Freedom from what?

But lo and behold – what does “lo” mean anyway? – I recently received a statement from Chase with a charge on it from Mutual of Enumclaw insurance company. I never made a payment to that company. How could I? I had never heard of it. I would remember if I had, since it’s the worst name for a company since Studebaker. And since I had never activated the card, it was unusable anyway. Or so I thought.
I called Chase and canceled the payment. Chase got back to me and informed me that the charge was a mistake. “How could that happen?” I inquired, since M of E had neither my three-digit security code nor the expiration date for the card. Furthermore, how could anything be charged to a card that was never activated?
The rep could not answer so she connected me to the fraud department. The guy at the fraud department told me that if a Chase customer doesn’t activate the card within 60 days, Chase activates it AUTOMATICALLY!  “Why would you do that?” I asked. “What if someone had stolen my card from the mail?”
“We don’t want to inconvenience our cardholders in case they forgot to activate,” was the explanation. “What about the failure to verify the expiration date and security code?” I parried. The fraud rep kicked me upstairs to his supervisor, Audrey. I repeated the question. “You’ll have to ask the merchant,” Audrey advised.
So I called M of E and found a person whose actual name is Sara. I use her real name because she was nice, solicitous, and a good listener. After diligent research she determined what had happened. One of M of E’s “insureds” (that’s what they call their customers in the insurance game) had mis-entered her card number when making a premium payment. The one-digit error meant she entered my unactivated card number. But what about the expiration date and the security code?
“You’ll have to ask your bank,” responded Sara. So I called Chase again. This time Dean was my fraud department supervisor. He explained that some vendors do not ask for the security codes and/or expiration dates for credit card charges and that’s how this charge got through. “How about the fact that the customer had a different name?” I challenged. I’m not sure what Dean said exactly, but it was something like, “Mhllf blah, sheboygan, phlegm.”
So I called Sara at M of E again. I asked if they request expiration dates and security codes for credit card payments.  “We do,” she averred.
So let’s review.
• The person who made her credit card payment to Mutual of Enumclaw, innocently entered my credit card number.
• The card had never been activated.
• She had the wrong name for my account number.
• The expiration date was incorrect.
• The security code was wrong.
• And still the charge went through.
Once again I chased down Chase’s fraud department. This time I got Elvira on the phone. Long story short: Elvira admitted that, “We dropped the ball on this one.” She agreed that the charge never should have gone through and should have been sent back to the merchant. “We use a variety of algorithms,” to verify charges, she claimed.
On behalf of Chase she took full blame for the screw-up, but reminded me that Chase never charges the customer for fraudulent charges and that anytime a cardholder brings a wrong charge to the bank’s attention, the bank makes it right.
What, I asked, if a person has a hundred charges on a monthly statement and, like so many consumers, they don’t check each item? This $385 charge would be paid as part of – let’s say – a $3,000 bill. The cardholder would pay it and never know they had been ripped off.
Elvira admitted that such instances do occur.
Upshot. Check your monthly credit card statements. Match the charges to your receipts. And if you think all those data that merchants ask for when taking your credit card number protect you, think again.