Beware of Chase Mastercards

I love my AMEX card but there are still a few places that only accept Visa or Mastercard – this is where my problem lies. I have a Chase Mastercard and these people have taken security issues a step too far.

A customer representative for Chase told me yesterday, that if I or my husband should want to go out of state and use our Mastercard, we must first contact them to let them know or they “might” freeze the card when they see charges from another state showing up.

The customer reps are hard-working people whose job is to keep customers from ever speaking to anyone who either has email, can make a decision or has any smidgeon or power or knowledge on the item or service being used by the customer.

After much ado, I finally got to speak to a supervisor who told me that the rep was incorrect. I needed to tell them if I were going out of the country. Okay..sounded somewhat reasonable to me. So I repeated myself and said to the supervisor: so I don’t need to worry about cards being frozen if I go to another state?

He started to backpeddle, hemmed and hawed, told me how all these security measures were for MY own good, and then said: If you haven’t traveled to this state in the last 3 billing cycles, then the card might get frozen…no guarantees.

I now have the choice of notifying nameless, faceless people that my house will be vulnerable for break-ins…(that is if I can remember to call…) or have that threat of maybe your card will work but maybe it won’t.

The best part about it all is both the customer rep and the supervisor had “tudes” right from the beginning. How dare I want to know if I can use my charge card and why it was frozen…what a beeyotch I am for checking!

All credit card companies are the same, I was told – but that’s not the case. The AMEX Blue Cash card is a winner…you get points which you can use for other items or cash back at the end of the year; they always WORK, even if they see you went to Disneyworld and are charging from a new place, and their customer reps seem to enjoy having you as a customer rather than the Chase folks who seem to find the fact that they have customers at all irritating and annoying.

So I’m shopping for a new Mastercard or Visa – one which will allow me to charge on the internet without challenging a $6.17 purchase from Half.com and will allow me to go out of state and charge without needing me to call in advance and beg to keep my card-with-no-balance-ever from being frozen.

Thumbs up to AMEX and thumbs down to Chase among other digital dexterities!