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Soft Credit Card Pull While Manufactured Spending




Recently, I was added as an authorized user to my brother’s Chase British Airways credit card so that we can spend $30,000 for the travel together ticket. No thanks to the latest data breaches from Target or Neiman Marcus, credit card companies are watching out for suspicious activity like a hawk and apparently, his spending habits are low and my card being new, is scrutinized even more.

As part of my daily routine on my way to work, I will stop by several outlets for various product for MS’ing. The other day at CVS buying  2 $500 denominated Vanilla Reload cards. As we were attempting to finish the transaction, the cashier asked cashier asked for my ID. He scanned my ID and I proceeded to swipe the British Airways card and he asked to see the card for the last four digits. Sounds familiar, right? Shortly after, the pad said, “PROCESSING…” and was frozen and a receipt automatically came out.

It told the cashier to call up Chase’s anti fraud department. He calls up Chase, and I have been in his position in the past. The telephone operator will ask you for the sequence number on the screen and explain the situation. The CVS cashier said I was trying to make a purchase and that I was in front of him and he had checked ID and verified name on both cards matched.

After some back and forth, between the cashier and the operator, the cashier told the operator the store location and store’s telephone number. I found that to be a bit odd and out of protocol.

Nonetheless, I also wasn’t surprised when the cashier handed me the phone and said they would like to speak with me. I was a bit taken aback that the call was monitored. For further verification of my identity, they did a soft credit pull! I was so shocked and ambushed that I had actually answered incorrectly one of the questions. Because of that, the operator told me she could not release the hold and authorize the transaction.

I had the CVS cashier cancel the payment, and I used my issued British Airways card where the transaction proceeded smoothly and Vanilla Reload loaded into my account without a hitch.

So, has that happened to anyone before?

4 comments… add one
  • I had the exact same thing happen when my wife’s ink plus card was new–right down to the phone being handed to me. This was about 4 mos ago. I was very annoyed and finally cancelled the transaction because I was VERY annoyed. A later phone call to chase cs to show my displeasure with this whole situation made it clear that it would not happen again. I then used a different chase card and it went thru no problem. I was only trying to purchase 3 vr’s….

    Reply
    • I was very glad that the cashier and I have a good relationship, he didn’t announce anything to the operator of my purchases. I couldn’t find a post from someone on FT on how furious he was when the store called up the credit card company trying to authorize the purchase.

      Reply
  • Haven’t encounter any issue yet. Been buying 4 VRs everytime. What’s your credit line limit? Mine is over 15K

    Reply
    • It is a 5k CL. I wonder if it is the area that I am in that’s “high risk” (city) and the CC companies are erring on the safe side

      Reply

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