Take a look at the statement image. On it, you’ll see roughly $30,000 in fraudulent transactions. On 9/26 there are seven transactions, in Helsinki Finland for just under $5,000 each. How these charges made it through any kind of reasonable security check is beyond us.

It should be noted that the cardholder, one of our employees, has never set foot in Finland. You might also notice that there is a charge on 9/25 at a food store in suburban New York. While it is not beyond possibilities of today’s aircraft to take a cardholder from a food store in New York to hosting a $30,000 party in Helsinki, we would expect that a computerized eyebrow might have been raised somewhere, especially since the card was almost $3,000 over its spending limit. But there’s more.

This card normally receives charges of from $300 to $500 each month. We would have thought that a $30,000 charge might have made someone just a wee bit curious. At no time was the cardholder contacted, nor was there any attempt to. Indeed, the cardholder only learned of these charges when he received his statement.

And even more. When the cardholder contacted Citicard about the charges, the reps were very courteous and understanding about the charges but they were powerless to do anything to expedite chasing the bad guys. The fraud department refused to get involved until a document was mailed to the cardholder, signed and returned. This process took a month to complete since the cardholder was traveling and not available.  We’re not sure what it takes to capture bad guys but we suspect, as they say in the westerns, that they trail had gotten mighty cold by the time the fraud department could even get on the case.

When the cardholder asked the rep about this, he was told, “I know. You think they would do something about a fraud of this size, but that’s the way it is….”

Unfortunately, it’s doubtful we’ll ever know what happened in this case, but we guess that the bad guys will get away with it. And a little bit of programming together with a quick phone call could have stopped the entire thing.

If you are interested in reading more about online statements please click here to read our Credit Card Monitor, Online Statements and Going Paperless.