AT&T To Use Phone Geolocation To Prevent Credit Card Fraud 228
jfruh (300774) writes "Imagine you've spent years making credit card purchases in your home state of California, and suddenly a bunch of charges appear the card in Russia. Your bank might move to shut the card down for suspected fraud, which would be great if your account number had been stolen by hackers — but really irritating if you were on vacation in Moscow. AT&T is proposing a service that would allow customers to let their bank track their movements via their cell phone, to confirm that you (or at least your phone) and your credit card are in the same place."
Or call your credit card company ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Or call your credit card company ... (Score:4, Insightful)
>Or call your credit card company before you leave and say you will be traveling in country X on these days.
Tried that. They still blocked the card after my first transaction abroad.
You are making the mistake of thinking banks have processes that meet your needs, rather than their needs.
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You've just described every business, not just banks. Well, at least the successful ones. They are all in it for their needs. Your needs only come into play only to the extent it's necessary for them to meet their needs.
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You've just described every business, not just banks. Well, at least the successful ones. They are all in it for their needs. Your needs only come into play only to the extent it's necessary for them to meet their needs.
And YOU'VE just described what my father explained to me, when I was small, is called "doing bad business". Sadly, many in the U.S. these days have seen these big corrupt corporations, and assumed things were always that way. They weren't. In fact they still aren't, in most cases, that don't involve giant corporations or government.
"Good business" is when both people walk away from a transaction satisfied that they got a fair deal. And ideally, when each thinks they got the better deal.
"Bad business"
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Free market first of all depends on a free market. If you can still find one somewhere, please gimme a call so I know where to go.
The only reason companies can get away with shoddy business practices like this is that the free market is a myth. In a free market, the BUYER would dictate what goods and services are offered simply because he'd only buy those that suit his needs. Now look around you and tell me that this is the case.
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Free market first of all depends on a free market. If you can still find one somewhere, please gimme a call so I know where to go.
Why are you paraphrasing what I already wrote? "I agree" would have been sufficient.
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It's interesting how (what we perceive as) capitalism is the opposite of (what we perceived as) communism in every aspect, yet the results are the same: A small leading group has everything, the rest of the population has nothing. The main difference is that in communism there was nothing you could buy, in capitalism you could buy anything but you lack the money. The net result is the same: You don't have anything.
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It's interesting how (what we perceive as) capitalism is the opposite of (what we perceived as) communism in every aspect, yet the results are the same: A small leading group has everything, the rest of the population has nothing. The main difference is that in communism there was nothing you could buy, in capitalism you could buy anything but you lack the money. The net result is the same: You don't have anything.
I've been fighting this MYTH for many years.
Free-market Capitalism, as defined by Adam Smith (although he did not use the exact phrase, it's pretty much agreed that he defined it), included a strong body of anti-trust laws to prevent monopolies and oligopolies from forming. But government, particularly in recent years, has been failing to enforce any kind of effective regulation which is necessary for the system to work.
The revolving-door government has been corrupting and abusing the system. But that
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Except the US is a democracy (or democratic republic, whatever) so the blame lies squarely on the voters.
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If your system is vulnerable to attack by corrupt "leaders", that's the system's fault. It's the problem with Marxism and it's also the problem with capitalism: when people get power, via state-backed control of capital or via a "dictatorship of the proletariat", these use that power in their own interests.
Nonsense.
As I mentioned earlier: just about ANY system can be corrupted. And some more than others. Socialism, for example, has proven to be the world's ripest breeding ground for corruption, because it is designed to be led by a relatively few people in the first place.
The U.S. has the longest-standing Constitutional government in the last milennium or two. That says an awful lot for this system, as opposed to others that have been tried in the same period. (That is to say: all of them. Except Commu
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Presumably this is some weird American definition, not used by anyone who actually is a socialist.
I was using Marx's definition of Socialism.
Parliamentary democracy has lasted well over a millennium (e.g. Iceland continuously since the 10th C) and is doing fine, thanks.
Not under one Constitution, which is what I referred to.
Well, there have, but within a decade of attaining power they all become juntas or oligarchies or even monarchies (North Korea again). Sadly communism is too idealistic about human nature and doesn't have the checks and balances to stop power crazy psychopaths from taking control. Your constitution was written to prevent excessive concentration of power, and is fairly effective at that, frustrating as it is for zealots on either side. But it's not the only workable way to do it.
No, there haven't. Again, using Marx's definition. The closest anybody ever came was a bad form of Socialism.
Communism -- true Communism, by the very definition of what Communism is -- has no government. Name me one country in written history that qualifies.
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Marx isn't Mohammed. He doesn't define "socialism" for everyone now, if he ever did, and certainly few if any socialists I know would defer to his definition. Any Marxists still around hate socialists more than anyone else for not being pure enough.
If you're talking about the theory of government, then you either accept the "official" definition, or you're talking about something else.
Historically, Marx defined Socialism in much the same way Smith defined Capitalism. Each described his theory in great detail and had a huge influence on the world in subsequent decades.
I understand that different definitions do exist. But if you're talking about them, then you're talking about something other than what I was talking about. So then what's the point
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how quaint, you must have been born before the scourge of the MBA took over American business. (i totally agree with you, or your dad .. as it were.)
Re:Or call your credit card company ... (Score:5, Informative)
Tried that. They still blocked the card after my first transaction abroad. You are making the mistake of thinking banks have processes that meet your needs, rather than their needs.
I bank with B of A, and travel a few times a year to far away places. I've never had this issue. Perhaps you need to look into a different bank?
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I have a BofA credit card in California.
I went to Seattle for the weekend and BofA blocked my credit card.
BofA is terrible.
I'm going to Europe in a few days. I called them to tell them I'm traveling. I don't have high expectations that they won't block my card again. I have other cards.
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I have a BofA credit card in California. I went to Seattle for the weekend and BofA blocked my credit card. BofA is terrible. I'm going to Europe in a few days. I called them to tell them I'm traveling. I don't have high expectations that they won't block my card again. I have other cards.
Don't know if it matters but I called the fraud related number on the statement ... good luck
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The thing is, the blocking is automatic, but the unblocking is not.
When you call your bank, what really happens usually is they make a note in your file "XXX is travelling to YYY between AA/BB/CC and DD/EE/FF".
The fraud detec
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Key bank does this as well; it appears to be becoming standard.
Basically, Banks are refusing to cash checks for their face value.
This flies in the face of the entire point of a check, being "Give this guy this amount of money."
If they want to charge a fee, they need to charge it to their customer, not their customer's customer.
Re:Or call your credit card company ... (Score:5, Interesting)
They do.
Yours may not, or you talked to the wrong person, but its fairly common. Bank of America certainly does, as does Capital One. BoA emailed informing me I would be cut off within 24 hours if I didn't respond or answer when called, then called me once while in Vegas blowing money, after confirming with them that I was legitimately spending my money, I asked if I could avoid the problem in the future, so they don't cut me off if I DON'T get the call/email in time. The answer was simple, call us before going out of town at the number on the card, inform them of the trip and time period and they'll change their processing (but not stop it) so you won't be left stranded.
AT&T does the same thing for phone calls, tell them you're leaving the country and don't want to be considered suspicious they'll note the time of the trip and give you a pass for that time, they also suggested I sign up for the 'world' plan for roaming for that month as it was something like $5, which was basically the cost of the per minute rate in that country for AT&T roaming if I wasn't on the plan but $1 or so on the plan. Just remember to cancel at the end of the trip.
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>Or call your credit card company before you leave and say you will be traveling in country X on these days.
Tried that. They still blocked the card after my first transaction abroad. You are making the mistake of thinking banks have processes that meet your needs, rather than their needs.
They need you to use your credit card to make the real money in fees, so their needs and your needs are aligned in this respect. Sounds more like a run of the mill screwup.
FWIW I called the **fraud related** number on my statement a few days before the trip. Maybe that increases the chance of success.
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I had my main VISA card block me on Black Friday because "I was buying too much at once and it didn't fit my pattern." And I didn't answer my home phone number when they tried to call.
And UNLIKE most people, I cancelled my card as soon as I got home and switched to another one. I put them on a 10-year ban. They went bankrupt and got bought by somebody else.
I had another one block me from the Home Depot by my house where I spend at least $100 every 2 weeks or so (home ownership, ugh). They said, "We've h
Bitcoin: DON'T STORE (Score:2)
A lot of people are starting to put their money in bitcoin so they can actually have some control over it for once.
As a way to do fast person-to-person transaction, bitcoin protocole (and other crypto-coins) is a good idea (it's like cash transaction, but over the internet, although a bit slower. Or for EUropeans: it's like SEPA, direct payment without an intermediate, except that it's a bit faster).
But please, unless you're a gambler DO NOT store money as BTC (nor any other crypto-currency): its value fluctuate too much (1 BTC is 500$, perhaps 10$ tomorrow or 1000$ the day after tomorrow) , also if you rely on an on-li
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Then switch to another bank (Score:2)
Tried that. They still blocked the card after my first transaction abroad.
Then tell them to go fuck themselves and switch to another bank.
Mine (europe) not only support that, but its directly accessible from the e-banking web interface, so you can do it at any time conveniently and quickly.
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Never, ever, ever, ever trust a bank to do the right thing.
Re:Or call your credit card company ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A text whenever your credit card was used saying "Card with number ending in xxxx was used in location yyyy, if this was a fraudulent charge reply to this text" would work just as well without the privacy issue of tracking locations.
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You understood the problem, but not how that problem is the feature from the AT&T perspective...
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Except that is a great segue into a scam.
- The last four digits of your card are pretty easy to get - they are typically printed out on paper / transmitted in the clear.
- If they have your email (not hard), and they can get you to respond to your message, then they try to have you give them the rest of the card number (for security) and, for even more 'security' your PIN number and
- Profit!
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Except that is a great segue into a scam.
- The last four digits of your card are pretty easy to get - they are typically printed out on paper / transmitted in the clear.
- If they have your email (not hard), and they can get you to respond to your message, then they try to have you give them the rest of the card number (for security) and, for even more 'security' your PIN number and
- Profit!
Seriously? Are you stupid enough to give out your PIN ever? If the person is giving this out, no amount of security is going to help.
There are any number of ways that the CC company could verify the authenticity, the last 4 digits was purely to identify the card.
as done by others... (Score:2)
A text whenever your credit card was used saying "Card with number ending in xxxx was used in location yyyy, if this was a fraudulent charge reply to this text" would work just as well without the privacy issue of tracking locations.
As currently done by several other banks.
(I'm in europe)
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A text whenever your credit card was used saying "Card with number ending in xxxx was used in location yyyy, if this was a fraudulent charge reply to this text" would work just as well without the privacy issue of tracking locations.
My Chase VISA did exactly this while my girlfriend was buying some furniture using her copy of the card. It's the only time this has happened but it was the first expensive purchase she made. She was on her laptop next to me at the time so I immediately replied "YES" or "OK" and then the transaction went through.
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True story...
About 8 years ago I was going to Europe, so the day before I leave I call up my credit card company to let them know to expect to see a lot of charges from abroad. The account rep tells me that I would not be able to use my card because they had just sent me a new card and the old card had been deactivated. I was to expect the new card to arrive in 3 or 4 days. "Well great," I sez, "but I'm going to be in Europe, so I won't have the new card. Why did you deactivate the old card and send me
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About 8 years ... they were just replacing people's cards for the hell of it ...
Did the number change? I got an unexpected card replacement around then too and noticed the number had changed. I assumed there was a security breach somewhere and it was being handled quietly,
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Re:Or call your credit card company ... (Score:4, Informative)
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THANK YOU! Somebody FINALY got what's really going on here. This isn't about helping customers (at all) it's about AT&T attempting to find an "EXCUSE" to keep and monetize location information. This is a VERY bad idea for consumers.
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it should be taken as common sense, whenever a corporation tells you they are doing something for YOUR benefit, they are really doing it entirely for THEIR benefit.
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Oh really?
I've never had that problem ever.
Just like at home, I only handle cash when I absolutely have to. Otherwise I use the plastic.
Merchants want your money. Doesn't matter where they are.
Who knew?
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Merchants don't want the hassle of dealing with credit card fraud, though. They will probably not mind doing business with you face to face with your insecure CC, as long as you have some kind of ID that proves that you're you, but don't count on them doing any kind of business with you via internet.
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Merchants don't want the hassle of dealing with credit card fraud, though. They will probably not mind doing business with you face to face with your insecure CC, as long as you have some kind of ID that proves that you're you, but don't count on them doing any kind of business with you via internet.
Except that the EMV (chip and pin) cards are no more secure than the magstripe cards when used online. Chip and PIN only makes it harder to use a faked card in person.
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Why cant you pick by regions on a map (Score:3)
Everybody has a website these days. Just let us pick the regions where we will allow transactions to take place. If we are going on vacation, we can light up Russia or Antartica. Then we can turn it off again as soon as we get back. Seems like it would take very little effort on their part to setup.
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They don't take credit in Antartica, only a specific debt card at the research stations and the military debt card at the military bases.
Are you sure? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe your credit was.....frozen....at the time.
Sorry bout that, couldn't resist.
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They don't take credit in Antartica, only a specific debt card at the research stations and the military debt card at the military bases.
Did you hear about the Slashdot commenter who didn't get the joke?
Buying a new phone (Score:5, Insightful)
You're screwed if you break your phone and then go to the store to buy a replacement.
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Obligatory (Score:3)
In Soviet Russia, credit card charge YOU!
This has already happend to me (Score:3)
BOA did this to me a few years ago.. I'd make some purchases before traveling abroad only to have my card shut off when I was in Ukraine.. You have to warn them of your travel plans, as there is a very real chance you will be cut off from your funds. This happened to my wife, and it happened to me. It pays to call customer service. BOA has been pretty draconian to us in the past.. It once even shut off my card because I bought too much food at my local supermarket.. Card service providers mentioned that it was above my normal trend for supermarket purchases ( I have excellent credit, and am not sure why they were so skittish; I have no history of fraudulent transactions) ... We had a screaming infant with us at the time, and had to call customer service with a large basket of food we couldn't walk out with, who would have otherwise been fine if we didn't have to wait so long on the phone..
These days I'm careful to carry around more than one credit card in case I run into a similar issue..
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BOA did this to me a few years ago.. I'd make some purchases before traveling abroad only to have my card shut off when I was in Ukraine.
Well, Mr. Putin - maybe NEXT TIME you'll think before you invade another country!
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There may be some problems (Score:2)
Shopping on the Internet is quick and convenient, and international. Using a credit card, charges appear as if you had made a purchase from wherever their merchant account lists as their address. In general, your location (as provided by your IP address) is not taken into account. This has already caused me problems with an overzealous bank that doesn't believe I would be shopping in Germany or Japan. Now if they can see that I'm obviously still in the US (via my cellphone), well then.
...or just fix the system. (Score:2)
This seems really dumb to me. Having your bank track your whereabouts seems like a bad trade-off. How about we just fix the credit card system instead?
Like how about we use a private key encryption scheme instead of a credit card number in order to pay? If you want to have cell phones involved, they would make an easy method of storing and accessing the key, providing a digital signature when needed. Doing that would actually provide a huge improvement in security, and do so without having my bank cons
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You're still working under the assumption that anyone wants to make CCs more secure, not get more information about you to sell.
Push payments? (Score:4, Interesting)
If they're going to track your cel phone, that means they're assuming you have your cel phone on you. So why not send the authorization code to your cel phone and let you give it to the merchant? That way it doesn't matter if the card's stolen, the merchant can't get an auth code if you aren't present with your phone. Or better yet, have an app that'll let you punch in the merchant's ID and transaction number and initiate the payment from your end, rather than having the merchant handle your card? That makes stealing the card pointless, because just having the card isn't enough to let you make a charge.
Dumb (Score:2)
I have never understood this problem. Let me opt in and out of purchases outside my country... or even my state. The code would be trivial. Let me log into my CC admin page and check off where I can use the card. It's that simple.
Presumably this involves sending/receiving data (Score:2)
I'm not sure how that would help, then, given that most people in the US are using US carriers that would totally not work outside of North America... and most of the rest are still using a US carrier, that would absolutely ream them a new one in roaming charges (i.e. AT&T - which I suppose is why it's AT&T who wants to implement this, so they can trick people into letting them get reamed with roaming charges?)
Would it really help? (Score:2)
My old smart phone holster wore out recently, so I bought a new one. This one has a convenient extra pocket for credit cards and other forms of ID. It seems to me that putting your ID, credit cards, and your phone all in one conveniently stealable container might not be the brightest thing to do. All it needs is a key ring...
Two things. (Score:2)
1. This is why I call my bank(s) before I go to .
2. I always buy another phone in the other country and get prepaid minutes so I never worry about some insane data roaming overcharge surprise.
Is this really that hard for people to do?
"Your card was fraudulently used in USA" (Score:2)
It's often the opposite to what's in the summary.
I've travelled in many countries, and the alarms so far were raised overwhelmingly when card transactions were made in USA.
Bank usually calls when the card has been used in USA, as card security in that country is a big fail - no PIN, just signature that nobody can check. Clerks request and pretend to check your ID for name match, but since they know nothing about non-USA IDs, any fraudulent user can show them any bit of plastic with name matching that on car
Easy (Score:2)
We need an automated system, not tracking. (Score:2)
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like a disaster for someone trapped overseas. It sounds more like a way for AT&T to force customers into the trap of using their cell phone overseas.
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Not really (Score:2)
This is basically the beginning of the end of Credit Card fraud. For all we love to romanticize hacker thiefs the reality is that in 10 years big data + cheap powerful handheld computers + geolocation will make it damn near impossible to commit. The
Re:Not really (Score:5, Interesting)
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"So what about those of us who refuse a smartphone for various reasons? I wouldn't mind having one but I'm not going to shell out another $20/month for internet on a device that I mainly use in a place where I already pay for the internet."
Simple, you will have access to only higher rate credit cards. The higher rate justified by the higher risk of fraud.
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Republic Wireless, $25/month for unlimited talk, text, 5GB of 3G data, they have a $10 unlimited talk and text plan so the data portion is $15/month (it goes up to $40 total if you want 4G speed).
and $15-$20 a meg data roaming will kill that idea (Score:2)
and $15-$20 a meg data roaming will kill that idea
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ISIS is becoming a carrier standard for this. It uses NFC, a special SIM card with the ISIS application (so it can have its own PIN separate from the SIM's PIN/PIN2), and an Amex or Wells Fargo credit card.
Is ISIS a good thing? Possibly, but you have to open a new line of credit to use it, in most cases.
Of course, there is Google Wallet and PayPal as well, so there may be a standard war between those three companies.
I wouldn't say it would be the end of credit card fraud. It makes people more dependent o
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domestically stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
nothing in TFA (or the ATT page it links to) say this is **international only**
I did note this in TFA however...
this is tracking your phone, all the time, and letting your credit card company access the data
I see this as using fraud to justify spying on you
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Of course, as you say, if they are tracking your phone all the time, then...yes, I would certainly have a problem with this. Likewise, if it was a "you must have your phone to make purchases" sort of deal, then that would be really obnoxious (my parents live in the boonies wit
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I don't know the details, but I have become pretty well convinced that credit card companies have some kind of accounting/tax trick that actually brings in a profit from th
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this is definitely possible
it could be happening without the company even knowing it, in fact....these organizations are so large and have so many beaurecrats that it could be set up that way just as the natural evolution of capital flowing through a publicly held company...everyone has a number to "hit" and is compartmentalized by abstractions
my credit card company (and yours too probably
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This is done now by American Express.
I made some charges on my AMEX card that did not fit my usual pattern. The merchant received a message telling them to call an AMEX phone number for further verification. Almost simultaneously, my cell phone rang with a voice call and I received a text message, both from AMEX. I was able to respond to either one and let the clerk re-scan the credit card to allow it to go through.
I also received a message from AMEX that their iPhone app can handle the authorization extra-
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I see this as using fraud to justify spying on you
Why do they need a justification? We've agreed to the TOS which lets them do whatever they want. Personally I'd rather my bank have location data than facebook, angry birds, pre-installed unremovable (sans-dmca-violating-root) news and stock ticker, or brightest flashlight free. Unfortunately there doesn't really seem to be much of a choice.
Re: Stupid (Score:2)
what about a system that locks your Att sim when you are overseas? and maybe auto buy a local sim with your credit card if you try to use your phone? or just cut your hand? anything that is not allowing att sim used overseas is a win.
International roaming might be convenient ... (Score:2)
A lot of people don't travel with their phones to foreign countries because it's too damn expensive.
AT&T lets you turn international roaming on and off on a monthly basis. Last time I traveled I turned it on for one month.
It may not be as cost effective as getting a local phone or sim but its pretty damn convenient, especially if not using many minutes or MB when traveling. At least for a business trip I made to Europe a few years ago.
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T-Mobile has free international data roaming and cheap calls.
ATT is terrible.
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Sprint's buying a gas station chain?
Why?
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Do you think T-Mobile will continue that policy once the Sprint purchase of T-Mobil completes?
I doubt it. It's strange that you were modded down for a marginally on-topic question that is a real (and timely) concern.
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Isn't sort of insane to cross a border with one's primary phone? I have my old retired android phone which I "fillup" with a prepaid card (and absolutely nothing else on it all), for crossing the border. I'm surprised more people don't do this.
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A lot of people don't travel with their phones to foreign countries because it's too damn expensive.
I travel to Italy several times a year, I purchased an iPod Touch and loaded Skype on it for making phone calls overseas...
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Or because they simply don't work over there.
Not every country has a peering agreement with every other one. Not to mention that frequencies may differ between countries. I, myself, never take my cellphone with me traveling outside of Europe, mostly for those reasons. Instead I simply buy a cheap one when I arrive there.
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A lot of people don't travel with their phones to foreign countries because it's too damn expensive.
If the default is to allow charges when your cell-phone location is not known, then it should not be a problem. In other words, it only blocks a card charge if the charge is in one location and the active phone in another. The risk still remains they could smash your phone and charge something real quick, but that's not the kind of theft/fraud this is meant to stop.
I wouldn't mind this if it were opt-in.
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Just how broad is the radius of this location? If a person living in New York City buys something online from a store in Seattle while he and his phone are in NY, where does the credit card transaction occur? If the answer is Seattle, the definition of what is a reasonable proximity between transaction and phone has to be quite loose, otherwise a lot of legit transactions will be botched. I don't actually know anything about CC processing however, so I would be interested in hearing from people who do.
Incoming too? (Score:2)
Are incoming messages expensive too?
In EU, incoming SMS are free wherever you are (home network or roaming).
Us european tend to keep an older phone around. Swap your *home* SIM card into the old phone and put whatever you use when abroad (SIM with plan in target country, prepaid SIM for target country, or just some random sim that is cheap while roaming like XX-Sim).
We're still reachable on the usual number (can get message for free, can also acept calls but that has roaming charges), and have the travellin
selectable lock:Same here too (Score:2)
Yep, have the same option in my ebanking interface too
(make an additional security to the "unusual pattern detected" approach).
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That's a feature, not a bug :P
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Do you really want to be behind the guy in line at the cash register waiting for that kind of confirmation?
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It is to the benefit of the card holder in that you're less likely (assuming it works the way they say it does) that your card will be frozen while you are travelling in another country (or another state).
And once they've got millions of people signed up, then they change the privacy policy to "we will sell anything we feel like to the highest bidder, because those millions were the entire point anyway."