[Story] Investigating a funny charge on my credit card
I've been using YNAB for a few years now with automatic import. Occasionally, something imports really weirdly and this one happens to be pretty funny too.
The transaction was called Digital Account Number. Usually I just look at the transaction on my bank or card app to find more details. However, this time, I had to use a computer and print the transaction in landscape mode to get the full details because the transaction description was sooooo long: 5102_ETM_SMV Henderson NV Digital Account Number XXXXXXXXXXXX0329
Weirdly enough, I also noticed the location was set to Nderson U, Saudi Arabia which instantly raised some red flags to me as I'm based in the US. Because of some weird "interpretation", I think: 5102_ETM_SMV Henderson USA became:
5102_ETM_SMV He
nderson U
SA
And the last SA was interpreted as Saudi Arabia.
You can see more details and screenshots on my blog: https://aggressivelyparaphrasing.me/2023/11/29/i-found-a-funny-charge-on-my-credit-card/
I guess one follow-up question I have is: can I report weird stuff like this to someone? I feel like Citi would not care nor the cashier at the gift shop I went to.
Posted Nov 29, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC
The question of who would care depends on where it goes n the data’s journey it got parsed like that, and why. Since it made a customer suspect fraud, I would hope somebody would care…