Credit Card Woes...

As I mentioned in my Vancouver posts, when I was there (using my credit card, of course), Bank of America got very close to suspending my Visa account of not hearing back from me yet concerning the legitimacy of my purchases "out of the country" (I'm sorry, but Vancouver is 2.5 hours from Seattle by car and has virtually the same culture as we do...I'm not convinced Bank of America should consider this international travel). This pissed me off a whole lot, largely because I had to sit on the phone for 15 minutes trying to straighten the whole thing out, meanwhile racking up a pretty horrible long-distance fee.

Anyway, that wasn't the first (or most recent) time Bank of America had accused me of having lost my card (which, for the record, has never happened). They called me at one point when I ordered a watch from Japan. They called me another time when I ordered a guitar from Oregon. And most recently, they called me when I ordered two custom Rubik's cubes from a manufacturer in Greece (the only place you can get them).

This was the last straw for me, and thus, I kinda went off on the lady on the phone. Sure, I acknowledged that it's not her fault, and she was really nice, but I still felt like I had to file a complaint. What if I hadn't gotten back in time? Would my credit card account be closed? I made a point to her that we live in a time where we have access to a global market via the internet and that purchases from Japan, Greece, Canada, or Oregon (hell, my own country!) shouldn't necessarily warrant the possible closure of my credit card.

Supposedly she made a note of my tendencies of buying things worldwide, and hopefully this will help, but I can't help but wonder what Bank of America was thinking with this whole policy. Evidently, you now have to call the bank BEFORE you leave for an international destination in order to have them not attempt to suspend your card while you're gone. Sure, I appreciate the fraud protection, but my freedom seems to be slipping away in the process. Whatever...