Interesting turn of events. I’ve been on an “introductory promotional rate” of $204.99 yearly for Bloomberg digital which provides good market coverage online plus their 24-hour TV & radio feeds. The purchase is made thru my Apple account. I feel it pays for itself over time with the investment information I gain - plus pretty good national / international news coverage. I knew it was to expire today and would renew at their “regular” $329.99 annual rate. A bit steep. But didn’t feel like losing the service temporarily in hopes of eventually landing a better deal.
This morning an authentication service that serves my local bank phoned me (robo-call) to say my account was blocked due to suspicious activity. I contacted the bank directly and it turned out they’d flagged the $329.99 Apple (Bloomberg) debit as suspicious. I approved the charge. Bank unblocked my debit card.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg, assuming I’d cancelled their service when the debit failed to go through, sent me another “introductory promotional offer” for another year in the same $204.99 amount - which I gladly grabbed off.
By then, the account had been unblocked and this one went through. Interestingly, service was never interrupted.
Comments
In addition, banks may send their own alerts for suspicious charges and those must be responded to before more transactions are possible..
Once, a card was denied, I just used another card, but when I got home, I saw that there was a transaction alert - I didn't hear a beep in the store.
Once I was subscribing to a service on phone - rather small amount. Charge went through for my phone, but was rejected for my wife's phone. To the card security system, it probably looked a duplicate charge. I responded to the alert and re-did the 2nd transaction and it went through.
IMO, these proactive alerts are good and protect both the banks and the customers.
Any day !!!