Pattern recognition is a fraud prevention technique that is used increasingly by credit card companies.  It is often the reason why credit card users will get phoned up by their credit card provider asking them whether they really did make a couple of large purchases.

Pattern recognition is simply analysis of a large number of credit card transactions.  It comes in two forms, firstly pattern recognition searches for positive signs that the card is being used fraudulently and it then looks for differences in the way the card is being used from its normal pattern.
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