don't forget to ask permission...

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

...to spend your own money, if you bank at Wainwright and use an ATM card to access your hoard. (Disclaimer: I otherwise love Wainwright Bank, as they are not only progressive in policy, but in action.)

My partner and I were in yesterday, because they now need to be alerted IN WRITING that you wish to leave town and use your ATM/debit card. Otherwise they will interpret purchases as attempts at fraud, and deny the transaction. (Yes, this has happened to me. Most embarrassing.)

They say this is to prevent possible theft; I say it is a theft of my privacy. They will be getting a[nother] nasty note from me when I return from the trip I leave on (in about half an hour). I say "another" because the written notification I gave them was so...vivid...that the Davis Square customer service person was going to fax it over to the main office, probably so they could use advanced graphological analysis to see how infuriated I am.

If I wanted to inform the authorities of my whereabouts, and ask permission to spend my own money, I would face the satellite cameras and vote Republican.

Comments

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU!!! I'm heading to Canada this weekend and would have run into trouble with this!

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

The customer service woman suggested I write to the HQ and tell them my thoughts on this. I hope you do the same. She will give you email addresses, which I have already packed.

[cos]

Probably not, but see my comment below. They never tell you how the fraud heuristic works (probably even the people at Wainwright don't know), so it's not predictable.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

I've had to do it when going overseas, which made sense to me but notification of every domestic travel seems a bit drastic.

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

Indeed - Illinois.

[lidiya6.livejournal.com]

are you serious? how far "out of town"? I don't travel that much but I can imagine this would be a major pain for people who do. Isn't it much more likely that your atm card would be used fraudulently in your own town than out-of-town ?

[lidiya6.livejournal.com]

would western MA be "out of town"? Manchester NH?

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

Dunno, M - worth a call.

[cos]

See my comment below.

[inahandbasket]

wow. and I thought the $1000 single purchase limit was a pain in the butt! (My significant-other was trying to buy an Apple laptop online.)

They'll be hearing from me about this one, that's for sure.

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

Or the fact that you can't cash a check for more than you have in your account - that just boggles my mind.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

1k is high. A lot of banks have lower limits.

[xuth.livejournal.com]

Almost all banks have some limit on the per day usage of an ATM/Debit card. You should note that the default is $1300 per day ($1000 credit, $300 ATM). After you have established the account for some unspecified duration it is quite easy to change the limits.

[cos]

This has actually happened to me with several banks. It's not a consistent thing - I travel a lot and never tell Wainwright, and my card pretty much always works. But once, I tripped the automatic fraud sensor by travelling too far too fast and it got disabled and I had to call them to re-enable it. The same thing had happened with Fleet and with BankBoston in the past, again not consistently.

Wainwright doesn't actually do their own cards, they're not big enough for that, so they outsource to a company that does cards for a lot of small banks. It's that company that controls the fraud sensor stuff.

In my experience, it never happens when you travel to one place, it only happens when you travel to multiple places in rapid succession. I do that a lot, I go on cross country road trips and I sometimes drive all day. If I use my card in Colorado, Nevada, and California on the same day, that's when I'm at risk of tripping the fraud sensor.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

yeah, the one that got me on a credit card once was traveling from Boston to Jacksonville, Florida by motorcycle. Stopping for $5 worth of gas every 150-170 miles all along I-95 apparently does it. :-P I found out when I attempted to make a purchase in JAX with said CC--about $35 worth of maps at a Barnes & Noble--and the card was declined. Fortunately a quick phone call to the bank set things right and reactivated the card.

[siderea]

so they outsource to a company that does cards for a lot of small banks. It's that company that controls the fraud sensor stuff.

Do you know what the company is or how to contact them? I'd like to drop them a suggestion.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Makes me kind of glad I kept my credit union in California (I've been with them since 1984). I've never had this problem with them.

Of course, I also have only one local ATM (I think), but I can still get cash at CVS. It's all about tradeoffs.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yep, credit unions have been great in my experience. I'm still with MIT Federal Credit Union even though I don't even work at MIT anymore. It's a pain to go to Kendall for f2f banking, but they've never played any security games with me.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

That sounds supremely sucky, I have to say.

[ron_newman]

is this only for debit purchases, or also for ATM withdrawals? Does it matter if the card has a MasterCard or Visa logo on it? (Mine doesn't, at my explicit request.)

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

purely out of curiosity, why don't you want a mastercard or visa logo on your card? what harm is there in having a check card?

Contradiction?

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

I must admit, the following two statements seem quite incompatible to me:

1) You must report to them your intention to take any trips, and keep them imformed of your doings.
2) They are progressive in policy and action.

Is it they are not actually as progressive as they claim, or does progressive mean something I'm not familiar with?

Re: Contradiction?

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

By "progressive" I meant that they are not only GLBT-friendly in name and policy, but actually are supportive of queer organizations and cultures, and have helped out transgender friends of mine who were in the midst of document changeovers. So this I feel is an aberration, probably foisted on them (as someone else said) by the card service they use.

[boywonder.livejournal.com]

I have had Wainwright for a few years now and have never run into a problem. I even lived in Europe for a while and didn't inform them. I traveled all over and was able to get cash wherever I went.

I also travel the US a bit and as of yet have not had an issue. Even when traveling to multiple states in a short time frame there has not been an issue.

Of course, now I am paranoid and will be sure to have plenty of extra cash on my before I go travel again.

[twitch124.livejournal.com]

I had no trouble using my Wainwright ATM card in China last month.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

I accidentally tripped Bank of America's fraud protection simply by filling my truck with gas, then trying to use the same card to purchase an $800 (or so) laptop.

Apparently gas and large purchase equals fraud pattern.

It was fixed with a telephone call.

A response from Irene Berry of Wainwright Bank

[ron_newman]

I e-mailed a few people at Wainwright Bank, pointing them at this and several other LiveJournal discussions that mentioned the bank. Irene Berry, assistant vice president for "electronic delivery", sent me this reply and told me I could post it here:

The automated fraud system scores transactions and based on that
algorithm, assesses the risk rating.

So, if you normally only use your card in MA, any international
transaction will prompt a high fraud risk score. A high fraud score will
cause the system to flag the card and require an analyst to contact the
customer to confirm the transactions. The phone call confirmation makes
for a difficult situation when the customer is out of the country and
can't be reached. If they can't reach the customer, the card is
disabled.

We ask customers to let us know when they will be traveling abroad to
avoid any interruption of service. If we make a note on the account, the
fraud analyst will not require a phone call to confirm that the customer
is in fact using their card. We are trying to avoid a bad situation by
asking that customers notify us when they travel.

This scenario was in fact accurately assessed by one of the discussion
participants on the LiveJournal.

I then asked her: "Is this only for overseas travel (outside the US and Canada)?"
and she replied:

The main focus is travel outside the US since it is most likely that the
fraud system will tag those transactions and it would be most difficult
to confirm the transactions with the customer out of the country.
Theoretically any purchases outside of your normal spending pattern
would increase the fraud score. Also, there are certain merchant
categories that increase the score as well. It is not uncommon for
customers who are not traveling to receive a call to confirm their
transactions because they are outside their normal spending pattern. But
we only ask that customers notify us when they will be abroad.

I am always available to any customer with questions. Feel free to take
this knowledge and inform those who may ask.

Re: A response from Irene Berry of Wainwright Bank

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. I will follow up with her. I was told that I have had to do this for several different states, after having a problem with a hotel in Philly - and the customer service woman at the Davis Square branch confirmed this, both for a trip to Cleveland and my current trip to Chicago.

My patterns ~are~ domestic hotel travel. So they can say that their "main focus" is overseas - but when I and my partner receive different information in person from the Wainwright representatives, they are having a problem.

One which will not go away with just a nice email from Ms. Berry.