I agree with the BofA, but regarding Citibank, personally I think Citibank CC is one of the few companies that got there shit together.
They’re pretty anal about CC fraud, and have invested tons of money into early fraud detection. As a consumer, I’m pretty glad they are doing this.
Citibank actually analyzes your purchases and who/whom you purchase from…If out of the bloom, they start seeing charges overseas or even out of state, or see you purchase gas more than twice in the same day, they will flag your card as a potential stolen and call you…You might think this is a PITA..until your CC really gets stolen…I’ve had friends with their CC stolen, it it only took about 1/2 hr for someone to rack up the entire credit limit.
If you don’t like the early fraud detention, then call up Citibank before you go on a trip and tell them you will be spending there. Then it won’t trip toe fraud alerts..
The other thing is that Citibank/BofA and other banks routinely cancel credit cards IF there was a security breach at one of the merchants that had your credit card number…What happens is one of these merchants report to your CC that your info has been compromised, and then the CC company automatically cancels the card and reissues you another one. The fault is the merchant you bought from, not the CC company So if you’re pissed about this, blame this on the merchant, though the CC company can’t disclose which merchant had the breach.
Alternatively, this would never happen if you use a virtual CC number. Some companies allow you to generate a virtual CC number for fixed amount of fixed expiration date to use for those oh-so-shady merchants. That way, if the merchant screws up, you just cancel the virtual #, leaving the actual number alone. I use Citibank specifically for this purpose because I don’t think there is any other company that offers this, it it’s great when you deal with really shady internet companies or subscription services that you think will overcharge you even if you cancel the service.
With all due respect, you should never use your permanent CC number for a reoccurring purchase/account anyway or keep it “on file” at any merchant. If you do this regularly, that’s probably why you’re getting your cards cancelled, because of merchant’s poor practices of handling CC numbers leading your data exposed…Merchants are usually less careful about handling PII data (personal information) than these banks. If you do, chances are that someone already has your permanent CC and are just a step of way from using it. The problem with a lot of those CC from credit unions or smaller banks is they don’t have those fraud detections in place, and if you are one of those unlucky people, you will have a nice headache dealing with all those fraud charges.
