> What's annoying as a customer is many companies flag legitimate transactions, wait a few days to say so, and then handle it poorly after the fact.
If by this you mean they don't notify you that the transaction was flagged until a few days later, that's (probably) part of the fraud prevention system. There was a post on HN similar to this one awhile back about how another site handled fraud prevention. One of the most successful techniques is they found was to delay notification. Fraudsters are less likely to target you if it takes them a long time to find out their transaction was declined. Credit card fraud is very much a hit and run operation, as the card is likely to quickly get flagged and blocked by the issuer within a few hours of the fraudsters using it.
That said, a few days is pretty bad and I imagine it really only takes a few hours delay to make the technique effective.
If by this you mean they don't notify you that the transaction was flagged until a few days later, that's (probably) part of the fraud prevention system. There was a post on HN similar to this one awhile back about how another site handled fraud prevention. One of the most successful techniques is they found was to delay notification. Fraudsters are less likely to target you if it takes them a long time to find out their transaction was declined. Credit card fraud is very much a hit and run operation, as the card is likely to quickly get flagged and blocked by the issuer within a few hours of the fraudsters using it.
That said, a few days is pretty bad and I imagine it really only takes a few hours delay to make the technique effective.