Mastercard’s stupid algorithm
I’ll start this post by saying that my beloved, 35 year old freezer finally died a couple of weeks ago. As we are still in protective self-isolation, food shopping is not easy, so we need a freezer to ‘eat out of’. Ergo, we had to get a new one.
No problem, right?
Wrong.
Despite having more than enough money on my Mastercard [debit not credit], the transaction was refused.
What the…???
When I rang the bank, I was told that my payment was blocked because an automated system thought it was a scam. I wasn’t impressed but the customer service person from the bank put it through, and then it was just a case of waiting for the stock to come in.
Two weeks of misery later, the freezer finally arrived yesterday. Yay! The Offspring and I wrestled it out of its box only to find that there was a whopping big dent in the top of the door. We are going to get a refund, so I can’t complain about that, but we are still without a freezer so first thing this morning I went online looking for a retailer who actually had the freezer in stock.
Eureka! The Good Guys had it and they could deliver tomorrow. I grabbed my trusty Mastercard and tried to pay. Transaction refused. What? Again?
An hour and a half later I finally managed to get through to the bank and was told that both Mastercard and Visa now have this algorithm that checks your transaction history, and if it sees an ‘uncharacteristic’ transaction it automatically blocks it.
Guess who only spends money on groceries?
Yup. Apparently because I don’t buy $600 freezers every week, I must be a scammer…
I’m calm now, but earlier today I was shouting into the phone with fury. This was my money we’re talking about, not Mastercard’s money. Not credit. My money. Sitting in my bank account.
Stupid, effing algorithm.
If Mastercard and Visa intend to use these algorithms to prevent scams, then they must also put in place checks and balances to ensure that genuine customers are not humiliated the way I was, twice. One simple way would be to send an SMS to the phone of the person who owns the account. “Did you just make XX transaction?” If ‘Yes’ then the transaction would go ahead. If ‘No’ then it would be blocked.
But no, that’s far too sensible. Instead, Mastercard takes the lazy option and simply blocks any transaction that’s ‘out of character’. -bangs head on keyboard- No human involved. No looking at context. No checks.
And the worst part? The worst part is that this is going to happen again, the next time I make an ‘uncharacteristic’ purchase.
Stupid effing algorithm, and stupid *** Mastercard for putting such a useless security protection in place.
To be honest, I’m this close to taking the scissors to my useless Mastercard. The only reason I don’t is because a normal debit card from the bank can only be used in Australia. If I want to buy anything from an overseas supplier, I have to have a card that is recognized overseas. And that means either Mastercard or Visa. And both companies use this stupid…. -cough-
Welcome to the brave new world of AI. Not happy, Mastercard, not happy at all.
Meeks
