How can I tell if my debit card has become demagnetized? Can it be fixed or do I have to get it replaced?
The short answer to the first part is “It doesn’t work in an ATM or in a POS terminal.” It’s not as if the stripe will change colors or anything detectable without a card reader.
As for the second part, the only real fix is to have a new card re-issued by your bank.
It is possible to recode the card if the strip isn’t physically damaged. I was on an IT project for Diebold decades ago and in testing I used their machine on which you could read and manually code/recode cards. You’d insert the card into the machine, type the info, and you’re done. And at one time, hackers recoded cards with tape recorders; but that was difficult and unreliable, not to mention illegal.
It’s much easier, faster and cheaper for the issuer to just send you a new card.
Here’s one way to tell for sure: put a very strong magnet next to it, and the answer to the question "is my card ruined?’ will almost certainly be affirmative.
I’m still working on an equally reliable method for detecting the negative…
When I reported a lost credit card, the person taking the call told me that a thief’s favorite way of finding out if a stolen card is already cancelled is to put it into a gasoline pump. If the card is still usable, it will approve it. If it’s rejected, the thief can usually slip away without being identified.
So, if you want to test your own card, go use it somewhere.
Folks who work around MRI equipment learn pretty quickly not to take a wallet into the magnet room.
Now get this;
My debit card failed me when i needed it for fuel late at night, Come to find out my wife had been having problems with it also and the clerk in Wally World(W-mart) showed her how to overcome the problem. They would put the card in a fold of plastic and swipe it through the giz.
She just hadn’t informed me of the trick!
I then had a new card made. The old card had scratches on the magnetic strip. It was a casualty of the purse bottom.
I’ve seen cashiers at Safeway do that with iffy credit and debit cards many times (since I normally pay cash for groceries they’ve never had to do that for me).
Are chipped cards affected in the same way the old swipe ones were?
Not by pernament magnets, as far as I know - they contain solid-state electronics. flash memory, I think. They’re probably vulnerable to static electricity though.
Hmm. Kinda like that joke:
911 caller: My hunting buddy’s accidently shot himself and I think he’s dead!
Dispatcher: Calm down, calm down. First make sure he’s dead.
Caller: >Bang!< Okay . . . now what?
Ah, the bane of motherboards everywhere.
As it was explained to me, the scratches act as short-range RF notch antennas and screw up the data read off of the card. Wrapping the card usually adds enough of a gap from the reader that the RF signal is too weak to interfere with the data.
Fine. But what kind of plastic? Saran Wrap?
A plastic grocery bag or one of those little plastic bags they put meat in.
If the plastic bag trick works, and it did for the Mrs. could the magnetic strip be varnished or clear coated if say one was out of town and needed to use it and didn’t want to send a baggie with the waitress.
Anything of approximately that thickness will work: a plain piece of paper, a receipt from the cash register, even a dollar bill from your wallet.