Not fraud is like this.

[charamei]

Note to myself for the future: in NatWest-computer-speak, 'a bookshop in Luxembourg' means Amazon.

Sorry, Fraud Prevention Guy. If the machine had been programmed by somebody with a bit more sense, you wouldn't have had to deal with me being cross at you on my lunch break.

(My account's fine. The suspicious transactions in question turned out to be:

• Moving money into my savings account like I do every month on payday


• Placing an order on Amazon, shock, horror, oh wait I do that at least twice a month


• Buying reusable period towels while being a woman in her early 20s.

Clearly suspicious behaviour.)

The best part is, because they make you call them, I have paid three quid for the privilege of being frustrated by a machine and getting to tell a complete (male) stranger about my menstrual hygiene over the phone. Now that's a con.

Comments

[dbskyler]

No, my account had definitely been reviewed by a human, and someone made a deliberate decision to cancel the card. It's interesting that they were so certain that the charges were fraudulent. The customer service rep called me up and told me there were suspicious charges and they were handling it, and I was so grateful at first. Then she started telling me what the charges were and I kept saying "no, that one's mine, and so's that one, and yes, that one too," and she got a little flustered. In the end she told me to review my statement when I got it and mark down any charges that weren't mine and send them in. However, all of the charges were mine.

It was a small pain for me because I was without the card until the new one arrived, and I had to switch over one or two recurring charges to the new account number. But mostly it seemed that the credit card company had jumped the gun and spent time and effort that they could have saved themselves by calling me earlier. On the other hand, at least they called to tell me what they were doing instead of refusing the charge the next time I used the card and making me figure out what was going on.