Using credit cards strategically ensures that we maximize our profits, minimize our losses and avoid credit approval delays. In this issue of Identity Management Journal, we want to cover a topic which can help us avoid credit approval delays. You’ve probably received a call or email from your credit card company at some point asking you to verify certain card transactions. As you may be aware, banks have sophisticated fraud detection systems which analyze billions of daily credit cards transactions looking for suspicious patterns when comparing them to the cardholder spending habits and other fraud cases. These fraud detection systems have evolved and improved over the years and will continue to get better as financial institutions attempt to further minimize their credit card fraud losses.

One way that cardholders can avoid credit approval delays is by using credit cards strategically and think like a fraud detection system. For example, while on vacation, you want to consider using the same card which you used to book the vacation package including hotel and airfare. The reason for this is that a fraud detection system might flag an out of town transaction as fraud if the same card was not used to reserve the hotel or purchase the plane tickets depending on whether the system was configured by humans to identify this pattern as potential fraud. Of course, flagging a transaction as potential fraud requiring cardholder verification can depend on many factors including the transaction amount, international location, etc. However, if the system is configured to flag an unrelated or out of place transaction as fraud, cardholders can avoid transaction approval delays by using the same card for related transactions such as using the card to buy the vacation package as well as shopping and dining while on vacation. We will expand on this topic and post a new article to the identity theft blog in the near future.

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Until next time, be identity safe,
Henry Bagdasarian
Identity Management Institute

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