When I told them I wasn't comfortable doing this, they reiterated that this was the only way my credit card would be restored immediately and once I hung up the phone I would no longer have this option. They did give me another way to verify, they would send me an email to a web portal I could upload the photos to. After uploading I would have to wait 7-10 business days for them to review and restore my card.

Thankfully, I had another credit card I could use. I did submit via the web form after doing my best to make sure it was legit. Weeks later my credit card wasn't restored. When I later called them, it was immediately restored after a few simple questions. I sent an email to their security department describing how weird and sketchy this process was and I never got a response.

I believe some banks even skip the call entirely, and just prompt you to call the number on the card.

However the scammers don't hang up they just play a fake dial tone so the victim dials the number thinking they're contacting their bank but they're actually just speaking to the scammers again

In the Netherlands, in the 80s-00s at least, hanging up cleared your line, so picking it up again would get you a fresh dialtone even if the other side didn't hang up (and the other side would get a modified "busy" signal if you hung up on them).

I personally recall people ocassionally being able to hang up one phone before picking up a different phone if they wanted to take the call in a diffent location in the house. Although, I don't remember it ever being very effective, over time (in my corner of the US), it became never effective, so you'd just leave the first phone off the hook and have to hang it up later.

On your smartphone, it's easier to not fall in this trap, as the screen is making it harder to type a phone number while the call is still going.

It used to be the case that the party who made the call - being the party who is paying for it - was solely responsible for terminating it; then timeouts were introduced; and on many landline exchanges there is still a timeout before the call is actually terminated if the callee hangs up but the caller does not - although these days it is just a few seconds, that may still be long enough that you stay connected to the original caller if you hang up then immediately try to place a call.

Google "called party clear" for gory details.

I also wonder if it's a contract call center or fraud prevention company and the caller ID value was just bad... at some point their phone number may have gotten put on a listing for one of the banks that uses them and now it's stuck in the Google Caller ID database or whatever. Google's caller ID is frequently pretty out of date and it's unclear how you would get it fixed (e.g. my husband has had his phone number for years and Android phones still show someone else's name when he calls).

With Citi: * it's non-native-English support. No judgement of course but I don't appreciate the language barrier when the entire job of customer support is communication. * Support generally seems to be very low-context and low-power. The person you talk to generally can't actually do anything, only escalate. * Support seems very disjointed and prone to missing details.

I was burned by Citi support in a pretty big way:

1. I was moving cross-state, and we were selling (under contract) our old house and not yet closed on the new one. In between, we were living with my parents.

2. Literally the first day we were at my parents, some fraudy charges showed up on my citi card. I called, they cancelled the card, etc. I told them I was not currently at my address on file, I was at my parents, is this OK, etc. They said yes, that's fine, they'll send replacement cards to the new address. I very specifically verified with them that they were sending them to the right place, and the person even got a little tired of me being so tight about it. Ok, I figured, I feel like I've gone above and beyond on my end to make sure this works right.

3. 2 days later, I see on my security camera that the old cards have been delivered to the front door of the old house, 300 miles away.

4. I call back, and they tell me they don't see any record of me having requested a different address. Sigh. I ask if they can cancel those cards and re-send them to the right address this time. They say yes, we go through the loop again, etc.

5. I wait a day or two and no cards show up at either location. I call back again. I get told there's no record I asked to cancel these cards or re-send them. This rep finally tells me they can't re-issue the cards again so soon, and need to wait 5 more days. In the meantime, these active cards are just sitting on my porch in a big envelope that says "CITI - URGENT - PLEASE STEAL ME" written all over it.

And, you know, I really needed to use this card since I was trying to buy appliances for the new house.

I ended up resolving this by just making an extra trip back to the old house anyway just to finish cleaning it up and to grab the cards since I needed to go one more time anyway. I called back to make sure they weren't going to cancel these cards, and of course there was no record I'd ever asked to cancel them, etc.

Compare this to AMEX support. Native english speakers, they seem to have the power to actually just fix things for me, etc.

So, while I still use my citi card just to keep the credit line open, my Amex card is my pinch hitter and cornerstone.

In the UK the tax-free savings account allowance is per tax year. I paid the money into a not-so-great bank offering excellent rates a few days before the deadline one year and called to create a savings account. Weeks later they've got no record of the savings account, and when I call they explain I'm too late now for "last year's" allowance. I point out that I made the transaction before the deadline and they explain that oops, sadly they don't have that call recorded, and so there's no evidence I actually authorised account creation back then. So I play back my recording, and what do you know, suddenly the bank has a new explanation for what went wrong and wants to pay me compensation for their mistake in not making the account.

A better bank would have eaten the cost of this mistake up front of course, but I already knew this was a lousy bank, that's why they're offering by far the best rates. To attract customers despite the reputation.

I have more than a few credit cards, and I've never encountered a card issuer in the US that mails active cards. All of them require some sort of activation process before they can be used. That way, it doesn't matter if they're stolen.

The current "We don't need you to tell us where you're going we can figure it out" leads to me getting locked out 100% of the time i use the banking app on my phone with the VPN on and then try to use the card at a nearby store. Obviously there's two different sources of my location incoming and that causes issues.

I guess it's an edge case to have a VPN on your phone but it's very very frustrating.

One large bank I do business with doesn't care, or recognizes that pre-'rona I used to do a lot of international travel.

Another large bank I do business with locks me out if I'm on VPN.

I also suspect it has to do with bank balances. The more money I have in my accounts, the better customer service I get, even to the point of them answering the phone more quickly.

It also seems to help to have a business account with a bank, too. I get all kinds of free perks on my personal accounts with the bank I do my business banking with.

You pretty much have to these days, preferably with the second one being from a different bank and potentially different payment processor. Between random fraud triggers and cards being frozen because of fraudulent charges or attempts, you really need a backup.

I've never had trouble dealing with the problem by phone but I'm still out the credit card in a foreign city for a few days and I may not even be at a location where I can easily have something sent to me.

Then a month later, Amex mailed me a check for the money I paid because it had no account to credit it to, because it cancelled the account.

To be fair, I did because my card had been rejected literally 30 seconds before while trying to make a purchase. But it was only after the phone call ended that I realised what I had done. I phoned them back on a number listed on their website, asked them to confirm that I had indeed spoken with HSBC fraud detection, and they confirmed. I then lambasted them for asking me all the questions they tell their customers never to answer.

They're just training their customers to give out information, and even alert customers like myself can sometimes have a moment of panic and comply.

I've supported a call center. We had specific escalation routes where problems could be sent to higher levels. The most obvious is the "I want to talk to your manager" escalation, but the agents, managers, and QC agents could push buttons that flagged additional review.

My advice for getting attention: don't be rude (EVERYONE is rude, this won't get any one's attention), be CLEAR about the problem AND solution, evoke emotion in the listener (remember, the listener is a QC person who reviews the call days later)

Try something like: I'm on vacation and my daughter was REALLY looking to see a musical. Do you have kids? Mine LOVE Beauty and the Beast - she has her backpack and t shirt, she is adorable. Every time we try to buy a ticket, it gets rejected. I think I forgot to notify you that I'm traveling. I'm so sorry - it just slipped my mind!

[1] https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/security-centre/report-a-problem...

[I just learned that the FCC is considering not allowing calls made outside the US to be spoofed as numbers originating inside the US. I thought that was the whole point behind STIR/SHAKEN, silly me].

There's not really any alternative to calling a trusted number.

"A fraudulent transaction has been detected on your credit card no. *1234, please call the number written on the back of your card", and you're done.

People usually get scammed when they have the card with them... when they lose the card, they're the one actively looking for a phone number, and not presented with one from a scammer.

- "Can you send me back the card?"

- "I'm in a train, I won't be able to do that for a while. You should really call"

- "But I don't have the number"

- "I can read it to you"

Pwn

That my bank insists on using essentially now public information now to verify (and refuses to use anything else, even after being repeatedly asked!) is also infuriating. Last 4 of SSN and DOB? Really?

Additionally, bank account ‘internal’ account numbers are pasted on every check that goes out and any ACH transfers also include that information, so it’s not like they are hard to cross reference with any of the other major breaches.

SSN, dob, which banks people use (and other financial institutions), which loans they have with whom, etc. also got leaked for pretty much every US adult with the equifax hack.

Other banks purposely break my password manager so I have a high chance of pasting my password into a phishing site because I am in a habit of pasting my password for that bank.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2021/09/stop--hang-up...

I mentioned to a fewer older family members and they were all for a simple number to call.

You were talking to a call centre worker making close to minimum wage and who's job is to get shouted at by customers all day. Even if they wanted to help you, their opinion would count for nothing.

No wonder they didn't give a shit.

I can't verify that the text is from Natwest, but it seems relatively safe, as I'm not providing any personal information in return, so this seems a reasonable first line security mechanism. Of course someone could clone my SIM, in which case there's no protection, but it does raise the bar for using a stolen cards, and I think that's the intent.

If my bank ever does call me, they have to leave voicemail because I don't answer calls from unknown numbers. And then I call back using the number on the back of the card.

Because they poor person on the phone gets dinged for not completing the transaction. You doing the right thing causes them to look bad in the computer-tallied automated productivity tracking tool.

Call center employee metrics are absolutely brutal.