Checking your credit card

This week I received a letter from American Express which stated that my credit card had been temporarily blocked because of potential fraudulent activity. It also said that I needed to call a number to confirm the recent transactions and get the card unlocked.

That seems like a very reasonable thing to do. However the number they asked me to call was not listed on the American Express web site. Though the letter seemed legit I did the only right thing – call their regular number and work things out from there. While digital phishing is the current hot thing to do there are still criminals forging good old snail mail letters to trick users.

It turned out that the number listed was a direct number to their fraud department which isn’t listed on the site. I’ve requested American Express to change their practices.