Credit card Caribbean Princess Fiasco

[BJS]

We had done both call and not call credit card company. We have also had a hold put on the card, called the credit card company, found out someone had used the card fraudulently. We had a hold on the card but hadn't tried to use it again before we returned home thank goodness. When we returned home there was a message to call the fraud alert department. Someone in London had try to purchase shoes - We figure the number had been lifted in Stanley, Faulkland Islands. At that time our credit card company asked that we always call when using the card out of the country so that it will be available to use when we want to use it. They said it is possible that a hold could be put on the card because of an unusual spending pattern.

 

It takes so little time to make the call that it is on the top of our "to do" list before leaving home for an international trip.

 

For those of you who have ignored the calls you have been lucky (or I feel unlucky) that you could still use your card (I'd rather have the card put on hold than have the number in the wrong hands:eek: ). I'm glad our credit company is looking after our best interests.

 

 

.

[Treven]

You know, I have read this over and over and over again, but have never told my credit card companies (we use either a Visa or Amex) when we leaving the country. And we do leave the country a lot. Never ever has any charge been denied, whether in the U.S., Europe, South America, Africa, etc. I wonder if this doesn't have something to do with a person's history, credit line, whatever. I'm still not inclined to tell them. Maybe I've just been lucky. Can't explain it.

 

Pia

I don't tell mine either and used my MC in Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize City, as well as Ft. Lauderdale. Also all along the Western coast of Mexico; none of the purchases were ever declined. Fortunately.

[sewer]

Thanks so much to all of you for yor comments on this.....Pia, we also travel quitea bit, europe, far east caribbean etc, never have any problen, las cruises 9/06. 12/07 and 3/08. My fault was not going with my husband to the pursers office when we got the dear john letter about a $37.00 charged, that we did not use. We are very concerned how could this has happened, we use a different card at that time, and yesterday when I called the CC, was informed of the other charges. We cancelled that CC. lLke I said, fortunately the CC erased the charges. Any way, I'm sending a letter to princess with all the documents that they required. In any event we don't have to pay for those charges. We used the card in a hotel in FLL the day before sailing and at the pier. For your info our Credit is very good, nthing to do with that.

[Pia1913]

This did happen to us last year in the Caribbean. After 30 years of marriage, I decided to upgrade the diamond in my wedding ring. Now that's a fun shopping trip! When we went to pay for it, the card was declined and it was the Visa debit card for our checking account, so I knew there was plenty of money. I called the bank right there from the jewelry store and they told me they put a fraud alert on the transaction. In the end, I got my diamond upgrade, but I will alway alert the bank when I am leaving the country. It was a huge pain in the neck.

 

I think the problem was that it was a debit card and not a credit card. Hope you're enjoying your diamond. :D

[Pia1913]

Thanks so much to all of you for yor comments on this.....Pia, we also travel quitea bit, europe, far east caribbean etc, never have any problen, las cruises 9/06. 12/07 and 3/08. My fault was not going with my husband to the pursers office when we got the dear john letter about a $37.00 charged, that we did not use. We are very concerned how could this has happened, we use a different card at that time, and yesterday when I called the CC, was informed of the other charges. We cancelled that CC. lLke I said, fortunately the CC erased the charges. Any way, I'm sending a letter to princess with all the documents that they required. In any event we don't have to pay for those charges. We used the card in a hotel in FLL the day before sailing and at the pier. For your info our Credit is very good, nthing to do with that.

 

I never questioned your credit standing nor do I think you need to substantiate it. I just made a statement and the fact that we've never alerted any CC companies. Obviously other posters are on track with us. I usually follow my credit card charges on line every few days; I charge everything and like to keep abreast of it all.

 

Pia

[PescadoAmarillo]

You know, I have read this over and over and over again, but have never told my credit card companies (we use either a Visa or Amex) when we leaving the country.

We used to call the credit card companies and tell them when we were leaving the country (over 5 years ago), but then they turned that phone call into an opportunity to try to sell us credit card insurance to cover us in case we ran into issues overseas or lost our jobs. After listening to that spiel just twice while we were trying to pack and get ready for an extended international vacation, we decided to skip the calls. We haven't had an issue, either, for years.

[deerby27]

My DW had her credit card number swiped in Mexico to the tune of $15000. Now, if we used th OP's logic, we will never go to Mexico again. NOT!

[KLLund]

I think that with all of the ID theft going on . credit card companies are a lot more vigilant about checking for fraud. Citibank has called me several times in the past few months to be sure that a purchase was in fact legitimate. We did have forget to tell our bank one time and our ATM was rejected in Sweden. We called our local branch and talked to someone I knew from banking there and she was able to get the fraud restriction released .. but I have never again left the country without informing them.

[caribill]

"past performance is no guarantee of future performance."

 

Credit and debit card issuers are getting more vigilant as fraud increases, especially overseas from the USA.

 

My credit union recently put a block on all foreign transactions on their debit cards and you must call in advance to remove the block on yours.

 

Don't be surprised (and disappointed) if you don't notify your card issuer before traveling and then find your card is declined.

 

Sometimes I have called and been asked exactly which countries the card might be used in. Other times it was an automated system that just wanted to know you were traveling, but did not care where.

[star gazer]

That's what I would expect too. The ship puts a hold on your credit card at the start of the cruise (and may repeat that for a multi-week cruise) to cover themselves for daily charges that should cover the amounts mentioned.

 

Charges to cruise cards may end up on the wrong account, but can usually handled by the purser's desk before itg ets to a credit card. One reason to get an account printout during the cruise to keep an eye out for those kinds of errors.

 

Don't wait till the last night to check a printout, the line can get very long.

[AZAaronBoy]

Don't quite understand since although Princess may run a check on the card's validity at the start of the cruise, they do not make daily charges to the card, waiting until the end to make just one charge of the total..

 

This may help.... On my last cruise on the Dawn we had our accounts charged to 1 CC. As we all know Princess places an Authorization of $XXX (I don't know the amount) per passenger at boarding.

 

Every day after we had used our up initial authorization $$$ the "ship" added another authorization for what we had spent beyond what was currently authorized.

 

I know this because my Credit Card is stupid and after we got home I had to wait for the authorizations to drop off day by day. (My company holds the funds for 7 business days) This was even after they could plainly see the $1500 total charge from Princess.

 

So as an example

 

Day 1 Boarding $300 pp Authorized - PCL Account $600

Purchased Soda Cards, Shore Excursions, Daily Tips, & Sailaway Drinks

$450 on Room key leaving $150 as available in our PCL account

 

Day 2

Added another Shore Excursion in PV, Drinks, Daily Tips

$400 on Room key - PCL $150 used and additional $250 Authorized on CC

 

Day 3

Off the ship for the Day so only drinks, Photos, & Daily Tips Purchased

$150 on Room key - PCL Account even so another $150 Auth on CC

 

This goes on until you leave the ship.... I would assume that this is the main reason why they do not suggest using a Debit card as the Extra Authorizations would take away from the Cash balance for a while until the Auth do drop off.

 

Technically Princess charges show as the ship name. The OP just had a company that was more vigilant than others. Everything may have been avoided by placing a travel notification.

[AZAaronBoy]

A follow up...

 

CC Authorizations are not charges they just hold the funds so you can't spend it at another merchant.

 

Some Hotels place a hold for phone calls, movies, etc. And that is usually released at Checkout. In my case my CC didn't receive or Princess didn't send the Release of funds so my card had a reduced available balance for a couple of weeks.

[BJS]

This may help.... On my last cruise on the Dawn we had our accounts charged to 1 CC. As we all know Princess places an Authorization of $XXX (I don't know the amount) per passenger at boarding.

 

Every day after we had used our up initial authorization $$$ the "ship" added another authorization for what we had spent beyond what was currently authorized.

.

Maybe this has something to do with your particular credit card.

 

With 21 Princess cruises our shipboard account has never shown any authorization similar to what yours did.

 

Our credit card statement never shows anything except the final charge that was shown as charged to that card. I'm sure there has been some sort of a verification that funds are available but it has never shown up on either our shipboard statement nor our credit card statement.

 

The onboard statement has always started off with any OBC then they subtract shore excursions then daily- the auto tips plus onboard charges and reversal of any charges giving a running balance.

 

.

[crusdiva]

On the CB Spooky Cruise 10/06 and purchased tanzanite ring, bracelet and earrings. Because it was a rather larger purchase we used a different credit card than the one we used on the ship for drinks, tips, etc.

 

So, Yes, you can use a different credit card in the boutiques, liquor & cigarette store and possibly with Steiner.

 

Mrs.RickSt

Mrs.RickSt

I'm confused - was this large purchase made onboard or in port? Or did you each register a different card onboard?

[nho9504]

Thanks so much to all of you for yor comments on this.....Pia, we also travel quitea bit, europe, far east caribbean etc, never have any problen, las cruises 9/06. 12/07 and 3/08. My fault was not going with my husband to the pursers office when we got the dear john letter about a $37.00 charged, that we did not use. We are very concerned how could this has happened, we use a different card at that time, and yesterday when I called the CC, was informed of the other charges. We cancelled that CC. lLke I said, fortunately the CC erased the charges. Any way, I'm sending a letter to princess with all the documents that they required. In any event we don't have to pay for those charges. We used the card in a hotel in FLL the day before sailing and at the pier. For your info our Credit is very good, nthing to do with that.

 

Can you reveal what those fraudulent charges are?

 

The reason I asked is, the info may very well be lifted at the FLL hotel instead of on the ship.

 

We have a card only used 2 times, one was to pay BellSouth online (we always did), and one is used in a local restaurant - then we found out a charge being made in California - someone used it to pay a club membership. We informed Chase, got the charge reversed, and a new card issued. Guess what? The new card was never used by us, sitting in a drawer, then the following month, another fraudulent charge showed up, from the SAME merchant, for the SAME amount. I asked Chase, how could this happen? I was told, there is NO WAY the CC companies could have prevent the 2nd fraudulent charge, if it came from a merchant who has received clearance on the first authorization, and classified that as RECURRING charge! As soon as the 2nd fraudulent charge was reversed, we cancelled the card right away, despite the CC's protest.

 

I talked to my neighbor, who turned out had similar things happened to their AMEX card - in their case, there were thousands of charges went thru on the first month, then another 2K on the 2nd month despite the card was replaced, supposedly would be free from fraud. WRONG.

[jonikal]

Advising our credit card companies of our dates and ports of call is something that has always been on our pre-cruise 'to-do' list. Credit card companies have become much more alert to transactions ocurring out of the customer's normal sphere of activity since credit card fraud is such a huge problem. It can be a bit of a fiddle to call and get to the right department, but I'd rather that, than not be able to purchase something or be able to get foreign currency. We have sailed with people on European cruises who failed to alert and were unable to get the stores to accept their cards. Perhaps it isn't so much a problem in the Caribbean but why take the chance?

[nho9504]

For those of you who have ignored the calls you have been lucky (or I feel unlucky) that you could still use your card (I'd rather have the card put on hold than have the number in the wrong hands:eek: ). I'm glad our credit company is looking after our best interests.

.

 

The credit card companies would LOVE for you to think so. In all reality and practical purposes, they are protected themselves, instead of YOU. FYI, by law, US cardholders are NOT responsible for any fraudulent charges above $50 as long as the cardholders report the fraudulent charges within 60 days after such charges appear on the statement. Virtually every card issuer waives the first $50 responsibility - so as cardholder, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to report the fraudulent charges within 60days after they appeared on your statement. When you have done that part, your liability is 0. The card companies absorb that.

 

You may want to ask, then why would the card companies dont go after the thieves? The sad part is, it costs the card companies a lot more to track down the criminals than just write off the charges as part of the cost of doing business.

 

As far as calling, would you call your card companies whenever you use your card, such as at a gas station, in a local restaurant?

 

Guess what? The ONE and the ONLY fraudulent charge we ever have, knock on wood, in over 2 decades of owning credit cards from various issuers, was a charge put on our Chase card, after we used at a local restaurant. The charge was readily identifiable as fraudulent charge - we only used the said card twice after we got it - one was used to pay BellSouth online (we always pay BellSouth online), the other time was used to pay for a lunch at a local restaurant. The 2 usages were 2 weeks apart. After the 2nd use, 3 days later, a $25 charge showed up on our account, when I logged online to check our accounts. (I do that once a week on all our finance accounts, whether we are at home or aboard.) I called Chase immediately, and found out the charge was made by someone in California to pay a Club Membership Due. The card was cancelled and a replacement card was sent. The fraudulent charge was reversed, but we were told we needed to sign an affadavit to affirm the charge was fraudulent, for legal purposes. While we were still waiting for the form to arrive, a 2nd identical fraudulent charge showed up on the replacement card! Needless to say, we were pretty upset. When I called, the Fraud Dept of Chase told me - THERE IS NO WAY TO PREVENT THE 2ND FRAUDULENT CHARGE, IF THE MERCHANT IDENTIFIED THE FIRST CHARGE AS RECURRING TYPE, THE 2ND AND SUBSEQUENT ONE WOULD AUTOMATICALLY GOING THRU. What a reality check! She even has the nerve to suggest me to call the merchant to inform them this card is fraudulent used, and to stop accepting it for payment. Sheesh, we dont even know where the merchant is located - it is a nationwhile health club chain, I forgot if it is called 24/7 fitness or what. The Chase Fraud Dept account manager gave me the merchant's 1-800 to call, and told me this would be THE only way to stop it!!! Meanwhile, she said when we finally received the form from the 1st fraudulent charge, filled it out and added the 2nd fraudulent charge to it and sent it back. We got the form 4 days later, a FULL MONTH and more AFTER we reported the 1st fraudulent charge.

 

Needless to say, once the 2nd charge was reversed, we cancelled the darn card right away, regardless what Chase said.

 

I did track down the merchant thru the 1-800 number - got to talk to someone in a call center located in Panama City, Panama (Central America). He tracked down the user of the card, said the card was presented for payment at the club, in California. This means while the card, the REAL THING, was with us all the time, the info was lifted, and being copied and reproduced a fake card, being sold at California and someone used it to pay her club due.

 

Oh, I also called the restaurant manager to inform him what we suspected happened in his restaurant. We told him where we sat on that particular day. The waiter served us was not seen ever since. We returned to that restaurant on a weekly basis since then, and nothing ever happened again.

 

Bottom line, there are many many places your card info can be lifted, be it here or aboard. Call or not call, does not seem to make any difference. In fact, if you call, and the CSR does not process properly, your card would actuall be put on Fraud Alert, and would be declined no matter what.

 

The notion of CC companies are watching out for cardholders

best interests cannot be more naive and wrong.

[nho9504]

Our credit card statement never shows anything except the final charge that was shown as charged to that card. I'm sure there has been some sort of a verification that funds are available but it has never shown up on either our shipboard statement nor our credit card statement.

.

 

If the authorization request amount is larger than the available credit you have, the request is declined, and you will get that "dear john" letter.

 

None of such info would ever show on your statement, but some credit card companies are better than others, (BofA, former MBNA, FIA), that the authorizations are VIEWABLE ONLINE.

 

He was talking about Authorizations - Authorizations NEVER show up on ANY issuers statements - the statements are BILLED ACTIVITIES. The Authorizations are UNBILLED ACTIVITIES - 2 very different things.

 

Chase, Citi, do not have the Authorizations shown up online for you to view - but you can deduce it by the difference of your AVAILABILE CREDIT and your CREDIT LINE - if all activities are billed, then the difference should match with that. When it does not match, there are UNBILLED ACTIVITIES - some are actual spendings you have already made, some are just authorizations, such as the hotels put a hold on incidentals for phone calls, restaurants, etc eventhough you have not used any of those, or the car rental companies put a $500 or $700 hold on your car rental when you picked up the rental car.

 

When a final charge is sent by the merchant who initially ased and received an authorization, it matched up with the authorization and the final charge is posted, the authorization drops off. However, if there is NO actual billing is sent, the authorization would not drop off, eventhough the merchant may release the hold by billing you with a 0 amount. With Chase, such unmatched authorization would drop off in 5 to 7 business days,automatically. With Citi, such unmatched authorization could stay for 30 days, yes, 30 days, before it finally drops off.

 

Bank of America, or previous MBNA card, FIA cards, the temperary authorizations would show up ONLINE, item by item, with description, so a cardholder can tell right away who put a hold on the card, and know whether these are legitimate pending charges, authorization for rental car / hotel, or fraudulent charges went thru but not billed yet. This is superior than Chase and Citi. With Chase or Citi, whenever the sum of un-identifiable authorization got too different from my own ballpark figure, I call them to ask them tell me the details one by one, so I would know whether such authorizations are legitimate or not.

 

To give you an idea, how much a hotel sometimes can put a hold on your card - when we stayed at InterContinental Le Grand in Paris, for 5 nights, the hotel front desk informed me, they would put the hold of $75 Euro per person per day, on our card - well, this is a 5-star hotel, with rooms running at 450 Euro a night, so they figure you would use the hotel facilities such as bar and restaurants, thus they figure the incidentals would be roughly like that. So for a 5 days stay, the total hold they put on $1,125 - that much is reduced from the Available Credit from the credit card used for the hotel stay. (The stay itself was reward nights, otherwise, the hold would be much larger, based on 450 Euro a night for the type of room we had.) This is WHY it is so much better to use Credit Card, than a debit card, for all your travel needs, just for such. Not to mention that, rental car companies would not even accept debit card, unless it is the final form of payment, and debit card does not offer you protections the credit cards offered, by law.

[nho9504]

You know, I have read this over and over and over again, but have never told my credit card companies (we use either a Visa or Amex) when we leaving the country. And we do leave the country a lot. Never ever has any charge been denied, whether in the U.S., Europe, South America, Africa, etc. I wonder if this doesn't have something to do with a person's history, credit line, whatever. I'm still not inclined to tell them. Maybe I've just been lucky. Can't explain it.

Pia

 

It certainly has a lot to do with the cardholder's history with the issuer, the spending pattern, the usage ratio, etc etc If the cardholder has a long running history with the issuer, with a spending pattern that often involved overseas charges, and may be a sudden spike of spending a few times a year (due to travelling), the usage ratio is very low, I dont think the flag(s) would trigger even if you dont call.

 

People dont understand, it is not whenever you use the card out of country, the computer would flag it - I doubt this would be the case - there are some variables go into the equation and I am sure it has a "point" sysem, just like the IRS (how its system determines which return would trigger audit) - because for those people who said they never call, they tend to be people who travel all over the world, some to very far-flung and remote places, and they dont seem to have problem, despite they dont call.

[Pia1913]

It certainly has a lot to do with the cardholder's history with the issuer, the spending pattern, the usage ratio, etc etc If the cardholder has a long running history with the issuer, with a spending pattern that often involved overseas charges, and may be a sudden spike of spending a few times a year (due to travelling), the usage ratio is very low, I dont think the flag(s) would trigger even if you dont call.

 

People dont understand, it is not whenever you use the card out of country, the computer would flag it - I doubt this would be the case - there are some variables go into the equation and I am sure it has a "point" sysem, just like the IRS (how its system determines which return would trigger audit) - because for those people who said they never call, they tend to be people who travel all over the world, some to very far-flung and remote places, and they dont seem to have problem, despite they dont call.

 

My cardholder history is such that if we don't charge to either VISA or AMEX in a 48 hour period, they call to find out if we're OK. ;)

 

Pia

[familycruisin]

I think that it all depends on your CC company. Ours is excessively vigilant (sometimes to the point of annoying!!) about putting holds on the card. If we use it in more than one city in a day, or if my husband is traveling and I am not with him, there will be a fraud alert. Removing it is as simple as calling the 800 number and verifying the charges via their automated system and it immediately is lifted. Our credit is excellent, and we pay our balance in full every month. Since we know that this is how they operate, we always notify them when we will be traveling out of the country, and take a copy of the numbers that we would need to call from that country in case of a problem (we had this happen in Europe even though we had already called them). We also have a spare card in case of true fraud and the need to put a hold on the card.

 

That being said, I read these boards only when we are preparing for a cruise. The information is great, however the nasty responses of some of the frequent posters is really off putting. Most people are just looking for advice, information, or are sharing an experience that is important to them. I don't find it necessary to accuse the original posters of deceipt, ignorance, or malice just because you don't understand or agree with their comments! This should all be about our love of cruising.:)

[nho9504]

That's not actually true. Quite often credit card fraud begins with a couple of small charges that will go through comparatively unnoticed in order to check that the card is valid. Subsequently, the 'big one' hits.

 

If this is the scheme you allude to, the pattern would usually be, a small charge made to an online outfit, usually just a couple bucks, sometimes to a charity organization, to see if the card info is valid, then the "big one" hits. There might be some time lapse between the test(s) and the "hit", but the big criminals would not make test charges one after another several days in a row - for that would only diminish the chance for fraud - as the longer fraudulent charges going on, the bigger chance it would be detected. They would not lose time if they aim for the "big ones".

 

Or, a charge made from a place the cardholder frequented in the past, may even current, and the charge was fraudulent, but not obvious, and then couple months later, similar fraudulent charge hit again - the cardholder would not have any idea if s/he does not compare statement with charge slips (many dont, sadly) - such usually are small fries who work in restaurants and use that as an ongoing "income" stream by juggling some frequent patrons card info and sub that with cash payments. Sometimes it takes the victim months to even notice it, and only notice it if and when the victim stopped going to the same restaurant for a while, but saw charges popped up on the statement.

 

The pattern OP described, did not fit at all.

 

I am still wanting to know, the details of the fraudulent charges. So far OP is not willing to post such. To me, it is the biggest puzzles that are missing.

[nho9504]

My cardholder history is such that if we don't charge to either VISA or AMEX in a 48 hour period, they call to find out if we're OK. ;)

Pia

 

I hear you! Same here! I charge everything and anything, even a buck, to our card(s) - ours is an almost cashless household if we can help it.

[BJS]

The notion of CC companies are watching out for cardholders best interests cannot be more naive and wrong.

 

It is so nice to have an expert post who assumes the rest of us are ignorant about using credit cards.:rolleyes:

 

No where did I ever say that the credit card company was not protecting themselves #1. I still would rather have them put a hold on my card if they suspect fraud than continue to allow the card to be used.

 

.

[NeurosurgeryNP]

While we are on the topic of CC fraud -

 

I used our CC in St. Maarten to make a pay phone call - advertised US rate at $1.50 per minute and no additional charges plainly on the phone. We spoke for 2-3 minutes on the phone and they charged our CC $3.95 to "authorize our CC" and another $31.95 for our 3 minute call.

 

We had no leg to stand on as we did not have a receipt to fight with the CC to reverse the charges.

 

In the end - we learned - WHEN OVERSEAS DO NOT USE YOUR CREDIT CARD TO PAY FOR A PHONE CALL ON A PAY PHONE. BUY A PRE-PAID CALLING CARD.