PointWeasel

This office is based in Montreal, a small team of staff that monitors accounts for suspicious transactions. They called me a few months ago about a CM PTY-MAR redemption and I had no problem at all with their diligence. ^

I am 99% sure they will be closed Good Friday.

Nazdoom

I hope AE is equally proactive in adjusting their password requirements. 6-10 characters with no special characters allowed? That's on them for dropping the ball.

number10blade

Aimia "compliance" called me 60 hours after I had reported fraudulent access to my account and fraudulent use of my aeroplan points. The agent wanted to reassure me that my points had been returned to my account, and wanted confirmation from me that I had changed my log-in details. She called from a 514 area code.

DrunkCargo

That's because fraud doesn't happen on holidays... and nobody books same day or T-24h flights; that's just silliness...

aeroman380

So I called them back today and the woman said that my account was compromised. She said 3 different names (2 Hispanic and one African sounding) that tried to redeem best Western hotels and a flight from North Dakota to Johannesburg.

My profile was changed and to an address on Mount
Pleasant in Toronto with the phone number too. I asked what Aeroplan is doing about this and she said they are always looking at atypical behaviour. I asked if I should call the police she said I could but said it could have been comprised over WiFi.

All the points were put back in my account. However, it makes me feel violated and weird. Shouldn't Aeroplan be the one calling the authorities? Makes me wonder if the yahoo hack had a role in this too?

aeroman380

Weird thing I noticed when told I could login again to change my password is that Aeroplan says your password should be MAXIMUM 10 characters with no special characters.....weird

Sopwith

I've gone through this with Visa a few times. They call out of the blue and say my card has been compromised and they're shutting it down. They refuse to say how they know, or where/how it happened. When I tell them I want to report it to the police they blow me off: "We already have the police involved". It's maddening.

I think what's really happening is that AE, Visa, and their ilk don't want this kind of thing to be in the public eye, so they try to keep it under wraps and low key.

I doubt the cops would do anything because I doubt AE or Visa would cooperate with them to allow any sort of meaningful investigation, for the same reason.

BTW, sometimes Visa shuts the card down without telling you, which is really convenient when you're a thousand miles from home .

flyquiet

I've had that with Visa, and I'm glad I now carry a 2nd card. I never saw the need! Visa notified me by postal mail to my home, which is not helpful 1,000 miles from home.

CanuckFlyHigh

The police have much bigger fish to fry... I, for one, do not want my tax dollars spent chasing down your points.

Stranger

I would think it would be your bank, not visa itself. And that different banks have different policies.

I once got a call from TD about my TD visa while overseas, may have been in Saint Petersburg. Was from a 1-800 number. I normally don't pick these up if away but somehow I did and there was an issue, or at least as I seem to recall they had an issue with some charges that were actually legitimate. Would I not have picked up the call, they likely would have blocked my card.

Sopwith

Fair enough, until it happens to you. The point is that these are not one-off events. They are usually of much broader scale, and therefore should be investigated as crimes, not just defended and swept under the rug by AE because they don't want the bad PR, or want the public to know how porous their IT security really is.

flyquiet

I think you're right - it's the bank's card fraud people. There's a flag in my file to call my branch and they will email me. The problem is they ignore that and continue to call the fictitious 555-1234 and then complain nobody answered. They were on the ball with fixing things, and the card continued to work when I inserted and input the PIN, just not for tap, so it was confusing until I got home to receive the mail!
I don't know how Aeroplan would handle it in my case. They have my email, obviously, to spam me, but I'll bet if there was fraud, they would try to phone my text line.

jaysona

Agreed! +1 This is such a minor crime that there is little to no use at spending the time to investigate it.

Are you willing to take the tax hit to have police wasting their time investigating such crimes? The average cost to investigate each one of these incidents is in excess of $10k. If every one of these cases were to be investigated, the number of people needed to investigate these would probably have to quadruple or more - never mind the fact that there just are not enough people available at the moment with the appropriate level knowledge and skills to perform such activities.

People just need to spend a little more time to educate themselves on how to use safer on-line practices - and these practices do not require anyone to be even remotely close to being an IT and security expert.

CZAMFlyer

Help lower your community's taxes: let your local police detachment know that any possible future complaints from you regarding theft or fraud of the equivalent dollar amount have already been deemed by yourself as "minor crimes" and therefore "little to no use spending the time to investigate it". Tell 'em in advance not to bother.

My point is: the shoe is always on the other foot when it happens to you.

Who told you that? They're having you on.

Sopwith

In two of the cases I'm referring to my card was double-swiped while it was out of my sight - once at a gas station and once at a restaurant. Because of the timing stated by Visa I was pretty sure about where it happened and who did it both times. The cops or Visa could have easily investigated but weren't interested.

So your solution is to do nothing and just let them have at it? That's why it's out of control.