[dmdeller]

The banks' monitoring software is in fact a hassle for me. I've only ever had legitimate purchases denied. The retailer's order flow is not usually optimised for this case, requiring a tedious, often manual process to get my order reinstated, while at the same time often causing the retailer to treat me with suspicion (they can't tell why the charge was denied the first time, and are sometimes reluctant or unable to retry the same card again).

As far as I can tell, Final is not really about reducing fraud, which, as you correctly state, is mostly a non-problem for customers. Instead, its value is in increasing my personal convenience, by reducing the annoyances the credit card companies force me to deal with as a direct result of their absurdly outdated technology.

[res0nat0r]

I'd suggest a better bank, or better retailers.

I was traveling across the country last month and bought some expensive sunglasses and my card was declined. (My cab purchases and other legit looking travel items worked just fine). I immediately on my phone got a text asking if this purchase was legit, replied with '1' for yes, and my card was accepted after trying again few seconds later.

I've headed this off before by calling the 24x7 number on the back of the card before I leave the country or go on vacation across the USA and tell them to flag my account that I will be traveling. This usually takes about 5 minutes.

[aeturnum]

I want you to consider how wrong you might be. Filtering is defensive in nature, and the quality of a banks' filtering affects the value of CC numbers stolen from it. How many false positives will you accept in order to make your CC number virtually worthless to thieves?

I have no idea of course. Maybe the bank is incompetent and getting robbed blind, but I think what I describe above is a distinct possibility.

[HaloZero]

I would look into other credit cards or banks then. Capital one and my local back (San Francisco Fire) just talk to me about "hey we've noticed these suspicious transactions, verify please?"