has appeared every month on my statement without contest from me since I’ve had the credit card in the first place. Even if you don’t have a credit card for bad credit, or have not made excessive charges or been late, they will freeze your account for what they deem excessive or suspicious activity.

I called the company, and was put on hold for a few minutes before I got a representative to talk to (I never take matters like this through the automated system, even if there is an option, in this particular case I also needed the charge to go through almost immediately as business depended on it).

I was asked to verify that several charges that had just gone through that day were indeed my charges and that I had authorized them. Once I had done that, and of course verified my social security number and mother’s maiden name, they said they would activate my account again almost immediately. You might experience something like this no matter who you have as your carrier, especially since credit card charges and fraud are particularly rampant around the holidays.