I have had the following problems with my Bank 1 credit card; the denial of charges seem unjustified and out of place.
I reserved a rental car to visit the Oktoberfest in Blumenau. When I tried to pick it up and pay with a credit card of this company, the charges of about US $ 35.00 were denied. The credit card was in good standing - neither expired nor overdrawn.
Since I did not speak Portuguese and the rental clerk did not speak English, the situation was quite an effort to sort out and be able to use the rental car.
I special-ordered electronic parts from a new vendor and paid with this credit card. When the vendor charged the card, the charge was denied. The credit card was in good standing - neither expired nor overdrawn. A similar charge (amount and equipment) was charged one week before and was approved.
The vendor appeared distressed about the cancelled payment, I was somewhat embarrassed and at a loss to explain why this happening.
I received an email from my telephone card company that my telephone card account has been cancelled because the recent monthly charge has been denied.
The credit card was in good standing, neither expired nor overdrawn. The amount attempted to be charged was:
$ 3.44
The telephone card company has been charging this credit card on a regular basis for several years.
When I called the Credit Card company for clarification about this incident, they would not talk to me about this unless I disclose my Social Security Number which is not an option at this point.
A couple of days later, I received a letter from the Credit Card Company asking me to call their customer service, which I did. I was again asked to disclose my Social Security Number. Since this is not an option and all my other offers for means of identification (birth date, telephone number, shared code word, amount of recent transactions, recent statement balances/transactions etc.) would not enable fruitful communication, it did not make sense to continue phone conversations.
As the above examples show, it looks that with this company, any charge transaction can randomly be denied at any time requiring phone calls and great hassle.
Since the first event in this sequence in October 2002, I have tried making it clear to this Credit Card company that I prefer not to use my Social Security Number for identification purposes and they should choose other means of identification which I would be happy to supply.
As a matter of fact, on October 16, 2003, I wrote in a letter to them:
"... sometimes, your customer representatives ask me for my Social Security Number for identifications purposes.
I would really appreciate if you could use other means of identification, like mother's maiden name, birth date, birth location, mailing address, telephone number or cell phone number which I would provide.
This credit card account does not require any reporting to the IRS or Social Security Administration where my Social Security Number would be needed.
Due to the possibility of identity theft, fraud possibility and privacy intrusion, I am not giving out my Social Security Number or portion thereof for any other purpose than reporting requirements to IRS or Social Security Administration"
This Credit Card Company is inflexible and unable to acommodate such a request.