<p>We are not in the habit of charging items in the price range of laptops, so our credit card company fraud dept. rejected the charge by the university bookstore. Straightening this out was not difficult, but it did waste a good bit of time on the phone. I had to call the university bookstore several times before I got someone on the line who could help me re-submit the order. We should have contacted American Express to pre-authorize the charge, so I thought I'd warn you all to do that if you think the purchase might raise a red flag. </p>
<p>Also, we used our American Express rather than the Visa card we usually use (another reason the purchase was flagged) because of their better additional warranty protection. So for this important purchase you might want to check whether you have a credit card which offers a warranty extension.</p>
<p>Ours was an online purchase from the opposite coast. The bookstore did not inform us that the charge was rejected, rather we knew because of the automated phone call from Amex.</p>
<p>Someone I know just made an unusually large (for them - really only about $2000) purchase and was contacted by the Visa card issuing bank with 3 minutes. She told them it was okay and all was fine - nothing needed to be resubmitted because it wasn’t actually rejected. I thought that was pretty vigilant of the card system to catch it that quickly.</p>
<p>This is a good reminder TheGFG - lots of bigger than usual outlays for college (unfortunately).</p>
<p>Every December the credit card company calls my dad to discuss possible fraud on his credit card, and he has to say, “oh, no, that’s just my wife’s christmas shopping.” We get a kick out of it.</p>