Silver Hells: December Minirants

[Folacin]

@Nava

That’s done as a second step. The first step is that the original card or CC and its replacement are linked. The bank already has information on which periodic charges did ABC receive; if my phone provider was CutePhone and they get a charge from CutePhone, they just pay, but if they get a charge from UglyPhone they send me a message and hold payment for a couple of days to give me time to reject the charge. Recurring charges require the customer to authorize them with a document given to the charger and the bank, the message and short hold are for additional security.

So, card/account ABC gets replaced by ABCreplacement, either for internal reasons (such as expiration date) or at the customer’s request.
A non-recurring charge arrives for ABC, for an expense incurred after the replacement was initiated: bank rejects it as fraudulent.
Already-known recurring charge arrives for ABC within a few months of the change. Bank charges it to ABCreplacement and informs requester of the new number so they can update their records. Nowadays this is all electronic: the same file saying “ok, we paid this charge and this charge and this charge…” contains the “change number to this other number” information.
Recurring payments get transferred automatically: if I pay my rent every month from my CC and this is set up as a recurring payment (the owner doesn’t charge me, I pay them), then the recurring payment just gets moved over to the new number without me having to do anything.

That is a sensible, user-friendly system that would result in less hassle and fewer late payment fees. Undoubtedly why US banks and companies haven’t implemented it.