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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

#21

Post by qup »

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…

Have you tried the temporary/virtual card numbers?

(I have no idea if they would work, I'm just curious)

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

#22

Post by gameshot911 »

I did a year of travel worldwide in over a dozen countries, and I had the most problems using my credit and debit cards in India. Particularly online, even at large, legitimate businesses like major airlines.

It becomes a tense situation when you are trying to buy a flight that you absolutely have to take, and despite 4 different credit/debit cards you still can't get any purchase on multiple different airlines go through! I even tried to go to the offices, but they were often difficult to find, non-existent, or just not open at the times you'd expect them to be. And good luck trying to purchase on a telephone, between trying to dial in international number, bad connections, and language issues!

FWIW, I had the most success with debit cards. I suspect it's because international companies feel more comfortable with cash in hand, vs. an American CC which can be easily charged back.

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

#23

Post by reaperman »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #8
aiProgMach wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might help in specific cases yes, but in case of websites that give physical services (e.g delivery of products) it won't help much

In this case it might actually make it worse. Why are you suddenly, while in the US (for example), ordering physical services in India? My bank locked my credit card once due to suspected fraud. I asked what triggered it and they said "You never buy gas on this card". This was 15 years ago and I'm sure the algorithms have only gotten better. A different bank used to ask you to tell them if you were planning on travel…

Not to mention the number of apps (and increasingly websites) which will require location services. So now you have a GPS location in India, and you're making credit card purchases alternating between USA IP's and India point-of-sale machines (and presumably sometimes Indian IP's for apps/sites that might block USA IP's) throughout the day.

As a fellow world traveler / international worker, I do still think this is wrong-headed on the part of the banks, but it's the current paradigm in which we all operate.

In the past it helped for me to call my banks and let them know I am traveling "for the next year" and to ease up on the fraud protection. But now with more and more layers of fraud protection, it's often not my bank that's the gatekeeper.

It's things like not being able to download a local version of an app, or not being able to get a local payment account (like as in UPI payments in India, I don't know if its hard for foreigners to get that specifically but in other countries it can be very difficult without being integrated into the local payment platforms)

P.S. - Re: location services...I like the catchphrase "Any device you truly own would lie on your behalf. If it won't lie for you, you don't own it." I should be able to tell my iPhone to report my location wherever I damn well want to pretend to be.

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

#24

Post by havan_agrawal »

CrendKing wrote: post #18

You do understand India is a country with huge number of scammers who targets US people, and they are causing US billions of dollars of damage [1] each year? Sure, you might not be a criminal, but how would these companies know? Plus, since you mention "gift card", you do know that scammers use gift cards to launder money, right? India doesn't put heavy hammer on scammers for various reasons. For example, since the s…

Your comment takes an (unfair IMO) position that it somehow matters what country the OP was in. It's not like the auth systems are designed for higher scrutiny in specific countries. There is more than one way to confirm identity, but somehow BigTech and Co keep assuming a happy path environment for you.

Case in point: my US bank insists on sending an OTP to my US number (and US number alone) for any transaction, making it impossible for me to move money when abroad. The problem exists in the other direction too, my foreign account only allows verification thru one mechanism. It's really frustrating.

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

#25

Post by aiProgMach »

al2o3cr wrote: post #6

I had to try literally multiple services just to buy expensive gift card So instead of contacting your bank or Amazon, you did the most money-laundering-looking thing you could do. Heckuva job there!

hmm no, my bank is fine, Amazon customer service told me they won't accept my card, that was the only option, but excuse me, how is 100-200$ gift card is money laundering?

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

#26

Post by aiProgMach »

belk wrote: post #7

tip regarding google play, each account can have an independent region, create a new google account and set it to your new location, keep the original where it was, it has 0 impact on how you use the apps after installation, if the app uses google auth you can login with either accounts

Nice will try that, thanks!

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

#27

Post by patrakov »

That's how I effectively lost my Azure account.

"According to our records, you originally registered this account while in Russia, and there is no way to change the country of the account. So we will continue to apply sanctions to this account despite the well-confirmed fact that you have moved out for good. We will also not allow attaching any non-Russian debit cards to that account, as we generally prohibit attaching foreign cards to any account. Please make a new account and enjoy."

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

#28

Post by brianmiddleton »

giardini wrote: post #20
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 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 they see it as a prepaid card and can't get as much info on those.

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

#30

Post by fishyjoe »

agubelu wrote: post #5
tpmx wrote: post #2

A workaround (edit: in some of those cases): Setup a Tailscale exit node in the country where you're normally located - with a residential IP. E.g. in your apartment back home, or at a friend's.

I have a Raspberry Pi at home running an OpenVPN server, and a client config for each of my devices, and it's been extremely useful ever since.

How do you expose the Raspberry Pi so that you can reach it from the outside internet?

My OpenVPN runs on a Digital Ocean droplet and I use it to tunnel into my home network, but having a direct route might be better.

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