Posted: 5/6/2009 6:38:41 AM EDT
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I have had my Citibank CC for over 10 years. I buy almost everything on it so I can get my rewards.
I have only had 2 instances in 10 years where the card has been rejected / declined for any reason. The first time was last year on a fairly large internet ammo order. At the time I figured it was just because it was such a large amount for an online purchase. Yesterday I was buying some gun parts online (not a big order) and I got a call from the vendor. Card declined. Both times when I called citibank, they said everything was fine, they just wanted to double check it was me. I asked why it was declined and they said that certain merchant types raise a flag in the system to be double checked. I asked if she meant gun / ammo vendors. She would not answer. She just said SOME vendors. Both times the card was DECLINED. Not call for verification, but declined. I had to call and prove it was me and I approved the order. The first time I thought it was just coincidence, but the 2nd time in 10 yrs just HAPPENS to be another gun / ammo vendor? Doesn't seem like simple coincidence to me. In addition, CDNN had issues with last year with CITI terminating their vendor account due to "sale of firearms in a non face to face environment" aka Internet gun sales. Well FUCK YOU CITIBANK. I will not support a business that pushes it's liberal anti-gun bullshit on me. You have lost a long time perfect customer. I will pay off my balance at the end of this month as I always do and send you your card back in shreds. Just wanted to let you guys know what kind of company they are. <Title edit. Please don't use any form of the F-word in thread titles. ––tbk1> |
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In addition, CDNN had issues with last year with CITI terminating their vendor account due to "sale of firearms in a non face to face environment" aka Internet gun sales.
Might want to check your facts. I believe it was First Data that was behind that, not the CC companies. ETA: every firearm related item I buy, including firearms, has been on my Citi. Hope this isn't a coming thing. |
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This has NOTHING to do with what you were buying. It is NOT about guns.
It's a fraud-stop program built into their computer, that put a hold on your account because they thought your CC might have been stolen.... Most banks do this... Triggers include sudden large purchases after a long period of nothing big... Or similar... I've had it happen with other banks after a PCS, because my card is 'suddenly' being used halfway across the US... |
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In addition, CDNN had issues with last year with CITI terminating their vendor account due to "sale of firearms in a non face to face environment" aka Internet gun sales.
Might want to check your facts. I believe it was First Data that was behind that, not the CC companies. ETA: every firearm related item I buy, including firearms, has been on my Citi. Hope this isn't a coming thing. I did check my facts before posting. It was first data that was the account holder, but the letter had the Citibank logo and "Citi Merchant Services" at the top as the first name listed. I doubt "Citi Merchant Services" would let their name and logo be used for somethey they didn't agree with? |
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This has NOTHING to do with what you were buying. It is NOT about guns. It's a fraud-stop program built into their computer, that put a hold on your account because they thought your CC might have been stolen.... Most banks do this... Triggers include sudden large purchases after a long period of nothing big... Or similar... I've had it happen with other banks after a PCS, because my card is 'suddenly' being used halfway across the US... Did you read my post? Did you see the part where I said "they said that certain merchant types raise a flag in the system to be double checked". Did you see where I said I use this card all the time? This was not a standard fraud check. It was on a small order. It was because of the nature of the vendor. |
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In addition, CDNN had issues with last year with CITI terminating their vendor account due to "sale of firearms in a non face to face environment" aka Internet gun sales.
Might want to check your facts. I believe it was First Data that was behind that, not the CC companies. ETA: every firearm related item I buy, including firearms, has been on my Citi. Hope this isn't a coming thing. Its not... Citi is in financial trouble. They are being overly cautious. This has nothing whatsoever to do with firearms. The OP is adding 2+2 and getting 9. As I have tried to explain before when discussing PayPal, Visa and Mastercard make the rules. But to my knowledge the only MCC that is restricted for banks is online gambling. And they often pretend to not notice. And FYI the reason customer service reps don't know shit when you call is because they don't know shit. CSRs are low man on the totem pole and they are very limited in what they know and can say. Last thing a company wants is a 12 dollar an hour rep making policy decisions or saying things that are just incorrect. Even if Citi were stupid enough to do what the OP is accusing them of the CS rep would not have a clue. They can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. The worst business trip you can make is to a CS call center. Jesus what a group... There are some very strange people at every CS center I have been to. Even in other countries. |
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A long period of inactivity on the card followed by a sudden larger purchase will trigger the fraud stop system with MOST cards. It's happened to me with my AMEX card. I didn't use it for six months and then one day I made a 200 dollar purchase on it. Later that same day I got a call. CJ |
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no idea how much ammo and how many gun parts i've charged on my citi cc over the years, but it's a shitload. never been declined for that.
have had several declines and/or calls re/ suspicious activity due to things that were outside of my normal purchase activities, however, citi apparently has a very good fraud filtering algorithim they use. conclusion: you aren't making anywhere near enough gun & ammo purchases with your citi cc, those are apparently still in the outlier realm not the normal usage realm. i'd say you are being too reactionary, and you definately need to buy more ammo online using that card. normalize, normalize, normalize... |
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This has NOTHING to do with what you were buying. It is NOT about guns. It's a fraud-stop program built into their computer, that put a hold on your account because they thought your CC might have been stolen.... Most banks do this... Triggers include sudden large purchases after a long period of nothing big... Or similar... I've had it happen with other banks after a PCS, because my card is 'suddenly' being used halfway across the US... It is not technically a program. One of the things I do is write risk algorithms based on stats. They change frequently for various reasons. While it is a program that the info it is fed in to the magic is the risk scoring stuff. And the reason Internet purchases are getting extra scrutiny now is because US companies lose 1.4 billion dollars a yr just in credit card fraud on the internet. It is kind of a catch 22 situation. The more you use your CC online the riskier "you" are and the chances of a CC number being compromised is high because there are a lot of dipshit companies out there that don't fulfill their security/PCI compliance responsibilities and because CC users don't do enough to protect themselves. So you use your CC a lot online, it is higher risk and the bad guys get the CC from "hacking, phishing, etc. etc. If it were up to me if a company got compromised and people have their info stolen that company should be suspended from online sales. I see too many people harmed because companies are lax in their security measures and they get hammered. Then they say oops we are so sorry folks. Mean while Joe is stuck filling out affidavits and faxing shit and trying to figure out where his card got compromised. |
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In addition, CDNN had issues with last year with CITI terminating their vendor account due to "sale of firearms in a non face to face environment" aka Internet gun sales.
Might want to check your facts. I believe it was First Data that was behind that, not the CC companies. ETA: every firearm related item I buy, including firearms, has been on my Citi. Hope this isn't a coming thing. I did check my facts before posting. It was first data that was the account holder, but the letter had the Citibank logo and "Citi Merchant Services" at the top as the first name listed. I doubt "Citi Merchant Services" would let their name and logo be used for somethey they didn't agree with? First Data is a processor not an account holder. And they constantly get compromised. First Data sucks. |
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BIG_PAPA, have you ever used the Citi "Virtual Credit Card" feature for online purchases? If so, was it declined.
The VCC should negate any chance of fraud, or 99.9%. If a VCC transaction was disallowed, I'd say it's more likely they are targeting certain products. ETA: After reading badshovelhead's posts, I'd suggest anyone who has the "Virtual Credit Card" feature to use it for online buys. It generates a unique # you can use one time. I don't know if it's foolproof, but at least Bubba's Guns doesn't have your actual #. If there's fraud, it can be isolated to the source and you don't have to call umpteen people to update your CC info. |
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This has NOTHING to do with what you were buying. It is NOT about guns. It's a fraud-stop program built into their computer, that put a hold on your account because they thought your CC might have been stolen.... Most banks do this... Triggers include sudden large purchases after a long period of nothing big... Or similar... I've had it happen with other banks after a PCS, because my card is 'suddenly' being used halfway across the US... Did you read my post? Did you see the part where I said "they said that certain merchant types raise a flag in the system to be double checked". Did you see where I said I use this card all the time? This was not a standard fraud check. It was on a small order. It was because of the nature of the vendor. First of all like I said do not listen to what the Rep said. They don't know shit. Especially about what citi or any other issuer considers a risky business. Sorry man you are wrong about this being a ammo purchase that caused the problem. Citi does not care WTF you buy online just that you buy and use their services. This could be one of a million reasons. Most of them stupid. But one thing it isn't is because of some policy Citi might have about ammo or firearms. They just don't care. |
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BIG_PAPA, have you ever used the Citi "Virtual Credit Card" feature for online purchases? If so, was it declined. The VCC should negate any chance of fraud, or 99.9%. If a VCC transaction was disallowed, I'd say it's more likely they are targeting certain products. Yes I do use that feature. I did not on this paticular purchase because it was in question how long the item would be on backorder and the virtual numbers expire after a month or two. |
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This has NOTHING to do with what you were buying. It is NOT about guns. It's a fraud-stop program built into their computer, that put a hold on your account because they thought your CC might have been stolen.... Most banks do this... Triggers include sudden large purchases after a long period of nothing big... Or similar... I've had it happen with other banks after a PCS, because my card is 'suddenly' being used halfway across the US... Did you read my post? Did you see the part where I said "they said that certain merchant types raise a flag in the system to be double checked". Did you see where I said I use this card all the time? This was not a standard fraud check. It was on a small order. It was because of the nature of the vendor. First of all like I said do not listen to what the Rep said. They don't know shit. Especially about what citi or any other issuer considers a risky business. Sorry man you are wrong about this being a ammo purchase that caused the problem. Citi does not care WTF you buy online just that you buy and use their services. This could be one of a million reasons. Most of them stupid. But one thing it isn't is because of some policy Citi might have about ammo or firearms. They just don't care. I may be wrong, we will never know. I just don't buy it. To much coincidence. This card is used all the time. Online and in person. 2 fraud checks in 10 years and bth are firearm / ammo purchases? Yes there have been other firearm / ammo purchases that went through fine. You guys can have your own opinion as to what happened, but I am done with citibank. |
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BIG_PAPA, have you ever used the Citi "Virtual Credit Card" feature for online purchases? If so, was it declined. The VCC should negate any chance of fraud, or 99.9%. If a VCC transaction was disallowed, I'd say it's more likely they are targeting certain products. Yes I do use that feature. I did not on this paticular purchase because it was in question how long the item would be on backorder and the virtual numbers expire after a month or two. Yeah. That would possibly prevent that. I try to use it all the time, and when I don't I kick myself for being lazy. |
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BIG_PAPA, have you ever used the Citi "Virtual Credit Card" feature for online purchases? If so, was it declined. The VCC should negate any chance of fraud, or 99.9%. If a VCC transaction was disallowed, I'd say it's more likely they are targeting certain products. ETA: After reading badshovelhead's posts, I'd suggest anyone who has the "Virtual Credit Card" feature to use it for online buys. It generates a unique # you can use one time. I don't know if it's foolproof, but at least Bubba's Guns doesn't have your actual #. If there's fraud, it can be isolated to the source and you don't have to call umpteen people to update your CC info. educate me please, what is this "virtual credit card" feature. sounds interesting and very usefull. |
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I have noticed the same issue with my CITI cards. I have heard from one on-line gun sales/ vendor of Citi having this apparent policy.
The only times my Citi cards have ever been rejected was for firearms related purchases. Sometimes they tend to be larger than average purchases but not always. As far as this rejection being due to sales in various places as part of some "anti-fraud" program, why reject only on the firearms purchases? The card has never rejected other types of items bought off the internet from various places around the country. When it happened the first time I called and the rep at Citi and he said it was an anti fraud program and that particular kind of item was the issue..... I'm not happy with CITI either and will concider changing my card business. |
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BIG_PAPA, have you ever used the Citi "Virtual Credit Card" feature for online purchases? If so, was it declined. The VCC should negate any chance of fraud, or 99.9%. If a VCC transaction was disallowed, I'd say it's more likely they are targeting certain products. ETA: After reading badshovelhead's posts, I'd suggest anyone who has the "Virtual Credit Card" feature to use it for online buys. It generates a unique # you can use one time. I don't know if it's foolproof, but at least Bubba's Guns doesn't have your actual #. If there's fraud, it can be isolated to the source and you don't have to call umpteen people to update your CC info. educate me please, what is this "virtual credit card" feature. sounds interesting and very usefull. Virtual-card allows you to generate random credit card numbers for online purchases.... The number is only good for that transaction... |