Here’s a small idea that I think would make a big difference: RSS feeds of your credit card purchases. (For those not familiar with RSS [example], it’s a standardized way for sites to provide headlines and articles. Using a feedreader such as NetNewsWire allows you to get updates from all your favorite sites in one go without visiting a bunch of bookmarks.)

With ccRSS, each time you updated to find what’s new, your feedreader would also query your credit card company. So you’d get a list of stories, as per usual, along with an item such as this:
19 Apr 3:22a - Approved: UNITED AIRLINES, $319.12

That’s useful all by itself, but where it really gets interesting is if the issuer could include a link to allow you to deny the charge. Say you see this:
19 Apr 3:32a - Approved: SuspiciousPhoneCards.com, $500.00 [report this transaction]

Suddenly, with no extra effort, you’re able to stay on top of your own credit card charges. Rather than rely solely on your issuer’s fraud department and computer models, and rather than wait the weeks it would take to get a statement (or, if you a little more savvy, until the next time you check it online), you would be able to shut down fradulent transactions in a matter of minutes.

Well, that “minutes” figure assumes you’re on the Internet with anywhere near the insane frequency that I am…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 19th, 2005 at 3:25 am and is filed under Ideas.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.