For the second time in as many years my bank (NAB) has made me change my card account number. The first time it was for an “up-grade” that I opted out of but it went ahead anyway. The second one which will happen in a few weeks time is from Master card to VISA for the “latest payment innovations”. Prior to this I had the same account number for over 15 years.
The issue I have with these forced changes is all my direct debit accounts need to be changed, and there’s over ten different accounts to remember and change. From important ones like insurance renewals to ones that don’t matter much like news papers, even my CHOICE subscription!
No, I have not had this problem at all, except for the one time my data was stolen from an International company and my account hacked, then the card number was immediately changed, the bank had a list of transactions to allow to go through, and I had the new card within a week, along with the refund of the stolen money. I bank with BankSA, which is part of St George’s/Westpac and before that I banked with the Adelaide Bank, and I have never had problems, even winning fights with Paypal! It suggests that sometimes there are advantages to dealing with smaller banks. In all cases it pays to read the tiny print hidden away in the obscure corner of a contract because I cannot see any reason to change your credit card unless it really offers you a much better deal than the one you already have, unless the card provider is discontinuing that particular card. Like you, all my accounts are linked to the one card and the thought of changing everything is a nightmare.
I have had to change when there was fraudulent activity on my credit card.
I was given the choice of a) change card or b) accept responsibility for any further false charges on the existing card. I accepted the new card.
I went back through my bank statements to produce a list of all direct debits so I knew who I had to notify of the change. I have kept that list just in case it ever happens again.
My experience echoes that of @barca1au and @meltam with the Bank only changing my Card after fraudulent activity was noticed by myself and the Bank… There was no change of Credit Merchant either it was exactly the same not like @omy005aw’s change from MC to Visa.
I haave a Visa debit card with one bank which I use for OS travel, as it is low cost. I was recently informed the upon expiry it will be replaced with a Mastercard debit card. I have not been able to determine if the terms and conditions are the same, due to being unwilling to read 140 pages of accompanying documentation. Banks should be forced to produce simple plain English documents like insurance companies provide.
My Bank sent out unsolicited “Black” credit cards with new account numbers to replace my existing “Gold” cards. I was given the option of activating the new cards or cutting them up. The Bank rang me a month later to ask why I hadn’t activated the new cards? I told them they were of no obvious benefit to me so I had cut them up as advised. It would have involved changing about a dozen accounts that use the current card account details.
Three months later, my existing cards duly expired and I was sent out replacement “Gold” cards but when I first try to use them at the supermarket, I was told that they had in fact expired even though the expiry date printed on the cards was 03/2020. I rang the Bank and they said the cards should not have been sent out and quickly replaced them with “Platinum” cards, luckily with the same account number and expiry date? That’s my experience with one Bank.
This is very similar to what happened to me. Both times unsolicited but they cam with “great new free benefits” that I’m sure were only benefits to the bank! Why would they give something for free otherwise?
So I’m a few days away from being forced to my “up-grade” and I’ve so far counted ten services that I have direct debit linked to. The annoying thing is I cant do any of these changes until the new card arrives and some will be due very close to the change over time.
