New Credit Card Email Policy May Confuse ID-Theft-Wary Customers

With increasingly sophisticated scam emails arriving in our inboxes, proclaiming financial emergencies and urging us to enter a Social Security number and other personal data, customers are becoming rightfully wary. In fact, many will simply delete such Urgent messages on sight.

Thats why a new policy reported on by Marcie Geffner of Bankrate.com is cause for concern. In the article More Automated Fraud Alerts (link goes to full article on Bankrate.com website) Geffner describes a recent plan by FICO and Adeptra, the companies that provide credit card issuers with behind-the-scenes spotting of suspicious transactions and customer followup. The two companies are moving to a system of customer communication via email rather than human contact.

In other words, if a thief or other scammer were to charge up a storm on your Nordstrom, AmEx, or other card, the first notification youd receive under the new system would be an email message.

On the plus side, the email might arrive faster than a phone call would. But you might hit the delete button with lightning speed, as well. Should you be worried that the thief would then proceed to make further charges to your card? No, but the fix for this could be plenty inconvenient: Your credit card would be blocked until youve responded to the email.

What can you do? Make sure youve updated your computers antivirus software, and then at least open emails that appear to be from your credit card company. If the email looks legit, call your credit card company to check in, using the numbers you have on file for it -- not the number (if any) provided in the email. (They may refer you to that number, but at least youll feel safe making the call.)

And if youll be vacationing on, say, a remote island with no email access, you might want to take an alternate credit card along.