MSN Money lists the best and worst credit card issuers based on how much financial protection they offer and how well they help against potential fraud. Their list:
Best (score out of a possible 100)
1. Bank of America (87)
2. Discover (74)
3. U.S. Bank (73)
4. USAA (69)
5. Capital One (68)
Worst
1. State Farm (43)
2. Associated Bank (46)
3. SunTrust (47)
4. Cabela's WFB (48)
5. RBS (49)
Interestingly enough, I don't have cards from any companies on this list -- good or bad. But if I had one on the "bad" list, I think I'd re-consider having/using it. Yeah, there's a $50 limit on the financial damage someone can do if they steal your card, but if they somehow get into the company's system and get your personal information, a lot more damage can be done.
By the way, I didn't even know State Farm issued credit cards...
Any of you have cards issued by any of these companies?
"but if they somehow get into the company's system and get your personal information, a lot more damage can be done."
I think helping you getting the charges resolved easily and quickly is all you can expect from even the best. BOA is #1 on the list but is currently doing a free credit monitoring offer because of a breach 2 months ago.
Once you give a large organization with thousands of employees information to be put on a computer network accessible by thousands of other employees, I think you have to accept it is out there for the taking. Checking you credit report regularly lets you know if you're the unlucky person this quarter.
Posted by: Strick | July 28, 2011 at 07:17 AM
I have both the BOA and the Discover Cards. I let both of my college age children use the cards at separate times to help with books while setting up for college, and in both cases, a so-called friend of each of them took their cards (one Discover and one BOA). In both cases, both Discover and BOA caught the unusual pattern of spending and called us to alert us of possible fraud before we had any idea what was going on. In one case there was about $1,000 of unauthorized spending and in the other case about $300 in unauthorized spending. Both BOA and Discover waived the $50.00 fee. One other time our card had been copied (we don't know how) and was being used over 1,000 miles away. Discover Card caught that after two charges (less than $100 total). Both companies were easy to deal with and asked for a minimum of documentation to clear up the matter. Since then I go online almost everyday to monitor our accounts. Fortunately, none of this involved internet use and no hacking was involved so the damage was limited.
Posted by: Chicago Rose | July 28, 2011 at 08:02 AM
I'd be interested to know how they came up with the rankings. Chase was awarded the 6th place. I don't have BofA credit card, but when it comes to fraud alerts, I find Chase much more proactive that Discover. Of course no means a scientific study, but from personal experience.
Posted by: Moneycone | July 28, 2011 at 08:05 AM
We have cards with BOA and Discover with Discover being our primary card. I rarely use the BOA card. I've had success working with Discover to get an unauthorized charges removed without much hassle. Discover used to be better at calling to check on large purchases, but I haven't had a call in several years. We bank with USAA and have debit cards through them. I actually don't mind having to call USAA when I need help from customer service unlike other companies.
Posted by: kjaxx | July 28, 2011 at 09:18 AM
We have USAA and love them. Only once have we had unauthorized activity, and USAA caught it and contacted us. Also, dealing with their customer service is a dream compared with just about any other company.
Posted by: sandra | July 28, 2011 at 09:25 AM
FMF,
I think you have the Schwab Visa issued by FIA, which is a division of BofA.
State Farm has a banking division, and they offer one of the best checking account, no foreign transaction fee, refund all ATM fees, good interest rate, ATM shared-deposit, your choice of vanilla ATM card or Visa debit card, nice customer service... I have been using it for years because I travel to Asia a lot and need withdraw cash from ATM there.
Posted by: MGS | July 28, 2011 at 09:52 AM
I've had Discover identify fraud about three times on my card, each time it was quickly resolved with minimal involvement from me.
I've also got two FIA cards. One formerly Schwab and one Fidelity; the latter which is an Amex card. I don't quite know how that works if FIA is a subsidiary of BoA.
Although I've had no fraud problems with either card to date, I find that their notification system is lacking. They do not have any kind of email alert system like Disover, Chase or Citi. And it is darn near impossible to download transactions into Quicken on a daily basis. Both these services are, IMO, critical to self-monitoring for unusual transactions.
So if BoA runs the FIA operation, I don't know how they could possibly be #1.
Posted by: KaseyD | July 28, 2011 at 11:55 AM
I have Discover (have had it for many years) and have never been notified by them of a fraud alert. I also have Citi and Chase and both have alerted me recently of fraud potential. The Chase alert ended up being nothing but on the Citi one there was actually a charge that we did not authorize and they immediately closed my account and issued me a new card which I received in about 3 days.
Posted by: Mike | July 28, 2011 at 03:33 PM
I closed out our Discover Card after an insident of fraud and another time of poor surface but also because Dave Ramsey recommends NO credit cards. After I closed it out, there was a weird charge taken out of our savings account the next day. This savings account was with Associated back. We went into one of their branches and they helped clear it up. Someone at Discover Card had attempted to steal from us. I would not recommend them. Our debit cards with Associated Bank have never caused us problems.
Posted by: Keith | July 28, 2011 at 08:55 PM
I'm with Moneycone. It's difficult to assess the validity of the study without a description of how the rankings were determined. Two, maybe three (BoA and Capital One, not sure about US Bank), of the top five are perennial contenders for Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" contest, so I'm skeptical about these rankings, anyway.
Posted by: jeffbone | July 28, 2011 at 10:39 PM
I have had two cards hijacked - Chase Freedom Visa and Citicard Mastercard. One was in 1/09 and one in 1/10. January must be a busy month for thieves. And neither of these cards was ever out of my pocket.
I found the 1st hijack when it was 3 days old. (Now I check my accounts daily.) I called, they asked which were fraud and they also gave me a short list of charges pending - all of which were fraud. They shut my card immediately and sent out a new card the next day. I was told I owed nothing on these bad charges. I never had to provide any documentation on these. Probably because my daily charges were in MO and the hijacks were in Utah, Georgia & Canada.
The 2nd card hijack was handled that way as well. No charges, immediate stoppage of the card and a new one on the way the next day. I was lucky with the Citicard, as it is the one I do regularly scheduled payments out of. I had two weeks to get everything changed over to the new card.
This year I did notify both that I would be traveling over a lot of states in June and July.
Posted by: Georgia | July 29, 2011 at 07:08 PM