Originally Posted by
iahphx
Does anyone else have a problem with the "fraud alert" practices of PenFed? They routinely reject my transactions -- or, sometimes, process the transaction and then freeze my card -- when I make "normal" (at least for me) purchases. Even buying airline tickets from the major carriers (the best use of their AMEX card) sometimes triggers a "fraud alert" even though I have bought many tickets from the same carriers before!
Everytime this happens, I complain to the fraud alert specialist and ask them to "relax" the fraud settings on my account -- at least for travel purchases (God forbid I try to do something like buy an overseas rail ticket with the card -- which I sometimes do because there's no foreign transaction fee and PenFed is enrolled in some of the major overseas fraud-check systems). But the specialist seems powerless to adjust the settings. It's a definite annoyance, and I try not to use the card for purchases other than airline tickets because of it (where the 5% rebate makes up for the hassle).
My first transaction with the card was to book a trip for my entire family. Paid and thought all was good, only to get a frantic call fromAA that my charge was denied so I switched payment to another call. Two days later Penfed called me about suspicious activity on my card - never mind that I was one of the travellers and all had same freakin last name. All they asked was if I did make charges on AA and I said yes and then the sleuth said, ok thats all I needed. I guess I should be greatful that they are proactive against fraud, but come on meng...