This really is a factual question. My Master card had an expiration date of 03/24 so I was not astonished that on Thursday a new card arrived. Yesterday around 11:00, I used it with the pin at my drug store, thereby activating it. Yesterday afternoon, I ordered a couple of things from Amazon (including a CD ripper as you might know from a different thread). When I came to pay, I expected to have to update the CC because it had a new expiration date. Nope. When I tried to update the card, the card they showed had the new expiration date. How the hell did they do that? I am a bit concerned that the bank allows them access to that information.
I don’t think I’ve ever had to update the info within Amazon for the Amazon card.
Presumably this Mastercard is not an Amazon card - I think they are only Visa.
There is a system whereby “trusted merchants” can get updated card info. Here’s the Visa version, no doubt Mastercard have something similar.
I think for me the reduced annoyance from having payments fail probably outweighs any marginally increased risk of fraud. If someone has your credit card number and is making fraudulent charges, you’re usually going to have to get a completely new CC number. So I don’t think an existing merchant who knows your number having access to the new expiration date creates any significant additional risk.
For what it’s worth, if you haven’t experienced it already, if you ask Amazon to send you something to any new delivery address, it will ask you to verify your credit card details.
Whereas I recently booked hotels using Hilton Honors and it warned me for each reservation, 3 times, that I needed to update my Amex expiry date.
If you switch your default card to another one that’s on file, you often have to reenter the information for confirmation even though they have it on file.
I once heard that vendors may just try the next likely expiration date (e.g 3 years from the expiration of the previous card), or as @riemann noted, they may be trusted merchants.
My card (which IS an Amazon-linked Visa) expired this past August. The expiration of the replacement card was a completely different month. I had to update it on numerous sites. Not sure whether Amazon was one of them, now that I think about it. Verizon, on the other hand, got hold of the corrected info without my having to do anything.
Well, that’s gotta be the answer. I was still astonished. There was about 5 hours between my activating the new card and using it. Incidentally, the new expiration date was 3 1/2 later, 09/27.
My cards - assorted Visa, Amex, and now (thanks to Costco) Mastercard - none have used “just add 2 years” (or 3) for over a decade. The new month is always random now. i have had a lot of recurring monthly charges that go through just fine (or used to, several years ago) despite not updating the expiry.
As I understand - merchants, presumably trusted ones, can enter transactions; the only proviso is without the security code as part of the transaction (which they are forbidden from storing) the onus is on them to show it was a valid transaction - the goods or service was delivered in accordance with the cardholder’s wishes.
(And of course too many disputed transactions leads to financial penalties)
I do not know the factual answer to this but as someone who used to manage a merchant payment system, it would surprise me if the credit card companies would allow this. It would also surprise me if the merchant would go fishing like that, due to fraud vulnerability.
Ah HAH! Something similar must be at play in what just happened to us. We just had to replace one of the cards on a Visa account that my husband and I share. We reported his card lost and the bank is sending us a new one. Within moments both of us got text and mail messages telling us that our ‘card number has been updated with Apple Pay so we can keep using it while we wait for our new card’ (or words to that effect). We don’t use Apple Pay so I don’t care, but I thought wow, that is really nice for anyone who does. I also wondered how the HECK does that work?
I didn’t know the system could update the entire card number. I would hope that they are more restrictive on what merchants they allow this for, otherwise it defeats the purpose of issuing a new card number to prevent continuing attempts at fraudulent charges.
I once had difficulties cancelling a subscription for a major online newspaper, so I went into the payment method and changed the cc# to 0000-000000-00000.
The subscription renewed. I called the cc company and they told me they routinely updated the card numbers as a courtesy to the customer.
told them I did not want to pay for this subscription anymore and they told me I had a contract and had to cancel through the newspaper. I told them they were not a party to the contract, that I- not the online paper- was their customer- and if the paper wanted to sue me for breach of contract they could but they had no standing to act as a contract enforcement agent of the newspaper. Then I told them I’d just cancel the card right now if they didn’t reverse the last charge and stop future payments.
They did as I requested.
That was a sobering anecdote.
I was looking “forward” to using a similar tactic to prevent a recurring payment which I’d prepaid for two months ahead.
Well, this CC is issued by my credit union, and I like doing business with them, and I think the feeling is mutual, so I’d be foolish to deploy the nuclear option.
But, apparently profound scrubbing action is what’s required to extract the tendrils, if necessary.
Eye-opening thread, really, even for one who has been banking and spending and such for decades.
That’s more frightening than my experience. But I cannot imagine they would do that if the card had been reported lost or stolen and a new number was issued. Or would they? If it was a regular payment, maybe they would.
No, it’s not so difficult. If you have made a reasonable effort to cancel a subscription (to me, reasonable does not include being forced to phone up and stay on hold for more than 3 minutes), just go online and request a chargeback with “merchant non-responsive”, with brief details of the date and method of your attempt to cancel. It’s a 10 minute online process on the CC site and I have never failed to get a refund this way without further dispute. Usually they issue an immediate temporary credit pending final resolution. Nor have I had a scummy merchant try to charge me again. They get financial penalties from the CC companies for an excessive number of chargebacks.
I had an interesting experience with Amazon a week or so ago. My wife had fallen for an Amazon 30 day trial for prime and didn’t know how to cancel it. Eventually a charge for something over $100 appeared on our CC bill. I called an Amazon help line and they canceled the charge (we have already received the credit) and taken her off prime. The fact that she had made no use of prime (except for the free trial) helped. There was no argument and i didn’t spend any time on hold.
I had to cancel our main credit card 2 days ago: we’d sent my son grocery shopping as we often do, and he misplaced the card - likely, dropped it somewhere at the store (or maybe it’s on the floor of his car).
I got an email yesterday from Amazon saying “hey, your monthly subscription order can’t be shipped until you update your payment info!”. So they’d been informed within 24 hours of my cancelling the card, possibly sooner.
I logged on to add a different card to the account, and it showed my primary card, but with different last 4 digits than the one I’d just cancelled. So they already knew about the new card number, but they can’t update it enough to actually purchase with it. Nor could I see my points balance (it’s an Amazon-linked card, so I could shop with points).
Verizon is another vendor that I’ve seen get updated info in the past (updated expiration date info). I’ll have to check that to see if they got that update. Likely not, since it’s a whole new number.
And I’ve got to contact everyone ELSE that auto-bills to that card and get it straightened out.
The poor kid (hah, he’s 29) was REALLY upset with himself over this. Our reaction was “Meh. No big deal. Really.” - and it isn’t, just an annoyance.
We had similar experience last week. We couldn’t find one of the physical cards. The credit card bank had an option to mark the card as lost. We confirmed no unexpected charges and presto! we had a new card number. The bank said the old card number would work with recurring charges for the next month.
But for the most part, we haven’t had to update because the vendors already got the update. For example, my Apple wallet had the new number in less than twenty-four hours.
somewhat related:
I have a CC from Bank-A … which expires on - say - 10/2026
and requestest (and got) a new, additional CC from Bank-B … which also expires - say - 10/2026
coincidence? … what is the algorithm here? … I was thinking maybe like some drivers licences (et al) which expire on your birthday …
… except it’s not the month of my birthday, either …
I’d guess coincidence; we have cards from 4 different issuers and have never had the same expiration month.
Something I’ve noticed recently though: used to be, new card every 3 years (or less), without fail. And usually the same month - e.g. if it expired in January 2011, the next would expire in January 2014.
One that was renewed last summer was set to expire on a different month in 2027 (so, roughly 4 years). That’s the one I think I mentioned upthread, where Verizon and one or two other vendors auto-updated in their system.
It’s also the one we had to cancel recently because a card got misplaced after a grocery run (naturally, we found it, the next day, on the floor of the garage). The replacement is 5 years out. And as before, Verizon, Paypal and possibly others got the updated info.
Paypal, by the way, did NOT change the default payment method to the new card, from the old one. Both appeared on the account; I checked this just today because I had to make sure one specific bill (that goes through PP) got paid correctly.