As an expat, I've experienced lots of issues with my US bank recently. They started adding a 2fa through SMS, and they have no way for me to turn it off. I've been looking for banks to switch to, but it is hard to Google banks that don't require a phone number. What I've ended up doing is attempting to open an account and then stopping when they ask for a phone number.
The solution I found was to open a Schwab international brokerage account. They're okay with people who do not reside in the US, provide a debit card, can be used to pay of CCs, can deposit/write checks and allow money transfers. The only issue is that I suspect that my money is not protected by the government if Schwab goes bankrupt.
Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
161–170 of 406 posts
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found that notifying my providers of upcoming moves eliminates this. Call them, tell them what you're doing and ask their advice (b/c there may be something you overlooked or they may have special problems of their own). Anyway, they're doing you a service and notifying them is good etiquette. And like good etiquette, it often greases the wheels of commerce.
That does help a bit with the banks, but I've not had any luck at all with the stores who cancel my orders after the payment goes through. They refuse to budge, assuming I even get a response, and won't give me any information about why my orders are cancelled, citing more vague security reasons. I did have success with a privacy.com card once, at a store that cancelled orders from all of my other cards. I'm guessing…
The way the incentives work, if a store is mostly sure you're legit, that's not good enough and they would lose money if they served people indistinguishable from you; if their margins aren't huge, even being 90% sure may not be good enough.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#163I wholeheartedly support digitization, having been involved in the realms of development, system administration, and everything computer-related since my early days. However, what irks me is when I'm bound to use products or services from providers who fail to execute their roles properly despite being compensated for it. A recent incident at my child's school serves as a pertinent example. They transitioned from a t…
Wow, that is bonkers. Could you maybe get them actually to try sending you an email to that address and show them that, yes, you do receive the damnned thing?
I'm inclined to think that this is caused by prejudice against nonstandard TLDs which many, many services have; that it would work if the OP had their custom .com or .org domain.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#164I 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!
The beauty of cash is that it is money, not merely pinky-promising to be money. The “cashless” world was supposed to prevent fraud but clearly it doesn’t work. Instead we’re moving into a world of reputation and heuristics, with implications down to the level of individuals and small businesses.
I don’t particularly like to carry cash. But being shadow banned from existing by deliberately obscured algorithms could be much worse.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found that notifying my providers of upcoming moves eliminates this. Call them, tell them what you're doing and ask their advice (b/c there may be something you overlooked or they may have special problems of their own). Anyway, they're doing you a service and notifying them is good etiquette. And like good etiquette, it often greases the wheels of commerce.
Having to contact the provider to spend one's own money is simply outrageous. And yet, I also have started to make preemptive contact with them to avoid the complete hassle of having the card blocked for fraud that is NOT fraud.
If you were talking about asking someone’s permission to surfs your own cash money, that would be outrageous.
A bank account or a credit card is a relationship where you rent someone else’s infra to make payments. Makes sense to work together to minimise friction for both parties.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#166Wrong assumptions programmers make about fraud prevention: -- A mobile phone number uniquely identifies a single person. -- Every person has a mobile phone number and they only have one mobile phone number. -- If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. -- Every person always has their mobile phone handy and it is always able to receive calls and SMS messages under…
Why would LEO satellite internet cause frequent change of IP addresses? Shouldn't all that moving-satellite stuff be handled on a lower level of the OSI Model (probably Layer 2: Data Link), and the IP stuff at Layer 3 isn't affected?
With Starlink, the downlink location determines your externally-visible IP address and that can change every 90 seconds or so based on where the closest satellite to you is at the moment. I'm in New Mexico and I frequenly see ads on web pages directing me to shops in Denver or Dallas because those are the downlink locations for me.
You can see the issue better on this visualization:
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#167I tried to message the CTO and SVP revenue of adidas for this same reason.
I was literally trying to hand money to the company in 5 different attempts.
I finally gave up, with a borderline ulcer
I ll never try adidas.com again
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#168Wrong assumptions programmers make about fraud prevention: -- A mobile phone number uniquely identifies a single person. -- Every person has a mobile phone number and they only have one mobile phone number. -- If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. -- Every person always has their mobile phone handy and it is always able to receive calls and SMS messages under…
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…
> The problem with many of these examples is that 99% of the time, it is a sign a fraud, and 1% of the time it’s a false positive.
That’s the key. It may very well be the wrong business decision to care about this 1%.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#169Wise.com works wonderfully in India. I know it’s late this time around but it should work fine next time around. And American Express has been a pretty reliable option for me for an extended period of time.
Wishing your family all the best in this time.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#170Wrong assumptions programmers make about fraud prevention: -- A mobile phone number uniquely identifies a single person. -- Every person has a mobile phone number and they only have one mobile phone number. -- If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. -- Every person always has their mobile phone handy and it is always able to receive calls and SMS messages under…
It has nothing to do with wrong assumptions, it has everything to do with the statistical similarity to fraudulent transactions and acceptable failure rates.