Someone made a fraudulent charge on my USAA card for a large amount. I got an alert about it and called them right away to request a stop payment. They denied it, saying I should’ve notified them three days in advance. That doesn’t even make sense!
Luckily, I contacted the vendor, and they canceled the order and reversed the charge. But I called USAA within 15–20 minutes of the alert. How does that not count?
Really disappointed in USAA right now… losing faith after being a longtime customer.
If the vendor reversed the charge so easily, are you sure it was actually fraud?
Oli said:
If the vendor reversed the charge so easily, are you sure it was actually fraud?
We get calls like this a lot. Someone claims there’s fraud on their account, so we start the process to protect them by closing the card. Then they suddenly remember, “Oh wait, that charge might actually be mine!”
Closing the card is necessary to stop real fraud, but people don’t realize how quickly fraudsters can drain an account if they don’t act.
@Lior
Nope, this was definitely fraud. The card was closed, and I requested a new one. The old card was expired, and the charge was made using a different shipping and billing address from mine.
Vail said:
@Lior
Nope, this was definitely fraud. The card was closed, and I requested a new one. The old card was expired, and the charge was made using a different shipping and billing address from mine.
An expired card can’t be used for transactions. Are you saying the payment went through on a new card sent to the wrong address?
@Lior
It was the expired card. The charge was pending, but somehow it still went through. The new card has a different expiration date and security code, but the same card number.
Stop payments don’t work that way. They’re for blocking future payments, not ones that are already pending. If it’s showing as pending, it’s too late to request a stop payment. You need to dispute it instead.
Stop payments are for future transactions and take a few days to process. If you see a charge that’s already pending, the only way to handle it is to file a dispute. A stop payment can’t undo a transaction that’s already in progress.
The card used for the charge was expired, and I reported it as fraud. USAA still refused to stop any future transactions.
Vail said:
The card used for the charge was expired, and I reported it as fraud. USAA still refused to stop any future transactions.
To stop future fraudulent charges, they’d have to shut down the compromised card completely. They won’t put a stop payment on something that’s unauthorized—it has to be disputed instead.