This afternoon I was trying to buy something on PayPal and I was served up with a page requesting me to update my credit card information or add a new card. Without going into the details of that, suffice it to say that I had reasonable cause to believe that this was a phishing ploy to get my credit card information and that I fell for the ploy.
Realizing this almost immediately I attempted to report the incident to Bank of America, the issuer of the credit card whose information I had entered on the bogus web page.
My exasperating experience with Bank of America went as follows:
1) I telephoned the customer service number on the back of my card and was answered by a voice messaging system which gave no menu choices for reporting fraud or for speaking to a real human being. After listing to all sorts of information about my account which I was not interested in, hearing about B of A's commitment to excellent customer service, and entering my card number and various other personal information several times I was finally connected with a customer service representative. She then asked me my name (didn't I just give them my account number?) and then I was disconnected. She did not call back.
2) I called back and went through the same rigamarole again, but this time I did not get disconnect and was able to explain the (fairly complex) details of the situation I wanted to report. This CSR then told me I would have to speak with someone from their "fraud department". She gave me the direct number to that (or she said) department and transferred the call to them.
3) After waiting on hold for several minutes I was provided with yet another voice messaging system which gave me all sorts of choices about reporting billing disputes. After entering my credit card number and other information the messaging system informed me that I was in the queue to speak to a representative. After waiting on hold for a while I got another message saying that the system was unable to help me at that time and to hang up and call back.
4) I hung up and called back. Again I went through the same waiting, menus, and entering numbers. Finally a person got on the line. I again went through my lengthy explanation of the situation only to be told that I had to speak to someone at the "fraud department". I told him that I was told by the previous person I spoke with that this WAS the number to the fraud department. He said it was not and transferred me over there.
5) After waiting on hold for some time I was given what appeared to be the same messaging/menu system as when I had first called customer service, and when someone finally answered (after going through the same motions I had gone through in the first place), the person I spoke with again told me I would have to speak with someone at the "fraud department".
At this point I had already spent one hour and 15 minutes attempting to report a serious security issue to Bank of America without any success.in disgust I just directed the person I was speaking with to cancel my account immediately.
Coincidentally, I had also given information on another credit card with that suspicious website before I realized that there was something to be suspicious about. That card was issued by National City Bank. When I called them I was able to speak to a customer service representative within about one minute of their voice messaging system answering my call. The CSR with NCB took my information and initiated appropriate action promptly. The whole process with NCB took less than 5 minutes.
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