Lifestyles

When your credit-card provider phones

By ARTHUR VIDRO
The phone rang and I picked it up. “This is your credit-card company with a limited-time offer to lower your interest rates.” The automated device told me to push the 1 button if I was interested.

Already, I knew this was a scam.

Consumers who get offered a seemingly good deal over the telephone should stop and ask themselves, “What’s in it for the company making me this offer?”

Money lenders — which are what credit-card issuers are — make their profits from the interest charged to the borrower. It would not be in the lender’s self-interest to reduce the interest rate for an existing borrower. It would reduce the lender’s profits.

Ordinarily I would just hang up — and so should you — but I figured this con game could be worth a newspaper column, so I tapped the button.

I was taken to a live human being who read rapidly from an obviously prepared script. I waited and waited until the spiel was over.

“Gee,” I began, “it sure is nice of you to offer to lower my interest rate. But I have two credit cards, each from a different provider. Your automated phone message didn’t make clear which of the two companies was calling me, and neither did you. So which credit-card company are you?” I was careful not to identify my credit-card companies to them.

The rapid-fire (and again obviously pre-scripted) response somehow included the names of all the major credit-card providers (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discovery) plus some others that were unknown to me.

I shook my head in disappointment. These weren’t even talented con artists.

“Well,” I mused, “if you won’t tell me which credit-card company you’re from, then maybe you’ll tell me the number on the credit card that you’re telephoning about with this terrific offer to lower its interest rate.”

Again the human huckster rapidly delivered a long pre-scripted answer that claimed to be able to lower the rates on all my cards.

“Gee, that sounds so wonderful,” I lied. “Just one more question. This telephone number you called me at, it’s the family phone, and there are four of us who share the phone number. I’m not sure if you meant to call me or one of the other credit-card-wielding members of my family. Can you tell me the name of the person this wonderful, limited-time offer is for?”

Another pre-scripted song-and-dance that dodged the question.

“Hmm … let me get this straight,” I replied. “You don’t know my name, you don’t know my credit card number, and you don’t even know which credit-card company issued the card, even though you claim to be representing that company. As much as I’d love to take you up on your generous offer, I would need you first to answer one of my questions. At least tell me the name of the person you were trying to call. You did phone this number — or had your computerized robot-caller dial it — didn’t you?”

Click. They hung up.

It should be obvious — but so many people get fooled that maybe it isn’t so obvious — that when you get a phone call from a robot who can’t identify you (and sometimes can’t even identify the company it is allegedly representing), then you’re being invited into a con game.

If someone calls claiming to be from “your credit-card company” but doesn’t identify that company, it’s a fraud.

Even if they can identify the company, you should still assume it’s a fraud.

Once in my life have I received a legitimate phone call from a credit-card provider. Fifteen years ago, while visiting relatives in another country,

I found it necessary to rent a car. Used a credit card for that. The rental triggered my credit-card company’s sending me a telephone alert for “unusual card activity.” The alert was recorded on my home answering machine. When I eventually returned home, I played the message left on the machine, called them back and confirmed it was indeed I who was using the card for this “unusual card activity,” as they had called it, and that was that.

Haven’t heard from them since.

So remember, when your credit-card company phones you … it’s not them.

Unless they prove otherwise.

If you have consumerism questions, send them to Arthur Vidro care of this newspaper, which publishes his column every weekend.

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