Chase - Visa Review

We got our Chase rewards card about  a year and a half ago. We finally got ourselves debt-free and decided to simplify our record keeping by charging everything to a single source and paying it off at the end of the month- and earning cash for our purchases to boot with their rewards program. And for awhile all was well.

We've never been late with a payment, we have never come near to approaching our credit limit and we have never carried a balance. Our reward: they started declining random charges last week.

The three customer service people I have had to deal with in the last week all sing the same song. Fraud is on the rise and they just want to protect me (but who will protect me from their harrassment). Now I could understand if I was shopping in Peru or charging triple X sites all of a sudden but they have taken to declining my regular weekly trips in the same places I always shop. There has been nothing new or unusual on my account but I apparently won the harrassment lottery.

Each rep at the end of their calls has also said the same thing about now my card is fine and I should be able to use it without any more issues. Except the first girl said that. Then the second girl said that. Now the third girl has said it and I am just holding my breath waiting for the next decline. (And my first experience with their customer service was a little girl probably in India with an accent so thick she could only be half understood. Come on people - if your going to outsource you should at least give them enunciation courses.)

In this day and age of sophisticated computer equipment certainly they have a few algorithms lying around to tell them "Nope, this transaction fits the profile, no fraud here." When my online shopping order is being sent to the credit card billing address it should be a pretty obvious sign that it is business as usual.

So, I am off to shop for a new rewards card. It they decline another transaction I will be ready to go with declining them any more of my business.