Recent reports indicate that the majority of the time when your credit card company calls you to inquire about potentially fraudulent activity on your account, it is not an attempt to sell you additional products and services. Rather, it is a real security warning. and going forward you might want to start answering those calls.

According to a recent study conducted by Credit Donkey, these types of courtesy calls are becoming common practice in the financial industry as a means to protect both the consumer and the credit card company.

Out of more than 1,000 people surveyed, almost one-third of credit card users claim to have been victimized by fraud. In addition, 63 percent claim they received a call from their credit card company either to confirm or deny the suspicious charges, with nearly 30 percent of those charges actually turning out to be fraudulent.

The survey also found that while some people are annoyed by these types of courtesy calls (9.5 percent), the majority (62 percent) reported that they are thankful to receive them. Moreover, in the cases where fraud has been determined, 75 percent of those surveyed reported their credit card company resolved the issue within a week.

"Credit card companies routinely track purchases and flag accounts with suspicious activity," said Charles Tran, founder of Credit Donkey. "Despite the false alarms, consumers overall are happy that credit card companies are taking a proactive approach to safeguard consumers."

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