

11:12 am
May 27, 2016

Norman1 said
Norman1 said Definitely not standard procedure. But, it shows what could happen if something looks fishy to the financial institution.
Rick said
Isn't that kind of a good thing?It is when it was actually fraud. It is not when it was a false alarm.
I had my credit card declined at a gas station because of a false fraud alarm. Fortunately, I had another credit card to pay for the gas that was pumped.
I called BMO up and asked what was going on. I was told two uses at the same gas station in one day is suspicious.
Yes, credit card could have been skimmed and the attendant was trying to put a charge on the card later in the day. But, I could have been running low on gas on the way out to work and bought some gas in the morning. On the way home after work, I see that gas prices dropped and decided fill up at the same station.
I've had this happen to me. Ahead of the work week I would often fill up one car on a Sunday afternoon, come home and then take my wife's car out to fill up at the same gas station. Got denied a couple times so now I use a separate card for the second transaction.
OTOH I've also had genuinely suspicious transactions sail right through, e.g. me buying gasoline in western Ontario while someone at almost the same moment is buying gas in southern Quebec (courtesy of scammers putting stolen numbers on MBNA card blanks). My card didn't get automatically shut down until it had almost $3K of bogus purchases on it.
So sometimes the fraud detection algos work, and sometimes they don't
11:49 am
February 17, 2013

1:46 am
October 21, 2013

Londonguy said
I've had this happen to me. Ahead of the work week I would often fill up one car on a Sunday afternoon, come home and then take my wife's car out to fill up at the same gas station. Got denied a couple times so now I use a separate card for the second transaction.
OTOH I've also had genuinely suspicious transactions sail right through, e.g. me buying gasoline in western Ontario while someone at almost the same moment is buying gas in southern Quebec (courtesy of scammers putting stolen numbers on MBNA card blanks). My card didn't get automatically shut down until it had almost $3K of bogus purchases on it.
So sometimes the fraud detection algos work, and sometimes they don't
We've had problems with BMO card as well, although not so much recently. Their excuse was that shopping at two or more DIFFERENT food stores in one day was suspicious. They did this to us every Christmas for a few years, so that you couldn't go to both a grocery sore and a specialty store, let alone more. There you are at the till with all your stuff and people lined up behind you, and no-go. We pointed out that we did this kind of shopping regularly and in particular every December. It was annoying calling them on the spot and talking to a live human who gave robotic answers. All they had to do was quickly scan our purchases for the previous December and they would see that this pattern, at the same stores, was repeated, but they were not willing to help in any way. We had to use another card. BMO eventually agreed to give us the points we would have earned if we'd been able to use their card and perhaps some bonus points (can't remember) - better than nothing.
10:52 am
September 29, 2017

Speaking of BMO, I just had my card flagged for suspicious activity such that they decided to issue a new card... why? They could not inform me how the card was flagged...just that they suspect fraudulent activity.... this for a card that is so lightly used but was recently using it more BECAUSE THEY have been offering MANY Air miles promos to encourage its usage. Cut off their nose to spite their face much?
Sounds like their fraud detection algos are far too finicky... wonder if they include human analysis in the process to override flags.
3:31 pm
September 11, 2013

9:22 am
December 12, 2009

Hubble said
Alexandre...That's a workaround for sure...however was hoping that a large pull from other institution would be a viable option to skirt the imposed limits. I am not sure of the limits associated with the Cha-Ching account but likely would involve similar limits to the Savvy Savings....but with zero costIf for example, one had $2,000,000 sitting in a Savvy account and wanted to move it to Tangerine...I would prefer to pull from Tangerine in one large pull rather than push the funds via numerous transactions over numerous days. I guess what I am asking...Are the daily limits applicable to both push and pull?
$2,000,000 electronic debit (push or pull) is not going to happen for security reasons. Best bet would be to transfer to your chequing account, and write an old-fashioned cheque. You can deposit it at any Exchange ATM, except usually banks will have a maximum ATM deposit limit of something ranging from $100,000-$1 million, so you probably will have to mail it in.
Things are not instant, and you'll just have to forgo a week's worth of interest and factor that into your overall annual return on investment.
Thanks,
Doug
9:26 am
December 12, 2009

Rick said
If you wrote a cheque for $1,000,000.00 on your Motive Account for deposit to another FI, do you think they would bounce it? Doubt it....same deal with a pull. Regularly go over Tangerines limits by pulling from Motive.
Open a Motive Chequing account if you haven't already. I wouldn't want to link my Saavy Savings to another FI and transfers between Motive accounts don't count against your monthly limit.
Actually, EFTs are more risky from that perspective, as there's no paper trail of the requestor's signature, so it's unlikely you'll find any financial institution with a $1 million plus push limit. Thus, the discussion on theoretical incoming credit limits, while interesting, is largely mooted.
Cheers,
Doug
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