According to merchants I have spoken to, CIBC query more transactions than any other CC provider.

Not only that, it does not help at all to call ahead of time to warn them that you are about to make a purchase which is outside your normal pattern. I've been told that the fraud detection heuristics work in real time and can't be defeated by prior warnings. So you'll be forced to call in and confirm at the point of sale in any case.

When chip & PIN finally reaches Canada, this nonsense should stop. I still cannot understand why a highly effective technology, proven to defeat POS fraud, should take so long to be implemented in North America. If it can be rolled out so quickly in multilingual Europe, why the foot dragging over here? This makes me somewhat cynical about CC providers' "concerns" about fraud.