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Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

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Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#151

Post by closewith »

LoganDark wrote: post #143
cj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with many of these examples is that 99% of the time, it is a sign of fraud, and 1% of the time it’s a false positive. > If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. I’ve been using this heuristic (along with VPN and IP geo lookup) when screening job candidates after a massive influx of developers outside the US applying for US-only remote roles. I discov…

> US-only remote roles. The entire premise of remote is that it shouldn't matter where you work from, as long as you get the work done. This is extremely, incredibly harmful. I hope you know that.

This is completely normal and legally necessary in many cases. Your hyperbole is mildly harmless. I hope you know that.

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#152

Post by ragestorm »

LoganDark wrote: post #143
cj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with many of these examples is that 99% of the time, it is a sign of fraud, and 1% of the time it’s a false positive. > If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. I’ve been using this heuristic (along with VPN and IP geo lookup) when screening job candidates after a massive influx of developers outside the US applying for US-only remote roles. I discov…

> US-only remote roles. The entire premise of remote is that it shouldn't matter where you work from, as long as you get the work done. This is extremely, incredibly harmful. I hope you know that.

You still need to provide accurate data for location, mainly due to taxes. I'm also getting from the post that there's an implication that they are receiving outside the us applicants.

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#153

Post by [deleted] »

LoganDark wrote: post #143
cj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with many of these examples is that 99% of the time, it is a sign of fraud, and 1% of the time it’s a false positive. > If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. I’ve been using this heuristic (along with VPN and IP geo lookup) when screening job candidates after a massive influx of developers outside the US applying for US-only remote roles. I discov…

> US-only remote roles. The entire premise of remote is that it shouldn't matter where you work from, as long as you get the work done. This is extremely, incredibly harmful. I hope you know that.

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#154

Post by cangeroo »

k8svet wrote: post #124
cangeroo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you open an account with Revolut?

Trust me, I'm taking notes! I've tried researching this, but "credit card company that sends TOTP over email" is not really Google-able. Revolut is on my list now, though. Thanks!

Welcome to 21st century!

I travel with debit cards from 3 different banks for this reason. Look for banks that issue virtual cards that can be used with Apple Pay / Google Pay. But you also need ideally two physical cards, since one bank may block your physical card for "fraud" while traveling, and now you're stuck and unable to buy a train ticket.

Credit cards are only necessary for car rentals, which is a major pain, but sometimes they can just make a reservation charge of 1000 EUR that they later cancel.

The benefit of virtual cards is that you usually get a notification (if you have internet) that your card is blocked, and details about the transaction, which makes it easier to unblock, and understand why the transaction/card was blocked.

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#155

Post by PeterisP »

LoganDark wrote: post #143
cj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with many of these examples is that 99% of the time, it is a sign of fraud, and 1% of the time it’s a false positive. > If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. I’ve been using this heuristic (along with VPN and IP geo lookup) when screening job candidates after a massive influx of developers outside the US applying for US-only remote roles. I discov…

> US-only remote roles. The entire premise of remote is that it shouldn't matter where you work from, as long as you get the work done. This is extremely, incredibly harmful. I hope you know that.

Country of residence makes a difference for legal reasons, foreign remote employees are not the same as domestic remote employees.

Some companies have an established process to handle the different requirements of a global workforce, and for them hiring one more person from country X doesn't cause any issues; but if your HR, legal and accounting is set up for domestic operations, then hiring a foreign employee may easily add so much overhead that it's not worth the hassle.

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#156

Post by InvaderFizz »

brianmiddleton wrote: post #13

I move to random corners of the world every 2-3 years and this is starting to give me real anxiety every time I try to make a purchase. One of my credit cards makes me jump through all of the verification and "Was this really you?" messages, then still locks my account half the time. So many online stores will approve my purchase and bill the card with no issue, then cancel it a few hours later for vague security rea…

I've had the best luck sticking to ApplePay, PayPal as the backup, and finally my CC (the Apple Pay one).

I can't think of a payment hurdle for online purchases that I haven't been able to overcome in the past year or two while spending 99% of my time OCONUS.

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#157

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

Aldipower wrote: post #144

I would like to emphasize his point. When we get into a digital only currency world, you are loosing control. He is giving a real life example. Nothing hypothetical. Think about blocked - without given reason - Google accounts and such. Could be you bank account, in the future, too!

I think "loosing" should just be declared a language norm at this point.

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#158

Post by k8svet »

ahefner wrote: post #136
k8svet wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Schwab would fix their account security to allow plain TOTP instead of the scam that is Symantec VIP, I would have nothing but good... well, there was the two times, yes, two times in a month that I had to spend hours on the phone telling them to stop letting people randomly transfer securities into my account without my consent. They assured me that (1) it would be illegal for me to refuse the request to take bac…

Interesting. I was considering opening a second account specifically as a backup card and hedge against lockouts while travelling, and Schwab was high on my list, but it sounds like based on your experience that they are not fit for purpose.

The way it was explained to me is that this (a glorfied Excel sheet of transfers that get executed at a certain hour of each day) is just how intra-bank securities transfers work and that I mostly got unlucky that (1) the intended recipient was at Schwab (2) whoever was doing these transfers has dyslexia and my account was a number transpose off.

For the most part, their customer support has been excellent. I had an ATM in France eat a card, and so I infact have two bank accounts with them. They refund ATM fees, have never given me a hard time about international withdrawals, do support TOTP, albeit in a round-about way, send very prompt email alerts with customizable thresholds. Of all the banks I've had, I'm most happy with them. Just consider if you need access to a physical branch. Luckily, despite my whining, my needs are rather simple.

Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell

#159

Post by mickelsen »

kevstev wrote: post #40
ryandrake wrote: post #4

Every time I travel abroad, some company's poorly thought out software goes bonkers and then it becomes my problem to solve. Hey, companies: People travel. Sometimes very frequently. This is not an edge case or an obscure P3 bug. If you're assuming that a mere sudden change in IP to a different country is "suspicious" then you're doing it wrong. Your software is a mess and can't seem to deal with it. Maybe take a bre…

One thing I try to do to avoid this is to always make a purchase at the airport before I go overseas. This seems to calm down the algos a bit. I used to go through this a bunch too.

One day my card got cloned and I see some withdrawals from a foreign country. I promptly report it, transactions reversed and the bank issued a new card. After this, I was getting fraud alerts and either informative or confirmation SMS when that was triggered in the past. It seemed to follow whenever a transaction passed $100, then $500, then $1000 and a certain frequency or off-hours.

It's like the risk threshold got a reset with the new issued plastic. Eventually the algorithm was trained I suppose, back it was back to where it was, and stopped getting alerts for anything out of the usual. This resonates with the experience of friends in the same bank, who hardly ever use their credit cards, so whatever they buy gets flagged and someone calls to make sure it's them.

Old fashioned banks who are behind the times in technology, but keep richer clients, are usually less annoying, both with the fraud algos thing and also the KYC stuff, and sometimes the difference is massive.

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