"It's not often I would go to bat for Wal-Mart, but this is profiling and ridiculous"

Yes, it's profiling. No, it's not necessarily ridiculous. It could very well be that the rate of fraud in high $ transactions at Wal-Mart is much higher than the norm.

Profiling isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing. It's entirely possible that the blood-soaked man running down the street waving a butcher's knife and screaming at the top of his lungs presents no threat whatsoever to you - that doesn't mean it's unreasonable to assume that he does.

You should never have several thousand $$$ in an account linked to a payment card IMO.

$450 at Walmart that a lot of pop tarts and coke.

I think by "risk" customer service meant to him. My bank by default came with a $300 limit on check cards in case the card was stolen. He can probably just call BoA and tell them to authorize more.

This actually makes sense to me. Statistically, it's very possible that the majority of credit card thieves end up going to Wal-Mart to spend their ill-gotten gains because it's a big box store, the policies aren't as stringent, people aren't as aware or as sharp-eyed and you're not as likely to get caught with a stolen credit card as you are in say, a Best Buy. Also, Wal-Marts have a variety of items so if your motivation was to buy a ton of things you wanted or needed, and not to buy electronics just to fence them, Wal-Mart's the place to go with a lowered risk of suspicion.

@NeverLetMeDown: Heh. I was blocks away when this "Miracle on 34th St." happened and made the news.

The story from last week about the guy who had his Chase card used without his permission at Walmart makes a lot more sense.

I thought it was strange that Chase would flag a use of his card at Walmart considering it near where he lived. What was suspicious about that? Apparently merely shopping at Walmart is in itself suspicious.

2 weeks ago when my credit card info was stolen the first place the thief went was to a target where they were denied (thanks chase!). So considering the usual suspects I think BofA has a good policy going.

I've had problems with my BofA's seemingly over-zealous fraud detection practices in the past. I've had my bank card blocked a few times in the past when out of town.

As such, I usually use my bank/debit card only for very regular purchases locally, only at BofA ATMs, and never when I'm out of town.

I also got cock-blocked by my Citibank card while trying to make a purchase at Walmart that was in the $170 range (can't remember the exact amount, this was a few weeks ago). This was also in the DC area. Got the fraud alert treatment as well.

My USAA debit card worked just fine. Just another reason to love USAA.

@Coyote: I don't think that would be the case. If you run up against your limit customer service will tell you that. They wouldn't just say it was because you were shopping at Walmart.

@NeverLetMeDown: yeah, especially if that butcher's running down a street in DC

I wonder if Walmart knows they are being singled out. As the largest merchant in the US I would think they would have an issue with this policy. As much as I dislike Walmart ,and will not shop there, I think it is horrible for BoA to make its customers call every time they make a large purchase at Walmart.

@NeverLetMeDown: "It's entirely possible that the blood-soaked man running down the street waving a butcher's knife and screaming at the top of his lungs presents no threat whatsoever to you"

No, I don't think you understand what profiling is.

its christmastime, this is gonna make standing in line a pain in the ass. all me and my wife use is our bofa check cards, neither carry cash as an atm is always around the corner. and we dont shop at places that dont take the cards. black friday is about the only christmas shopping i do at walmart, and i do spend a lot of money on that day. this isnt something they did to me last year.

@pecan 3.14159265: I think this is the case. The convenence of big-box stores is also their curse for stolen credit cards: Wal-Mart is an easy target to quickly spend a lot of money in a non-suspicious way.

Of course, now we have the opposite problem. People taking full advantage of the conveniences of a big-box, but getting blocked by BOA. I have to imagine WMT is going to discuss this with BOA.

I had a similar thing happen to me at WalMart. I'm pretty anti-Walmart, but if they're the only option, I have to do what I need to do. I used my Juniper card at a self checkout there and it was declined and a "hold" was put on the card. This hold actually caused a problem with my professional license as only a day later they tried to run the fee for my license through and the card was "locked." It took an additional 4 months to process my license because of this delay. If the banks have an issue with a retailer they need to talk to Mastercard or Visa and get it settled that way, not simply place random holds on cards that may have far reaching ramifications.

@strathmeyer:

Profiling is taking the information in front of you, matching it up with general data patterns, and deriving a conclusion. Sometimes that conclusion is inaccurate, and sometimes its correct, but we don't like the fact that it was derived through general, not incident specific data, but that's the process.

As I said, any profiling effort will have both false positives and false negatives. Whether we accept the effort depends on (a) the level of those errors, and (b) how willing we are to accept those errors.

Wow, I just *knew* that Citibank was guilty of profiling by making sure that none of my purchases went through in Mexico until I called to verify that I was I. How dare they pick on Mexico, just because credit card fraud is rampant there, and sudden, out of the ordinary use is both abrupt and unordinary.

Uh, yeah, thanks for the warning. That makes this a valid story. But crying about profiling? It seems perfectly acceptable in this case.

If indeed this is such a problem, then card issuers should change their terms and institute an ID check at time of purchase- or at least an ID check for a certain transaction amount (say over $100), but putting a fraud alert on a card without cause, they are really screwing with people's lives here...

Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again

@pecan 3.14159265: Yes, exactly. While my evidence is only anecdotal, I've had a few friends across the nation who have been the victim of credit fraud. Where was the first place the thieves hit up? You guessed it: Wal-Mart. It's because it's completely normal to go into Wal-Mart and spend hundreds of dollars on all sorts of stuff. TV + XBox + Bike + groceries = At least $1K.

I don't blame BofA at all, especially if that area is frequently used by thieves. (I'm not up on the credit fraud community, so I have no clue if there are popular spots for them.)

Credit Union.

Why does anyone still use Bank of America?

@GMFish: I would assume SUDDENLY shopping at wal-mart is suspicious. If you do it every month or so... then they should probably back the hell off.

@frari489: That made my day.

@NeverLetMeDown:
This should be illegal. Offer some sort of card protection. If the customer declines it, then if their card is stolen and used at Wal-Mart, let them eat the theft. But this capricious form of protection makes no sense to the buyer and seems only to serve the bank by protecting itself from the theft.

A bank should not be allowed to create classes of merchants. You shouldn't be able to ghettoize certain forms of retail.

First i don't know why anyone would make a purchase using a bank card insted of a credit card.
you may have the money in your account but why risk problems getting your money back for the product your buying becuase you hveno protection.

Get in the habit of keeping your money safely in your account and make one payment a month from your checking account to your credit card company.

plus as one commenter pointed out why have thousands of dollars linked to a card that when stole is gone baby gone.

ps all you criminals out there, shop a little more upscale, macys bloomingdales, victoria's secret to make your fraudulent less suspicious......

Oh the humanity. FORCED TO CONFIRM MY IDENTITY. Sometimes I wonder if I'm still the only person alive who likes to use cash. So much less hassle.

@rellog321: Two questions: How often do you shop there and how much did you try to spend? If you only shop there once every few years and suddenly, you try to drop $500, it makes sense to flag this as suspicious.

@frari489: Thank you for helping me spit out my breakfast. That was great.

@stevekw: I don't know about your dealer, but $450 doesn't get what I would call "alot of" coke.
Oh wait you mean....Ok, nevermind

It's weird to hear BofA is so security conscious after my experience with them. I found an account holder's checkbook from BofA. I called CS to tell them I have it and to notify their acct holder (I assumed they would be v. worried and would be shutting down their acct - a real hassle).

BofA told me they do not note an accts ever about anything, they do not notify their acct holder or even place a hold on the acct to stop fraudulent transactions. I explained with the checkbook I could, in theory, write a bunch of fraudulent checks all about town. Again, Bofa explained they are not interested in the news that I have a valid, active acct, checkbook. They did not even tell me to go to a branch with it ( which wasnt convenient at the time).

so...the fact they care about the OP shopping at Walmart is ridiculous if they do not care across the board.

@Ronin-Democrat: I think the CC/debit card is another debate. I use my debit card, but run it as a credit card transaction.

On the upscale shopping: I think when you're a CC thief and you need to decide where its most likely your card will get accepted for a big purchase, WMT (until now) was the spot. Also, let's face it, even when we have money to buy quality, we're a low class nation. It's highly likely that the person shops at WMT, regardless of income. Thefore, buying a John Varvatos suit at Bloomingdales will immediately flag most accounts and get your card put on hold.

Number 1 it is bank of assholes two I would sue b.o.a. for public slander/libel defamation for the public embarrassment of people in line behind me thinking that guy can not pay his bills dead beat.
stand up for the few rights we have left .
walmart has asked me to show id just because I used a credit card no booze ciggs or the like. A week later same card buy beer no id asked for ????????

@CoarseLive: incorrect. it should be (and is) absolutely legal. The bank isn't saying that you cannot use your money there, they just want to confirm ahead of time that you are. They do offer protection, but when they have to use the protection it eats into thier profits, so as a business they are doing thier best to stop it ahead of time.

Of course the bank is going to protect itself from theft, who wouldn't?

@JohnDeere: the simple and easiest solution to this is to call ahead of time and let bofa know your going to make a large purchase at walmart. catastrophe averted.

"D.C. metro area" and "Walmart" pretty much gives the reason.

I would suspect that boat-loads of scams are run through Walmarts in that area - buying gift cards with stolen account info, stolen credit cards used for purchases, buy and return with bricks inside the box. etc.

@CoarseLive: If you don't like the practice, find a bank that doesn't do it. Every single little inconvience in life doesn't need a new law to fix it...

There are already lots of protections in place for consumers using plastic. In general, you can't be held liable for fradulent credit card charges and your debit card liability is limited to $50. With that in mind, of course the bank is going to do everything possible to keep their fraud costs down.

@captainpicard: Or BOA will just turn off the couples cards after they call...

nuknuknuk

but too close to the truth.

@kingoftheroad40:

As for number 2, you'd lose. To be libel or slander, a statement must be made (B.o.A made no statement of any kind to the people in line), the statement must be false (it may be quite true that large transactions at Walmart are disproportionately likely to be fraudulent), and they must be intended to cause harm (the intention here is fraud prevention, to protect either the customer of B.o.A.)

@Ronin-Democrat: What does any of that have to do with the OP's problem?

@thezone: See above- DC area. If you are po' enough to have to shop on your own at Walmart with your own money then you might deserve a fraud flag. Anyone else in DC either has lobbyists and special interest representatives buy groceries and homegoods or just charges groceries off to the taxpayers...

Why can't BoA tell people up front that this is going to happen if they use their card at Wal-mart? At least that way the OP would have known that it was going to happen and that it wasn't a one off thing.

I've seen this on other web sites: "We're no longer allowing transactions in/at X due to high incidence of fraud" or whatever.

@CaptainSemantics: That they have checkouts whose attendants are pushed for processing fast helps scammers. Same issues begat the upc symbol decal scam...

Schwab bank didn't seem to find it odd that after months of making small purchases near my house and never shopping at Walmart before, I made a ~$200 purchase at a Walmart in a different state.

I wonder what would have happened had I used my BofA card.

@strathmeyer: I think his example may be a bit on the "extreme" side considering we're discussing credit profiling, but his example isn't exactly wrong.

Whether you like it or not, you're getting profiled everywhere. Online stores profile you and send you targeted information/newsletters/whatever based on what you browse, what you buy. Google is profiling you based on your searches to send targeted ads and stuff.

It's just most profiling is somewhat non-intrusive and you wouldn't really notice it too much if you weren't actively looking.

While profiling by merchant for credit cards isn't something I've heard about, they do maintain a spending profile. That's how if suddenly a $2000 purchase shows up on a card that normally never exceeds $200, it gets flagged for authorization.

I guess the question becomes, how much should the credit card companies try to protect you from theft? We've sort of gone from little protection to over protection.

This happened to me just a few weeks ago when I was in Jacksonville, FL for my niece's birthday (i live in Brooklyn, NY).

I had taken her to WalMart with me to pick up a few items and ended up buying a bunch of things for her & my nephews and a bunch of things for me. I told the clerk I was paying for all of it on the same card, but asked her to split the ring-up so that my niece and nephew's stuff would be on a separate receipt that i could leave with my sister in case she needed to exchange anything for a different size. That was no problem. So she ran my items through and I paid with my B of A debit card and it went through without an issue (about $200). Then she rang the kids stuff up and I swiped again (about $300) and the card was declined.

I pulled out my Blackberry and check my balance - knowing that I had over $5000 in the account, but still concerned that maybe something was wrong. My balance was accurate, so I swiped again, but it was still declined.

I took out my OTHER B of A debit card, which I have for my business account, which also had over $5k in the account, and swiped - Declined again. So I then switched to my Chase Mastercard and that card went through. I left WalMart and figured I'd call B of A when I got back to the hotel to see why both my debit cards were suddenly being declined.

About an hour later, I get an automated message from B of A with a phone number I'm supposed to call and a case code I have to enter. So I do that, and after about 30 minutes of holding and being transferred, they finally had me verify the last few transactions and told me that the first Walmart charge triggered their fraud system a) because it was a charge in FL, when my usually charges are in NY, and b) because charges of more than a few hundred dollars at Walmart automatically set off their fraud detection because there's a high rate of fraudulent transactions there.

I got it all resolved and my cards were useable again within a few minutes of hanging up the phone - I went to the local B of A to withdraw cash from the ATM to be sure - but it sure was a nuisance at the time.

I always call my bank or go inside and let them know when i'm making big purchases and where so that my card is not denied for being outside of my normal purchase habits

@frari489: I will always miss hearing more and more quotes of his showing up on the daily show