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Edited on Sat Jun-03-06 10:13 PM by snot
My boyfiend and I have cel phones with T-Mobile. We're on a plan where we buy blocks of minutes in advance, usually using a credit card in an on-line transaction.
The last time each of tried to do this, the transaction did not go through. When we spoke with T-Mobile to try to straighten things out, we were each told the same thing: that we had to go through a one-time "verification" process, that T-Mobile was "randomly" selecting transactions to subject to this requirement, and that the purpose was to protect from fraud.
I told her that this had better not have anything to do with any kind of government monitoring, because if it did, I would consider my Constitutional rights to have been violated and I have no interest in doing business with any company that cooperates with any such violation. I was assured that this procedure had nothing to do with anything like that but was purely a fraud-prevention effort.
It still didn't make sense to me, but I'd already spent 3 hours on the phone trying to get through to a human to get some minutes on my cel phone, so I went along with it.
The verification process consisted of two questions. First they mentioned several past addresses and asked us to indicate which one was in fact a correct past address associated with our credit card account. I can't remember the second question; it seemed trivial and innocuous.
They've already got all my other contact info and social security number, of course.
I still can't figure out a legitimate reason for them to require this "verification".
One thing that was weird was that I had to replace my credit card within the last year, and the past address they asked me about was NEVER associated with the card number I'm currently using.
For another thing, if this is a fraud-prevention effort, why is it one-time only? Couldn't someone else steal my phone or credit card at any time in the future?
For another thing, what they heck kind of fraud could we be talking about here? I am using my own credit card, in my own name and address, to purchase minutes for my own cel phone, also in my own name -- both are and always have been under the EXACT same name and address. Who uses a credit card "fraudulently" to purchase minutes for the person who owns the card?
Has anyone else had this experience? Or have any inside scoop?
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