Fraud alert on my MP Visa card
 

A couple of days ago, my MP Visa card, which I have had for several years, was denied on a trivial purchase. When I arrived home that evening, there was a message from MP Visa Fraud Dept. I called and the CSR told me that my card had been compromised and suspended. A brief discussion revealed that although no fraudulent charges had been made to my card, MP Visa had been contacted by "law enforcement" with info that my card number had fallen into the wrong hands. The CSR said that MP Visa would contact the credit reporting agencies on my behalf and would issue me a new card.

Is this an isolated case or have others been similarly victimized recently?

This has nothing to do with MP -- Just bad luck.

I think just about everyone I know has had their CC # stolen/compromised at some point...

My better half's MP Visa card just got hit too. My AA Mastercard was also a victim a few years ago. I guess these things happen a lot now. But, I have a feeling that Chase is pretty good at catching it. ^

Got that phone call a couple of weeks ago -- although there was a $500 unauthorized charge that was flagged by their fraud alert system. ^^^^^^^^ visa!

I've not heard anything on this in particular, but one thing I would say is that Chase is really aggresive, perhaps maybe even too much so, about "protecting their customers credit."

One the one hand this is nice to have them watching out for you but on the other it can be a pain if you forget to tell them you're travelling internationally (again) and you get your card denied at say, the Le Meridien in Paris because they detected card usage in a foreign country.

So if you travel internationally, you should call them before you leave and tell them which countries you will be visiting. And I have my intl cell phone as the primary phone contact number in case Chase's fraud department desides to get frisky while I am traveling.

One other thing I would recommend if you live overseas is to keep a US mailing address for your MP visa if you can. It's possible to have a foreign mailing address but a non-US postcode will make the "verified by visa" system barf and you won't be able to make online purchases (e.g., Eurostar) on any website that participates in the program.

My business partner applied for the Chase MP card. Within two days of the card being approved, but before the card was mailed to him, someone else had already begun using it. Canceled that card, received a new one, and within a week of receiving it someone else had cloned it. Third card seems to be working okay. Not sure if this was two cases of bad luck, or an issue with someone inside Chase.

I've had the opposite - a US address made Verified by Visa barf when trying to buy something from the UK.

In before the move.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8800/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

I use my MP Visa cards extensively and every now and then I get denied some trivial charge (like $35 or similiar) and usually there is an immediate automated call from them asking me to verify the charge and everything is back to normal.

I've had trouble with stolen CC numbers back in the 80's (when carbon copies were thrown in the trash) when it was a real pain to get things cleared, but I am pleased with Chase and would rather have a minor inconvenience than have fraud occur.

You guys are calm. If my card gets denied, I'm on the phone fairly livid with the company (on the few occasions its happened) while I'm still standing at the counter or as soon as I leave the store. It's their problem, but can be an embarassing situation for the cardholder.

Overly aggressive is definitely how I would describe Chase. Our card's been shut off a number of times, almost always for trivial charges. The two most common causes are travel and internet purchasing, unfortunately (in this case) two things we do a lot. They've also been terrible about notifying us on time (I think in every case after we'd tried to use the card and been denied).

One note is that this is not actually protecting our cardholders' credit. Almost all of the liability for false purchases stays with the CC (all but $50 IIRC). So, it's just them inconveniencing us to protect themselves. Given their vig (~2%), I have zero sympathy for their cause.

This is my experience as well.

2 weeks ago I got the call that my card had been compromised. They had denied some fraudulent charges at bestbuy. Luckily they denied them and closed the account. Strangely enough my good friend who has MP Visa has his hit last week...

Or if you and your spouse will both be out of your home state (in different states) and charging on the account at the same time. That'll lock you down fast.

Chase is overly aggressive!
 

This mirrors my experience with the transactions being travel and restaurants. It happens every month or two and always for air tickets in my name and from my hometown airport or restaurants within the same zipcode as my home! I have no trouble with the "system" when it targets something unusual and/or costly but it is irritating when the decline a small transaction at the local coffeehouse where I get coffee EVERY single day (except when traveling)!!!

I've called and complained and do get bonus miles to prevent me from canceling when I tell them I don't have the same problems Amex and other banks. Last time I was given 2000 but only 200 posted! I guess they like 'hearing' from me!

About 18 months ago, I got a similar call from Citibank about my AA Visa.

What had happened was a clearinghouse had had their records of transactions from 3 or 4 retailers (I think that Marshalls or TJ Maxx may have been on the list) for several months leaked out to some bad guys. Supposedly, only a handful of the leaked account numbers had been compromised. I read about this in the Journal.

Anyway, ALL of the card numbers that Citibank clients had used at these retailers were being replaced at no cost to the cardholders.

I suspect that this same situation may have happened again to the OP....