Credit and Debit Card Tips

Your APL FCU VISA Credit Card can be used anywhere that VISA is accepted, including in person or online with merchants that accept VISA. This includes more than 30 million locations in 170 countries around the world.

The same holds true for your VISA Debit Card, although you have the option to choose credit or debit for point-of-sale transactions (by selecting credit, Signature transactions go through the Visa network and help protect you against unauthorized or fraudulent charges). Additionally, you can use your debit card like an ATM card to withdraw funds from your APL FCU account at any ATM displaying the Accel ® , STAR ® , CIRRUS ® or ALLPOINT logo.

If you start experiencing trouble using your card (for example, the sales clerk has to run your card through the reader numerous times to get it to work, or it can’t be read at all), please contact the credit union at 443.778.5250 or stop by Member Services at any branch to request a replacement card.

If your card is declined, you may be attempting to exceed your credit limit or the amount of available funds in your checking account. However, if your card is declined and you believe you had enough funds available to cover the transaction amount, there could be another explanation, such as:

1. A pending transaction or a recurring transaction that you forgot about has reserved available funds (if you have another authorized cardholder on your account, it could have been a transaction they made without your knowledge).
2. A merchant, such as a rental car company or a hotel, places a large sum on hold as a deposit. If the merchant does not clear the initial deposit properly, those funds are held in addition to the actual charge(s) that you pay.
3. A merchant accidentally runs a card through more than once. This can happen when the merchant is having trouble getting the card to read and swipes it numerous times. They could end up hitting your credit card for double or triple the intended amount, thus tying up a large chunk of your credit line. In rare instances, the transaction could be declined as part of VISA’s fraud prevention program even though the transaction is legitimate. See the section on “Real-Time Decisioning” below for complete details.

Although the above examples are extremely rare, they could result in your card being declined erroneously. It is always good practice to have more than one method of payment to ensure that you are never caught in the precarious situation of not being able to pay for a transaction. This is especially true if you are traveling out of the area.

APL FCU uses a fraud protection system provided by our card service center. This system allows us to maintain a high level of security and safety for Visa Debit Card and Credit Card users while minimizing requirements from our cardholders.

If the system detects unusual or suspicious activity on an account, the cardholder may be contacted by phone. The caller will identify that the call is from APL Federal Credit Union’s card services center and verify the cardholder by their name and their 5 digit zip code. If the cardholder is unavailable, a message asking the cardholder to return the call is provided.

Additionally, APL FCU has added an extra layer of security known as “Real-Time Decisioning,” which can help prevent fraud before it happens by declining a suspicious transaction at the point-of-sale.

Real-Time Decisioning is a method used by our card processor to identify high-risk authorization attempts and decline them before a potential fraudulent transaction can be processed. VISA ® estimates that 70% of card fraud is either a single transaction fraud or the first transaction of a fraud run, so by declining the initial transaction it can greatly reduce fraud losses.

In rare cases, the Real-Time Decisioning process may result in a member’s card being declined for a legitimate transaction. If this occurs, our card processor will attempt to contact you to check the validity of the transaction. If they verify that the transaction is legitimate while you are still with the merchant, the merchant will be able to present the authorization again for approval.

It is important to maintain up-to-date phone numbers, including a cell phone number, with the credit union to increase the likelihood that our card processor will be able to get in touch with you. You may also contact the credit union if your card is declined and you believe the transaction should have been approved.

You should contact the credit union immediately. During business hours you should call 443.778.5250 or stop by Member Services at any branch location. If you notice the problem after business hours, please call 800.367.5796.

Yes. Inform us of your travel plans! Notifying APL FCU of the credit card and debit card accounts you may use while on travel will help minimize the chance of card transactions being declined. Please sign into Digital Banking and complete a Travel Notification request. Please alert us no more than 30 days before your upcoming travel plans. Your return date must be no more than 30 days after your departure date. If you plan to travel longer than 30 days, you can extend your travel notification by submitting an additional form before the original date of return.

If you do not have an online account with us, please call us at one of the following numbers to provide your travel dates during regular business hours.

Phone:
443.778.5250