I don’t think any company stores the PIN on the card, for exactly that reason.
Well, not as much as I used to. Now I have a wallet that has sleeves for the cards that fan out so I leave the empty sleeve sticking out so it won’t go easily into my pocket reminding me to put the card back. But occasionally, most often if I feel rushed by a long line behind me at the checkout I’ll shove it in a pocket. I chose this wallet specifically to address this flaw in myself.
I once lost my CitiCard on the 6 train while on vacation in New York. I called Citi, and they overnighted me a new one for free, and then I called Discover and they issued me an emergency temporary PIN for a cash advance. 10 minutes in total, crisis averted.
But that is the only time I have ever lost a card. It’s really not that hard to NOT lose something, but I see people at work all the time digging in these massive bags full of junk they call purses and I can see how they might not notice that something is missing.
I left one in an ATM once, late at night, after getting money for a cab. Realized it the next day. D’oh! Now the ATMs around here are mostly the “swipe” kind, and not the “insert card” type.
The only time I lost my cards was about 20 years ago and it was my own stupid fault. Somehow I managed to leave my wallet sitting on the bench at a bus stop on the highway right in front of the airport. Once I got off my bus I realized what I had done. I figured that as busy as the area around that bus stop was, my wallet was surely a goner.
But no! In between making calls to the bank and credit card company, my phone rang. It was someone who was hitchhiking through the area when he saw my wallet and knew he had to get it to its rightful owner. I thanked him profusely and we agreed he should leave it at the front desk of a nearby hotel. I don’t remember if I offered to let him take money out of the wallet for a reward or not (I’m sure I must have) but I do remember that that everything I expected to be there was, with the exception of some change for the phone call. Fair enough! What a great way to get your faith in humanity restored!
My SO has lost his wallet twice in six months, and both times called to get his card replaced. I think his ADD kicks in and he just neglects to stuff his wallet back into his pocket after he buys stuff.
He says he’s going to get one of those wallets with chains that connect to your belt. I told him the alternative is surgical attachment. 
My social insurance number (SIN) card is the bane of my existence. For starters, it is pointless. I guess it makes sense to have it on a card so I will remember the number, but it hasn’t changed since I was a teenager so it’s pretty firmly entrenched in my memory.
Anyone else who might ask for it (banks, employers, Revenue Canada, can’t think of anyone else) is not going to go only by the presence of my SIN card as confirmation that that is actually my social insurance number, or that I am who I say I am. I am confident that they have techniques by which to match up my SIN with my other personal information (banks, employers and taxmen are awfully finicky about such details), and as it has no information other than my name and my SIN, nobody, no matter how stupid, would accept it as identification anyway.
Literally (and yes, I literally know what literally means) the only time I have ever needed it was when beginning a job with certain new employers (e.g. the government). I think I have needed it for this purpose maybe three times in my entire life. The problem is, when you need it for this purpose, you really really need it, in that you might not be able to start the job you’ve been offered unless you present it.
To get a new SIN card requires going to one of their inconveniently located offices during business hours, and presenting all manner of ID (including two other forms of government ID), and waiting weeks for it to be mailed to your home. Why I couldn’t just present those two forms of ID, along with a tax return clearly stating my SIN, to anyone requiring the card, is a question I am not permitted to ask.
I know this very well because I have lost my SIN card TWICE in my life. I can’t remember how I lost it the first time (I probably just lost track of it through several apartment moves), but it was a major PITA as I had to learn all the joys of getting a replacement SIN card, half-day off work and all.
The second time is the time that is relevant to the OP, and one of my life’s situations that I am still kicking myself over. I was travelling in Brazil and heading out to a street party. Pickpockets in such situations are legendary so I was clever: I removed all the cash and credit cards from my wallet before going out. And so of course when my wallet was stolen as a matter of course, I didn’t lose any cash or credit cards. In fact the only thing I lost which I missed was the wallet itself, and my goddamn SIN card. Why was I carrying my SIN card out to a street party in Brazil, you ask? Good question. Very good question. The answer is the very same answer to the question posed in the OP: Because we are morons.
Of course I had to do the half-day off work thing again, because I did get a cushy government job which was really quite strict about seeing the damn thing. I have not used it since and don’t expect to, but will keep it in a safe-deposit box just in case.
This tragic story of SIN card has a follow-up. I was moving furniture in my house last week and as I pushed aside a bookcase, what should I see but a yellow, dusty, SIN card, with my teenage signature on it. My signature hasn’t changed since 1995, I clearly remember perfecting it in my university biology class. How the fuck did this little plastic POS manage to follow me through ten different apartments on three different continents without making itself known, and resulting in such massive inconvenience to me? How? HOWWW?
Sorry for the dramatic lamentation. I guess I’ve been spending too much time in the mini-rants thread. Hopefully the lesson from my tale is clear: We lose cards because we are morons, and because cards are malevolent little bastards who try to evade us at every turn. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Yeah, my bank told me to file a police report too. Which I did.
This is a Dutch PIN-Pas with both a magnetic strip and a microchip. To sign into my online banking, I need to authenticate my login using a little device into which I insert the microchip end of the debit card. This enigma machine accepts a hand-entered code that the website gives you, and returns a response code which you type into the website. The codes are deterministic – entering code nnnnnnnn always gives response mmmmmm, say.
The point is, the engima machine will only let you enter the web code after you’ve inserted your card and provided the correct PIN. It’s not tailored to my card, either; it works with any card, as long as the correct PIN for that card is entered. The enigma machine isn’t connected to any network or other device. It looks like this.
So this machine which interfaces with nothing but my card’s onboard microchip is able to verify my PIN. There’s no way I can see this working but that the PIN is stored on the card, perhaps in encrypted form.
Anyway, the bank took a month to get me a new card, and send me a letter calling me careless with my PIN. Then they sent the PIN for the new card, by mail, to the wrong address. And finally, to add insult to injury, they then sent me junk mail advertising their in-house travel insurance. Twice!
And who was stuck in Stockholm with no access to my bank account and no local currency? The guy whose bank never sent him the credit card they assured him they would (yes it was an administrative screwup, not a credit problem). By the way, that’s the same guy whose bank charged him a monthly fee they promised the wouldn’t – a matter that took 7 months to resolve. I am so lucky I had an emergency card from a never-used account in my home country with me.
So yeah, sorry. This thread wasn’t supposed to be about me bitching about this bank. It’s about how it’s totally possible to lose your card, like say to thieves in a youth hostel.
I’ve never lost one but I’ve misplaced them for a day or two. Generally because I’ve done something like remove it from my purse to pump gas, then slip it back into a pocket instead of where it usually belongs. Or I didn’t want to take my purse into some crowded venue, so I removed ID and credit/debit card to carry in my pocket.
I’ve lost debit cards twice. Once when I misplaced my wallet and thought it had been stolen and once when I left my card in the ATM after making a deposit. And somebody promptly stole $200 out of my account. There aren’t enough :smack: in the world for how I felt. Luckily, the bank was able to review the tapes to determine that the money had been stolen and refunded my money. I think that process took about 12 days.
Now, I’m completely paranoid about my debit and credit cards and triple check my wallet any time the card has been out of the wallet.
I’ve left a debit card in the ATM twice in about twenty years, but those are the only times I’ve lost one. I’m surprised by the people who have found cards in the ATM, since I’ve always been told that the machine pulls it back in after a short amount of time. Of course, my favorite machine now is the one where you just put the card in and then pull it right out, kind of like the gas pumps. I do have to remember which pocket the darn card is in sometimes, but I usually know I’ve used it for gas, or at work, so I can find it pretty quickly.
Now watch, sometime in the next week, I’ll lose some card in a very stupid manner.
I’ve never lost one, but I did find one. During the last POTC movie there was this annoying couple who shouldn’t have taken their kid to the movie - the poor thing was about 4 and had casts on both legs and was whiny, probably from pain - and at one point they put the father put his hand over his mouth to keep him from whining, which struck me as really wrong. They finally took the kid out 2/3rds through the movie. When the house lights came up I noticed they’d left their card behind on the floor under the dad’s seat. I was tempted to leave it there and let someone “borrow” it, but I forced myself to turn it in to an usher.
So I vote stupidity.
I never actually lost it. Twice I used it and the cashier failed to give it back to me. The first was at a gas station many years ago. Lucky for me there happened to be a friend I knew behind me in line. He followed me home and let me know the cashier still had it. He said he tried to get it for me but they refused. I ran back up and got the card.
The second was at a grocery store. I bought a money order at the main desk and the lady forgot to give it back to me. I realized it was missing the next day and I knew that was the last place I had used it. I called them up and they had it. I picked it up after work with no problems.
I keep a sharp eye on it now and make sure they return it to me if they swipe the card which does not happen that much anymore as most have the machine that you swipe the card yourself and enter it as a debit or credit.
The third time it went missing I called and cancelled it only to find it two days later in a different place in my purse.
I bartend.
I’ve worked in the industry for twelve years. Ever bar/restaurant I’ve ever worked at has a STACK of credit cards in the office from people who’ve left them behind. The bar I currently work at has a computer system that stores your number; therefore we don’t even keep your CC. We scan it and hand it back to you.
We still find CC’s left on the bar/on the floor/in the bathroom/at tables, etc., by people who pulled them out and forgot to put them back in their purse/wallet/whatever.
It’s very rare that customers come back to claim them. As far as I can tell, they wake up the next morning, freak out, and cancel the card. Ironically though we still get phone calls from people whose cards we don’t find. “I lost it last night! You have to have it!” Um, no, we hand it back to you the moment we scan it; we don’t keep it. We don’t have it. If you lost it it’s not because we held onto it for tab purposes.
As dalej42 points out, bars probably account for a LOT of lost CC’s.
FTR, I am 29 years old and I have NEVER lost my credit or debit card.
smug
knocking on wood
I think the only time I had to cancel my cards is when my wallet was stolen, about 1982. The thief was my employee. I had shared a motel room w/him in Copus Christi, Tx. He got up in the middle of the night and left w/ my wallet. I had the cards cancelled by mid morning, but he had already managed to charge several thousand dollars. I had this guys name, SSN, and mother’s address in LA., which I provided to the police. I was pretty sure this guy would head for his hometown, so several days latter I decided to call the police there. Imagine my surprise when I was told that they had no report from the Corpus Christi cops about the incident. Several weeks later I found out, through one of the CC security depts., that he had been arrested.
The biggest hassle was replacing my drivers license, I didn’t want to try driving a big rig acroos country w/o my license. I stayed w/ friends for severals days while getting things straightened out. What a mess.
I have cancelled MANY debit cards. I have never attempted fraud, nor have I ever bitched to any bank/credit card service employees because I don’t have immediate access to my money. There is, in fact, a $5.00 replacement fee for debit cards at my credit union, so I do pay for them. I am not stupid (sorry, “stupdit”), nor am I careless (if by careless you mean “doesn’t give a crap.”) All but one of the cards which I lost turned up in my house, under my car seat, or in my pocketbook after I had cancelled them, and the card that didn’t turn up at home was kindly called in by the person who had found it.
I have a long history of depression, which can wreak havoc on the memory. I have extremely poor short term memory. The slightest distraction when I am putting away my debit card means that it will end up in an inappropriate place – usually bouncing around loose in my pants pocket or coat pocket, from which it can be easily dislodged. Because I am aware of this, I have to assume the worst when I can’t find my card, so I report it missing–even if it is a long weekend and I won’t be able to replace it right away and I really need my money. I’d rather do that than have someone use it. I don’t like doing it, and it embarrasses me, but I’d rather pay the $5.00 and risk being a pain in the butt to someone who is being paid to assist me than have to fight the credit union to get my money back if someone gets the card and uses it in a fraudulent signature (non-PIN) transaction.
I’ve had two cards replaced. Once, my debit card had expired and I was waiting for the new one to come in the mail. And waiting. And waiting. It took far longer than it was supposed to and I got concerned about it being lost in the mail, someone taking it from my mailbox, etc. Living out in a rural area, with direct deposit, being nowhere near my bank, I absolutely needed my card to access any cash at all. So, I sent a request for a replacement.
And then got the card I’d just canceled in the mail the next day. :smack:
The second time was just the other day. I honestly can’t say what happened to my card, but it and fifty bucks I know I didn’t spend were missing from my wallet, so I think someone must have gotten into it somehow (and there is some suspicion of it being my niece, sadly). So, I canceled that with a quickness and I’m awaiting my new card. The bank was very nice and helpful about it, too.
Now, at the deli where I work, I am constantly finding cards that customers forgot and left behind. One guy left his license with it! Some of it is probably because the cashiers don’t always remember to hand it back, but in many cases people are just…unaware.
Left my entire purse on a bus during a time when I’d thrown out one of my shoulders and thus was carrying it on the wrong shoulder. Habit’s a bitch.
Left my organizer, which had my visa in it, on a chair in the University common room.
Had my credit card swallowed by a broken parking meter.
Forgot it in a restaurant after paying the bill (x2, though once I got it back before canceling it). I’d say this one is fairly common because when I went to retrieve my card from the first restaurant where I did this, they had a stack of them at least 4 inches high to search through for mine, and the restaurant had only been open for a few months.
I also lost my debit card once completely mysteriously. I don’t recall having used it close to when it went missing. I don’t know where it might have gone. I never found it again. There were never any mysterious charges. I think it was aliens.
When I used to have to deal with a drug addict, I would cut the card up to prevent him from making me withdraw money.
My Amex card keeps wearing out. I’ve gone through 3 in the past year, all with holes worn through in the magnetic stripe. I’ve tried rearranging everything in my wallet, but they still wear through.
PITA…