Carded
Posted on | May 10, 2008 at 7:33 am | 4 Comments
Pet Peeve of the Day: The credit card company for the major credit card that I use for most of my transactions just, out-of-the-blue, sent me a new card with a new number yesterday and didn’t tell me they were going to do it. The old card doesn’t expire for another year. Of course they taut “new benefits!” and crap like that, but I’m sure there’s more behind it.
One reason I hate this so much is because I have several monthly transactions that automatically debit that card. So now I need to contact each vendor or provider and get the number changed, like I have to do when the old card expires and I have to specify the new expire date. Or when a card gets used fraudulently and I have to get a new one with a new number (which has never happened with this particular card, but it has happened to other cards I use). But the other reason I hate it is because I actually had the 16-digit number of the old card (as well as the CCV code) memorized. I had that number for a very long time and it was like a part of me. I liked that number! For online transactions and such, I didn’t even need to look at the card. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to memorize the new number.
Also, what if I was in the middle of an online order when I activate the new card? For example, I ordered a new external hard drive to replace the one that went kablooey, and I used my old card for that. However, it didn’t ship out right away and they don’t charge the card until it does. My girlfriend works in banking and says it would be okay because they probably pre-authorized the transaction, but I still don’t like worrying about it. (Luckily, the drive did get shipped out before I activated the new card.)
I think I could deal with this a little better if the company actually told me beforehand they were going to do this, but there was no indication until the card actually arrived in the mail. I wish they would’ve warned me and I wish they would’ve told me the real reason they’re doing it.
What a pain! Class action lawsuit!
I loved that old number.
Latre.
Comments
4 Responses to “Carded”
May 10th, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
The old number is probably still good for a month or two. The reason they probably sent the new card is so that the new fine print secretly hidden in the fine print allows them to raise your interest rate to 3000% and repossess one of your testicles if you are ever 30 seconds late with a payment.
Do I hate credit card companies? Yes. For very good reasons.
May 10th, 2008 @ 11:17 pm
Same thing happened to the wife and I. Had to change the card number everywhere. I used to have a memorized card number, but that got changed some time ago. And now I use Discover’s “Secure Online Account Numbers” for everything where I don’t actually have to show the card (the browser version, so I don’t download any goofy software). Since these numbers are different for each merchant, there no point in memorizing the card number anymore.
As for transactions in progress, both the wife and I just held the new card and didn’t activate it until there was nothing in progress. Simple.
Personally, I love credit card companies, especially Discover. I hardly ever use cash anymore, and I stopped carrying checks ages ago. Discover gives me a 1% discount on all my purchases (a little less than 1%, actually), and 5% on some. And the full amount charged is automatically transferred out of my checking account monthly (giving me the benefit of “the float”). I’ve never, ever, paid Discover interest or a fee. It’s a sweet deal. Plus, I can get cash from grocery stores with no ATM charge. They used to pay me 1% to get the cash, too, but they stopped that recently. But, as I said, I hardly ever use cash, so no big deal.
And if I have a problem with a merchant, Discover takes the charge off my account. We recently bought some airline tickets. It’s a challenge to find an airline that isn’t bankrupt or nearly so. So we waited a few days to buy the tickets so if the airline actually folds, it’ll be within the time permitted to dispute a charge. It’s almost like free trip insurance.
The down side is merchants have to raise their prices a little to pay the credit card fees (unless they’re using the credit card companies as an invoice factoring company, in which case it’s probably cheaper). But hardly anyone charges more for credit card sales than cash sales, so at the moment I pay the higher prices whether I use a credit card or not. Might as well use it and get the discount.
May 11th, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
I like Discover a lot too and use it for most everything, but they’re the ones who did this to me! I always pay off my credit card bills every month too, and so don’t need to worry about interest rates or anything, but I know that not everyone can do that.
May 11th, 2008 @ 6:06 pm
I always pay off my credit card bills every month too, and so don’t need to worry about interest rates or anything, but I know that not everyone can do that.
I’d bet the most everyone can do that, but lots of people choose to manage their finances a different way.