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Plastic card distribution can be extremely frustrating, because the only time you need it to happen is when you don't actually want it to be needed (fruad, loss

Plastic card distribution can be extremely frustrating, because the only time you need it to happen is when you don't actually want it to be needed (fruad, loss, damage, new account, whatever). You just want to fucking buy things, not deal with shipping incompetence, you know? This reminds me of a time I was traveling and had to cancel a lost credit card. I told the card company that I was not at home,was definitely outside of the country, not going to be home, definitely staying at an address that was not the home address listed on the account, wanted the card to be sent to _me_ and not my _home_, gave them my foreign delivery address 5 times over as many weeks, got 5 separate promises that the card was definitely going to reach me at my outside-of-the-country-and-not-at-home location in just a few business days, and the card never showed up. So I just gave up. And then, when I finally went home there were 5 goddamn cards in my mail slot. Honestly this reason alone makes Apple's purely digital credit card my favorite. Need a new card number? Just push a button. No incompetent shipping divisions with 5 hops and as many business days between you and your ability to buy things when your card number is breached.

wackro 6y ago
I am not an Apple user but presumably Apple is processing your payments in this case, and have an insight into your spending?
- DrJokepu 6y ago
  It’s actually Goldman Sachs. Apple does not retain transaction history, per their privacy policy.
- Shank 6y ago
  > Apple Card features that use your transaction history, like spending summaries, are created on-device. Apple does not know your transaction history. [0] > When you use Apple Card, our issuing bank and payment network partner — Goldman Sachs and Mastercard — and their service providers receive information about your transaction, including the merchant, time, and amount in order to operate Apple Card. Neither Goldman Sachs nor Mastercard share or sell your transaction information with third parties for advertising or marketing. [0] [0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210662 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210662
  - gnud 6y ago
    > Neither Goldman Sachs nor Mastercard share or sell your transaction information with third parties for advertising or marketing. Hmm, I wonder why they sell it then? Since they needed the "advertising or marketing" qualifier, they obviously sell data to third parties.
    - function_seven 6y ago
      My guess is fraud detection partners? Some company that aggregates transaction data to spot patterns of abuse or fraud, and in turn provides services to their customers to mitigate it.
    - buildbot 6y ago
      Governments probably fall under 3rd parties?
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
      Two thoughts: 1. Maybe they are selling purchase data to hedge funds? Lots of possible use cases. 2. Maybe some regulation only requires them to disclose if the information is sold for advertising or marketing (I think I remember this showing up on some post-CFPB credit card disclosure forms). Therefore the lack of such a disclosure for other uses for the information could mean nothing, just that they are minimizing discourses that aren’t legally obligated.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        Definitely some of #2 going on. A lot of the language surrounding privacy disclosure requirements under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is literally copy-paste from a form that the FTC suggests for compliance with the law. Just about anyone with a financial account in the US will probably instantly recognize this form: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/rules/privacy-consumer-financial-information-financial-privacy-rule/privacymodelform_optout.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/rules/privacy-con...
- Maxious 6y ago
  > Apple Pay data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a limited period of time to generally improve Apple Pay and other Apple products and services. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210665 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210665
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cpach 6y ago
Ouch. Sounds very tedious. I guess it could be a good idea to have more than one credit card, especially when travelling.
grishka 6y ago
Over here "sending a credit card by mail" isn't a thing. At least definitely not the norm. You call the bank to order your new card to a specific branch. You then wait several days. They then send you an SMS saying it's ready. You then visit the branch, show your internal passport (aka "ID"), and they give you your new card. How do you get one when you're abroad? No idea. You probably don't.
- decentrality 6y ago
  "internal passport" yeah, that phrase is being appropriated, thanks!
  - 0x38B 6y ago
    In Ukraine and Russia, your passport for ID and passport for travel may be two separate documents - паспорт and загранпаспорт, the former is probably what Griskha meant by 'internal'.
    - grishka 6y ago
      Yes. What English-speaking world calls "passport" is what in Russian is literally "abroad-passport".
      - marktani 6y ago
        In German it's literally "travel pass"
        rootsudo 6y ago
        In English it's literally "pass port" to pass through a port.
  - sbierwagen 6y ago
    It has a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_passport
temp667 6y ago
No bank should be sending cards to an address not on file - that is a major fraud risk 101 issue right there.
- BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
  It was "on file" as soon as I gave it to them after verifying my identity.
  - vkou 6y ago
    I too can verify your identity. All I need is your first name, last name, date of birth, and last four digits of your SSN. Which are all floating around the darknet in one of the dozens of large data breaches American companies have had over the years. Should I be able to get your replacement credit card delivered to my home address with that?
    - BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
      Account changes by phone involve a password and 2FA like everything else. Try again.
      - brewdad 6y ago
        What bank is this? None of my half dozen credit cards have this. None of them even support 2FA on the web to the best of my knowledge.
      - vkou 6y ago
        Neither my primary bank nor my primary credit union support 2FA. If you're conditioned to give your password to your bank over the phone, I can use those three piece of information, and will happily call you up, posing as a bank CS representative. If you think you're smart enough to not fall for that, let's suppose for a moment that you may be right. But what about your 76-year-old grandmother? Is she going to consistently be able to make a determination between a legitimate, and a fraudulent bank CS representative who wants her to confirm her username and password? Or is she going to have an easier time in a world where you never, ever, ever, ever give another human being your password over the phone? Do you want convenience, or security? Actually, the better question is, does your bank want convenience for you, or security for them? (Because they are ultimately on the hook for fraud)
matsemann 6y ago
Had the same issue with my SIM card while I was a student. Still registered as living at my parents' thirteen hours away, and they insisted on sending my new sim there while they were gone for weeks.. Luckily I'm from a really small town so got the mailman to just repost it with correct address. Pretty illegal I guess, though. Another comment here about invalid card number also reminds me about my passport. I have a Danish passport but never lived there, so my id number has X-es in it in instead of all numerical. That's pretty hard for various form validators to accept..
- maxerickson 6y ago
  I don't really see why there would be a law preventing you from authorizing a postal worker to check your mail for you. Like if they were your next door neighbor.
DelightOne 6y ago
I'm using Apple Pay and I recently canceled my card. Interesting thing is that even before I had my new card Apple Pay switched to the new one, I didn't have to do anything. I wonder how they did that.
- shaftway 6y ago
  Credit cards send updated card information to various merchants that you've used. Usually it's for things like subscriptions or bills so you don't have a gap in service. Personally I hate it because it lets smaller stuff slip through the cracks for longer.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    For example: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/merchant/cardrefresher.html https://www.americanexpress.com/us/merchant/cardrefresher.ht...
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    Yeah. Google Pay works the same way.
- Anther 6y ago
  I also had this happen. I was pleasantly surprised. Apple Pay is easier than it used to be when it comes to registering cards too.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  There is no reason why Apple Pay should be linked to a physical card at all - they can and should work completely independently.
el_benhameen 6y ago
Had a similar feeling of frustration the other day when I thought I had lost my wallet and was considering what a pain in the ass it was going to be to get my ID and cards replaced. 4-6 weeks for a replacement CA driver’s license, and you have to go to a physical DMV location! I know that digital-only management of identity and payment is a whole new can of worms, but I spent a lot of time thinking about how absurd it is that we still require possession of a small piece of plastic to operate as an adult in the world, and how losing that plastic cuts you off from a great many things. (Turns out I threw the wallet in the recycling can while cleaning the garage. So I guess don’t pay me to build the system that replaces physical identity tokens.)
- harikb 6y ago
  Let us not forget the value of having it mailed to their home address for majority of the population. It provides some guarantee that the person who gets mail at the address is the only one who will get to use it. Most of the population use insecure Android phones and are not the Little Snitch & 1Password wielding HN crowd.
- vtail 6y ago
  Not sure if it was just a temp measure during the pandemic, but last May I renewed my driving CA license completely online, and they mailed it to my home address; no visit to DMV was necessary.
  - el_benhameen 6y ago
    I saw that, too. Unfortunately, it’s only valid if they’ve sent you a renewal notice. My DL expires this year but I haven’t received a notice yet, so I was ineligible.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Go onto the online portal and try and renew now. I did it 3 months before receiving the notice.
ineedasername 6y ago
Apple's card wouldn't seem so bad to me if they didn't treat debt to Apple differently [0] & lock people out of all of their Apple services when there's a payment overdue. It's crappy enough to be behind on bills without that sort of pile-on, not to mention the Kafka-esque process of fixing the issue. [0] https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
- anamexis 6y ago
  While that is definitely concerning, they did clarify that missing card payments will not result in a Apple lockout. In this case, the person received a trade-in credit for a phone, did not send the phone in, and then when Apple tried to collect the trade-in credit, that payment bounced. https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/03/apple-card-apple-id-unrelated/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/03/apple-card-apple-id-unrelated...
  - bigiain 6y ago
    It's still more than worrying enough that I will not use Apple Pay because the consequences of something going wrong and having my Apple Dev account locked are _way_ too high. What if that phone had got lost/stolen in transit, instead of not being sent at all?
    - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      I don’t understand how this is associated with Apple Pay: you don’t need Apple’s branded credit card to use Apple Pay. I have an Amex card that I use for everything except buying Apple products.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > It appears as though charges from Apple are special, and if your account is not 100% current, Apple will quickly take drastic action. It's not just charges made on your Apple card. Here's a comment thread[1] from two years ago when I mentioned Apple did the same thing to me over a recurring charge for iCloud that failed because I got a new debit card and didn't update it in time. (I was traveling.) Unlike the author of the post you linked I was given zero notice or warning that all-things-Apple would stop functioning. I had assumed the charge would just fail the same way any other charge to a "bad" card wouldn't go through and that my iCloud subscription might lapse. I never in a million years imagined the charge would create an $8 debt to Apple payable immediately and that my iPhone (which I owned outright, not financed through Apple or anyone else) would be bricked unless and until I paid up. I was unable to download anything from the app store at all until I entered new payment information. I couldn't even download free updates to free third-party apps. Over $8. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18917685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18917685
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btilly 6y ago
Look at this from the bank's point of view. If someone on the phone could convince a card company to send a new credit card to a random address in a random country, do you have any idea what kind of field day scammers would have?
- ghshephard 6y ago
  I've had replacement credit cards sent to me overnight fedex at least five, maybe more times. Usually involved < 5 minute phone call to Amex/Chase/Wellsfargo whoever. United States, Canada, UAE and Singapore (twice). There must be some safeguards beyond the various identity questions they asked me - but I don't know what they were.
- BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
  > If someone on the phone Not "someone". Me. They happily secure phone actions by both a password and 2FA just like online access. After that point you can do literally anything else with the account, including close it or get a copy of the card details. Thwarting the verified owner of the account is not fraud prevention. On the subject of thwarting and card details, though, neither CapitalOne's website nor mobile app will show my card number nor will they let me create temporary card numbers _after_ I've authenticated with a strong password and 2FA whenever I happen to be outside of the country. It just says "Oops, something went wrong". It took me weeks to figure out the first time that it was because I wasn't on a US network.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Both your and the parent's points are valid. Identity verification is a hard problem that the major legacy banks have a big problem with. Their processes are both extremely annoying and can fail and lock out the legitimate account owner (the reason many of you have had trouble replacing cards abroad is because "shipping to a previously known address" is itself a security measure) while at the same time being vulnerable to a targeted attack from someone with knowledge of how the process works.
- lkbm 6y ago
  I think it'd be fair for them to say "no, we can't send it to any address but your home address", but that their fallback is to say they'll send it to where you are and then to send it to your home address instead is itself a security hole (albeit a smaller one).
surfsvammel 6y ago
I guess it depends on the bank. I had to cancel my card because I was afraid it had been skimmed while temporarily living in Singapore. My bank couriered a new card to me over night. I was very impressed.
bogomipz 6y ago
>"Honestly this reason alone makes Apple's purely digital credit card my favorite. Need a new card number? Just push a button. No incompetent shipping divisions with 5 hops and as many business days between you and your ability to buy things when your card number is breached. That all sounds good. I'd be curious how the customer experience is when there's an unrecognized charge or you need to open a dispute though.
- BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
  > I'd be curious how the customer experience is when there's an unrecognized charge or you need to open a dispute though. It's as easy or easier than disputing any other credit card charge. Open the wallet app. Tap the card to bring up a list of transactions. Tap the transaction you want to dispute. Tap "Report an Issue". Tap one of "Dispute Charge", "Unknown Transaction", "Incorrect Merchant Info", or "Other Issue".
  - bogomipz 6y ago
    Yes but you can do the same thing with most major credit cards via their Web UIs or mobile apps as well. What happens when you need to speak to a human being such as when a merchant declines to remove an erroneous charge.
    - comex 6y ago
      You can get support (from Goldman Sachs) over iMessage or by phone. Nothing too unusual.
deleted 6y ago
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tbihl 6y ago
Reminds me of a time I was traveling where there was no internet access for two or three months, during which my credit card was compromised, the card was closed, it got declined on 3 or 4 bills, accumulating a couple hundred dollars in late fees and preventing me from paying with a credit card on those services.
clairity 6y ago
when i lost my wallet with my debit card in it, i went to my nearby credit union branch and they just printed a new one for me on the spot. all the relevant info was printed on the card and magnetized/loaded in the right spots. it didn't have raised numbers like many cards (even the periodic renewal replacement they've since mailed me lacks raised numbers as well). it seemed to me then, and now, that that was a much better experience than waiting for it nervously in the mail.
ziml77 6y ago
Oh man the physical card thing annoyed me when I went to use my Amazon card a few weeks ago and it asked me to re-confirm the number. I had to go digging around for it because I figured I would never need to know that again. The card only is only useful on Amazon so why in the world can't it be completely digital?
devoutsalsa 6y ago
A couple months ago, I accidentally left my debit card in an ATM in Mexico, and needed to cancel that card. I called my credit union in Washington State, USA. They were quite good about handling the fact that I was not at my home address. I had to pay $32 and wait a week or so to get my replacement card, but it arrived without issue. They shipped it in an inactive state, and I had to call them to activate it. The only part that was mildly a pain was I needed to fax (what year is it?!) my address in Mexico, but that was pretty simple with HelloFax. I actually ordered a 2nd card as a backup in case I lose the new one.
gonzo41 6y ago
Just wait till you loose your phone next time.
and_viceversa 6y ago
After more than a decade of lurking HN... this is the comment that compels me to create an account. Schwab dropped this ball and left me in the Guatemalan jungle for 18 days after many assurances that they would definitely not send the new card to my home address. Embassy? Nope. Hotel? Impossible. But sure enough it reached my house. Schwab was great, but this was too much.
tempestn 6y ago
I had a similar experience after moving once. I'd called the credit card company to update my address and had even received statements at the new address (this was before e-statements were common). When it was time for a replacement card, a year or two after the move, it didn't arrive. So I called them, confirmed my address, etc., they said it had been sent months ago, so they would cancel that card and re-send. So now I can't use my current card even until it expires since the number has been cancelled. Wait a couple weeks, still no new card. Call them again, same deal. Confirm the address, they've sent it, it never arrived. When the NEXT card didn't arrive I went by my old house and sure enough the folks living there had received all three copies. Then I got to spend a few hours being passed around to various people on the phone with the credit card company before I could find the person who knew about the super secret place where the replacement card address was apparently stored. Edit: Ha, I just remembered the saga actually continued the next time I moved. Remembering this experience, I wanted to proactively have them change not just the regular address, but also the replacement card address. Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't find anyone who would believe me that just updating the regular address on the account wouldn't work. Sure enough though, when it was time for a replacement, it once again went to the old address!
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  That's when you file a complaint with your banking regulator (e.g. the CFPB). At that point, the problem becomes impossible for the bank to ignore, and too important to leave to the lowest-tier phone support agent, and it suddenly gets resolved.
webmobdev 6y ago
> Honestly this reason alone makes Apple's purely digital credit card my favorite. And what if your phone is stolen or lost? The hassle is no different than card ...
suifbwish 6y ago
Seems like you should just be able to buy a generic card at the store and then input it’s ID/serial in your bank web portal and have the card authorized by the bank to be your card. I’m sure there’s probably a way I’m not thinking of that can be abused but it seems plausible
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Buying generic cards would break the chain of trust as there's no guarantee that the card you're buying hasn't been tampered with, such as the private keys of the card already being compromised at the factory. It is a good idea assuming you can guarantee the security of the card. Banks typically don't have an incentive to defraud each other by supplying backdoored cards, so banks could indeed partner with each other allowing people to go into any local bank branch, acquire a card and then call their bank to associate it with their account. Of course, you still have the identity verification problem there, as you wouldn't want an attacker to be able to associate a card they acquired with your account and then spending your money. However, if you're going to solve the identity verification problem for the above, why bother with a card at all? We all have phones or similar computing devices that can act as a card (for Apple Pay & Google Pay, the phone literally simulates a contactless card).
TheRealSteel 6y ago
My bank (ING) just cut me off completely when I was outside Australia. Couldn't get my replacement card sent to me (was just lucky my listed address still had my family living at it), couldn't ever log in to the app again, I was just done. They have no system for people outside their home country and their solution to any problem is to fly home. Unbelievable. Especially for one of the biggest multinational banks in the world.
giorgioz 6y ago
You can have a lot of free debit cards that you can order online as backup. When your card gets stolen you immediately go online and transfer some money to the backup card before calling the bank to cancel the lost/stolen card. I recommend: TransferWise https://wise.com/gb/borderless/card https://wise.com/gb/borderless/card Revolut https://www.revolut.com https://www.revolut.com
aryamaan 6y ago
Or another way would be get a placeholder card from any of the trusted places and then register that card online with your account to make your own.
zenexer 6y ago
> Honestly this reason alone makes Apple's purely digital credit card my favorite. That only changes the card number used for online purchases, not the number on the physical card’s magstripe. The magstripe number doesn’t change, so if you get skimmed, you still need a whole new card. There’s nothing special about the physical Apple Card. As for online payments, you might as well use something like Privacy.com that gives you a separate number for each service. That’s better than Apple’s solution, and I’m still not sure why Apple doesn’t do that.

wackro 6y ago

I am not an Apple user but presumably Apple is processing your payments in this case, and have an insight into your spending?

DrJokepu 6y ago
It’s actually Goldman Sachs. Apple does not retain transaction history, per their privacy policy.
Shank 6y ago
> Apple Card features that use your transaction history, like spending summaries, are created on-device. Apple does not know your transaction history. [0] > When you use Apple Card, our issuing bank and payment network partner — Goldman Sachs and Mastercard — and their service providers receive information about your transaction, including the merchant, time, and amount in order to operate Apple Card. Neither Goldman Sachs nor Mastercard share or sell your transaction information with third parties for advertising or marketing. [0] [0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210662 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210662
- gnud 6y ago
  > Neither Goldman Sachs nor Mastercard share or sell your transaction information with third parties for advertising or marketing. Hmm, I wonder why they sell it then? Since they needed the "advertising or marketing" qualifier, they obviously sell data to third parties.
  - function_seven 6y ago
    My guess is fraud detection partners? Some company that aggregates transaction data to spot patterns of abuse or fraud, and in turn provides services to their customers to mitigate it.
  - buildbot 6y ago
    Governments probably fall under 3rd parties?
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
    Two thoughts: 1. Maybe they are selling purchase data to hedge funds? Lots of possible use cases. 2. Maybe some regulation only requires them to disclose if the information is sold for advertising or marketing (I think I remember this showing up on some post-CFPB credit card disclosure forms). Therefore the lack of such a disclosure for other uses for the information could mean nothing, just that they are minimizing discourses that aren’t legally obligated.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Definitely some of #2 going on. A lot of the language surrounding privacy disclosure requirements under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is literally copy-paste from a form that the FTC suggests for compliance with the law. Just about anyone with a financial account in the US will probably instantly recognize this form: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/rules/privacy-consumer-financial-information-financial-privacy-rule/privacymodelform_optout.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/rules/privacy-con...
Maxious 6y ago
> Apple Pay data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a limited period of time to generally improve Apple Pay and other Apple products and services. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210665 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210665

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cpach 6y ago

Ouch. Sounds very tedious. I guess it could be a good idea to have more than one credit card, especially when travelling.

grishka 6y ago

Over here "sending a credit card by mail" isn't a thing. At least definitely not the norm. You call the bank to order your new card to a specific branch. You then wait several days. They then send you an SMS saying it's ready. You then visit the branch, show your internal passport (aka "ID"), and they give you your new card. How do you get one when you're abroad? No idea. You probably don't.

decentrality 6y ago
"internal passport" yeah, that phrase is being appropriated, thanks!
- 0x38B 6y ago
  In Ukraine and Russia, your passport for ID and passport for travel may be two separate documents - паспорт and загранпаспорт, the former is probably what Griskha meant by 'internal'.
  - grishka 6y ago
    Yes. What English-speaking world calls "passport" is what in Russian is literally "abroad-passport".
    - marktani 6y ago
      In German it's literally "travel pass"
      - rootsudo 6y ago
        In English it's literally "pass port" to pass through a port.
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  It has a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_passport

temp667 6y ago

No bank should be sending cards to an address not on file - that is a major fraud risk 101 issue right there.

BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
It was "on file" as soon as I gave it to them after verifying my identity.
- vkou 6y ago
  I too can verify your identity. All I need is your first name, last name, date of birth, and last four digits of your SSN. Which are all floating around the darknet in one of the dozens of large data breaches American companies have had over the years. Should I be able to get your replacement credit card delivered to my home address with that?
  - BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
    Account changes by phone involve a password and 2FA like everything else. Try again.
    - brewdad 6y ago
      What bank is this? None of my half dozen credit cards have this. None of them even support 2FA on the web to the best of my knowledge.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Neither my primary bank nor my primary credit union support 2FA. If you're conditioned to give your password to your bank over the phone, I can use those three piece of information, and will happily call you up, posing as a bank CS representative. If you think you're smart enough to not fall for that, let's suppose for a moment that you may be right. But what about your 76-year-old grandmother? Is she going to consistently be able to make a determination between a legitimate, and a fraudulent bank CS representative who wants her to confirm her username and password? Or is she going to have an easier time in a world where you never, ever, ever, ever give another human being your password over the phone? Do you want convenience, or security? Actually, the better question is, does your bank want convenience for you, or security for them? (Because they are ultimately on the hook for fraud)

matsemann 6y ago

Had the same issue with my SIM card while I was a student. Still registered as living at my parents' thirteen hours away, and they insisted on sending my new sim there while they were gone for weeks.. Luckily I'm from a really small town so got the mailman to just repost it with correct address. Pretty illegal I guess, though. Another comment here about invalid card number also reminds me about my passport. I have a Danish passport but never lived there, so my id number has X-es in it in instead of all numerical. That's pretty hard for various form validators to accept..

maxerickson 6y ago
I don't really see why there would be a law preventing you from authorizing a postal worker to check your mail for you. Like if they were your next door neighbor.

DelightOne 6y ago

I'm using Apple Pay and I recently canceled my card. Interesting thing is that even before I had my new card Apple Pay switched to the new one, I didn't have to do anything. I wonder how they did that.

shaftway 6y ago
Credit cards send updated card information to various merchants that you've used. Usually it's for things like subscriptions or bills so you don't have a gap in service. Personally I hate it because it lets smaller stuff slip through the cracks for longer.
- kube-system 6y ago
  For example: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/merchant/cardrefresher.html https://www.americanexpress.com/us/merchant/cardrefresher.ht...
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  Yeah. Google Pay works the same way.
Anther 6y ago
I also had this happen. I was pleasantly surprised. Apple Pay is easier than it used to be when it comes to registering cards too.
Nextgrid 6y ago
There is no reason why Apple Pay should be linked to a physical card at all - they can and should work completely independently.

el_benhameen 6y ago

Had a similar feeling of frustration the other day when I thought I had lost my wallet and was considering what a pain in the ass it was going to be to get my ID and cards replaced. 4-6 weeks for a replacement CA driver’s license, and you have to go to a physical DMV location! I know that digital-only management of identity and payment is a whole new can of worms, but I spent a lot of time thinking about how absurd it is that we still require possession of a small piece of plastic to operate as an adult in the world, and how losing that plastic cuts you off from a great many things. (Turns out I threw the wallet in the recycling can while cleaning the garage. So I guess don’t pay me to build the system that replaces physical identity tokens.)

harikb 6y ago
Let us not forget the value of having it mailed to their home address for majority of the population. It provides some guarantee that the person who gets mail at the address is the only one who will get to use it. Most of the population use insecure Android phones and are not the Little Snitch & 1Password wielding HN crowd.
vtail 6y ago
Not sure if it was just a temp measure during the pandemic, but last May I renewed my driving CA license completely online, and they mailed it to my home address; no visit to DMV was necessary.
- el_benhameen 6y ago
  I saw that, too. Unfortunately, it’s only valid if they’ve sent you a renewal notice. My DL expires this year but I haven’t received a notice yet, so I was ineligible.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Go onto the online portal and try and renew now. I did it 3 months before receiving the notice.

ineedasername 6y ago

Apple's card wouldn't seem so bad to me if they didn't treat debt to Apple differently [0] & lock people out of all of their Apple services when there's a payment overdue. It's crappy enough to be behind on bills without that sort of pile-on, not to mention the Kafka-esque process of fixing the issue. [0] https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account

anamexis 6y ago
While that is definitely concerning, they did clarify that missing card payments will not result in a Apple lockout. In this case, the person received a trade-in credit for a phone, did not send the phone in, and then when Apple tried to collect the trade-in credit, that payment bounced. https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/03/apple-card-apple-id-unrelated/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/03/apple-card-apple-id-unrelated...
- bigiain 6y ago
  It's still more than worrying enough that I will not use Apple Pay because the consequences of something going wrong and having my Apple Dev account locked are _way_ too high. What if that phone had got lost/stolen in transit, instead of not being sent at all?
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    I don’t understand how this is associated with Apple Pay: you don’t need Apple’s branded credit card to use Apple Pay. I have an Amex card that I use for everything except buying Apple products.
  - deleted 6y ago
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elliekelly 6y ago
> It appears as though charges from Apple are special, and if your account is not 100% current, Apple will quickly take drastic action. It's not just charges made on your Apple card. Here's a comment thread[1] from two years ago when I mentioned Apple did the same thing to me over a recurring charge for iCloud that failed because I got a new debit card and didn't update it in time. (I was traveling.) Unlike the author of the post you linked I was given zero notice or warning that all-things-Apple would stop functioning. I had assumed the charge would just fail the same way any other charge to a "bad" card wouldn't go through and that my iCloud subscription might lapse. I never in a million years imagined the charge would create an $8 debt to Apple payable immediately and that my iPhone (which I owned outright, not financed through Apple or anyone else) would be bricked unless and until I paid up. I was unable to download anything from the app store at all until I entered new payment information. I couldn't even download free updates to free third-party apps. Over $8. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18917685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18917685

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btilly 6y ago

Look at this from the bank's point of view. If someone on the phone could convince a card company to send a new credit card to a random address in a random country, do you have any idea what kind of field day scammers would have?

ghshephard 6y ago
I've had replacement credit cards sent to me overnight fedex at least five, maybe more times. Usually involved < 5 minute phone call to Amex/Chase/Wellsfargo whoever. United States, Canada, UAE and Singapore (twice). There must be some safeguards beyond the various identity questions they asked me - but I don't know what they were.
BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
> If someone on the phone Not "someone". Me. They happily secure phone actions by both a password and 2FA just like online access. After that point you can do literally anything else with the account, including close it or get a copy of the card details. Thwarting the verified owner of the account is not fraud prevention. On the subject of thwarting and card details, though, neither CapitalOne's website nor mobile app will show my card number nor will they let me create temporary card numbers _after_ I've authenticated with a strong password and 2FA whenever I happen to be outside of the country. It just says "Oops, something went wrong". It took me weeks to figure out the first time that it was because I wasn't on a US network.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Both your and the parent's points are valid. Identity verification is a hard problem that the major legacy banks have a big problem with. Their processes are both extremely annoying and can fail and lock out the legitimate account owner (the reason many of you have had trouble replacing cards abroad is because "shipping to a previously known address" is itself a security measure) while at the same time being vulnerable to a targeted attack from someone with knowledge of how the process works.
lkbm 6y ago
I think it'd be fair for them to say "no, we can't send it to any address but your home address", but that their fallback is to say they'll send it to where you are and then to send it to your home address instead is itself a security hole (albeit a smaller one).

surfsvammel 6y ago

I guess it depends on the bank. I had to cancel my card because I was afraid it had been skimmed while temporarily living in Singapore. My bank couriered a new card to me over night. I was very impressed.

bogomipz 6y ago

>"Honestly this reason alone makes Apple's purely digital credit card my favorite. Need a new card number? Just push a button. No incompetent shipping divisions with 5 hops and as many business days between you and your ability to buy things when your card number is breached. That all sounds good. I'd be curious how the customer experience is when there's an unrecognized charge or you need to open a dispute though.

BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
> I'd be curious how the customer experience is when there's an unrecognized charge or you need to open a dispute though. It's as easy or easier than disputing any other credit card charge. Open the wallet app. Tap the card to bring up a list of transactions. Tap the transaction you want to dispute. Tap "Report an Issue". Tap one of "Dispute Charge", "Unknown Transaction", "Incorrect Merchant Info", or "Other Issue".
- bogomipz 6y ago
  Yes but you can do the same thing with most major credit cards via their Web UIs or mobile apps as well. What happens when you need to speak to a human being such as when a merchant declines to remove an erroneous charge.
  - comex 6y ago
    You can get support (from Goldman Sachs) over iMessage or by phone. Nothing too unusual.

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tbihl 6y ago

Reminds me of a time I was traveling where there was no internet access for two or three months, during which my credit card was compromised, the card was closed, it got declined on 3 or 4 bills, accumulating a couple hundred dollars in late fees and preventing me from paying with a credit card on those services.

clairity 6y ago

when i lost my wallet with my debit card in it, i went to my nearby credit union branch and they just printed a new one for me on the spot. all the relevant info was printed on the card and magnetized/loaded in the right spots. it didn't have raised numbers like many cards (even the periodic renewal replacement they've since mailed me lacks raised numbers as well). it seemed to me then, and now, that that was a much better experience than waiting for it nervously in the mail.

ziml77 6y ago

Oh man the physical card thing annoyed me when I went to use my Amazon card a few weeks ago and it asked me to re-confirm the number. I had to go digging around for it because I figured I would never need to know that again. The card only is only useful on Amazon so why in the world can't it be completely digital?

devoutsalsa 6y ago

A couple months ago, I accidentally left my debit card in an ATM in Mexico, and needed to cancel that card. I called my credit union in Washington State, USA. They were quite good about handling the fact that I was not at my home address. I had to pay $32 and wait a week or so to get my replacement card, but it arrived without issue. They shipped it in an inactive state, and I had to call them to activate it. The only part that was mildly a pain was I needed to fax (what year is it?!) my address in Mexico, but that was pretty simple with HelloFax. I actually ordered a 2nd card as a backup in case I lose the new one.

gonzo41 6y ago

Just wait till you loose your phone next time.

and_viceversa 6y ago

After more than a decade of lurking HN... this is the comment that compels me to create an account. Schwab dropped this ball and left me in the Guatemalan jungle for 18 days after many assurances that they would definitely not send the new card to my home address. Embassy? Nope. Hotel? Impossible. But sure enough it reached my house. Schwab was great, but this was too much.

tempestn 6y ago

I had a similar experience after moving once. I'd called the credit card company to update my address and had even received statements at the new address (this was before e-statements were common). When it was time for a replacement card, a year or two after the move, it didn't arrive. So I called them, confirmed my address, etc., they said it had been sent months ago, so they would cancel that card and re-send. So now I can't use my current card even until it expires since the number has been cancelled. Wait a couple weeks, still no new card. Call them again, same deal. Confirm the address, they've sent it, it never arrived. When the NEXT card didn't arrive I went by my old house and sure enough the folks living there had received all three copies. Then I got to spend a few hours being passed around to various people on the phone with the credit card company before I could find the person who knew about the super secret place where the replacement card address was apparently stored. Edit: Ha, I just remembered the saga actually continued the next time I moved. Remembering this experience, I wanted to proactively have them change not just the regular address, but also the replacement card address. Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't find anyone who would believe me that just updating the regular address on the account wouldn't work. Sure enough though, when it was time for a replacement, it once again went to the old address!

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
That's when you file a complaint with your banking regulator (e.g. the CFPB). At that point, the problem becomes impossible for the bank to ignore, and too important to leave to the lowest-tier phone support agent, and it suddenly gets resolved.

webmobdev 6y ago

> Honestly this reason alone makes Apple's purely digital credit card my favorite. And what if your phone is stolen or lost? The hassle is no different than card ...

suifbwish 6y ago

Seems like you should just be able to buy a generic card at the store and then input it’s ID/serial in your bank web portal and have the card authorized by the bank to be your card. I’m sure there’s probably a way I’m not thinking of that can be abused but it seems plausible

Nextgrid 6y ago
Buying generic cards would break the chain of trust as there's no guarantee that the card you're buying hasn't been tampered with, such as the private keys of the card already being compromised at the factory. It is a good idea assuming you can guarantee the security of the card. Banks typically don't have an incentive to defraud each other by supplying backdoored cards, so banks could indeed partner with each other allowing people to go into any local bank branch, acquire a card and then call their bank to associate it with their account. Of course, you still have the identity verification problem there, as you wouldn't want an attacker to be able to associate a card they acquired with your account and then spending your money. However, if you're going to solve the identity verification problem for the above, why bother with a card at all? We all have phones or similar computing devices that can act as a card (for Apple Pay & Google Pay, the phone literally simulates a contactless card).

TheRealSteel 6y ago

My bank (ING) just cut me off completely when I was outside Australia. Couldn't get my replacement card sent to me (was just lucky my listed address still had my family living at it), couldn't ever log in to the app again, I was just done. They have no system for people outside their home country and their solution to any problem is to fly home. Unbelievable. Especially for one of the biggest multinational banks in the world.

giorgioz 6y ago

You can have a lot of free debit cards that you can order online as backup. When your card gets stolen you immediately go online and transfer some money to the backup card before calling the bank to cancel the lost/stolen card. I recommend: TransferWise https://wise.com/gb/borderless/card https://wise.com/gb/borderless/card Revolut https://www.revolut.com https://www.revolut.com

aryamaan 6y ago

Or another way would be get a placeholder card from any of the trusted places and then register that card online with your account to make your own.

zenexer 6y ago

> Honestly this reason alone makes Apple's purely digital credit card my favorite. That only changes the card number used for online purchases, not the number on the physical card’s magstripe. The magstripe number doesn’t change, so if you get skimmed, you still need a whole new card. There’s nothing special about the physical Apple Card. As for online payments, you might as well use something like Privacy.com that gives you a separate number for each service. That’s better than Apple’s solution, and I’m still not sure why Apple doesn’t do that.