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I live in the Netherlands, a country that primarily uses debit cards. I do have a credit card that I rarely use. Only when I buy something in the USA for exampl

I live in the Netherlands, a country that primarily uses debit cards. I do have a credit card that I rarely use. Only when I buy something in the USA for example. Some years back I moved to a different city. About a year later I wanted to make a purchase with my credit card. I found out it had expired. I rang the bank and asked for a new one. They promised to send it to me. It never arrived. Rang again, got the same promise, and still no card. When I called them the third time, the employee found out my old address was still in their database. Turns out the credit card department had a different client database then the debit card department (who had my new address). To change my address, I had to log in to their site. They weren't allowed to change it on the phone. As soon I tried to log in, I noticed I forgot my password. When I clicked 'reset password', there was a new surprise: they send the new password by snail mail.... to the old address of course! So I had to go in person to the house I used to live in and explain the situation. I asked them to ring me when the letter with my name on it arrived on their doorstep. Luckily the people who now live in my old house were very nice and gave me the letter!

easygoto12 6y ago
That must have been so frustrating. We have advance technology but still not very good
spocklivelong 6y ago
Does Netherlands has mail forwarding? USPS in the states does mail forwarding if you change your address, it is very convenient.
- clankstar 6y ago
  Up to a year, but it's quite pricey (75-ish euro's for the full year).
  - imperistan 6y ago
    Yeah I had that but this was just a bit more than a year later I think
stunt 6y ago
> I live in the Netherlands, a country that primarily uses debit cards I noticed that on my very first visit to the Netherlands. Many shops just don't accept credit card and that was very strange to me on my first visit. My only use case for debit card was to get cash out of ATM until then. So, I was really surprised to see that everybody uses debit card everywhere. And I was told that credit card is mainly used for online booking and traveling.
- tudelo 6y ago
  It is very strange... I have some assumptions that it would be better for the general public to not have a credit card culture. Very rarely have I "required" the use of one, but when I was moving for my first real job out of school it was somewhat essential as a sort of buffer until the first paycheck kicked in. Not a comfortable place, but one I bet a lot of people could resonate with, and IMO a responsible use of credit.
  - acka 6y ago
    I can confirm the strong deterrent towards having a credit card, any personal loans really, in the Netherlands. My bank, and I believe most banks in the Netherlands, requires proof of stable income well above minimum wage before even considering an application for a credit card. This puts credit cards out of reach of a sizable part of the population. Also, credit checks and reporting new lines of credit to the authorities by lenders are mandatory for all personal loans, be it for getting a mortgage, issuing a credit card, paying monthly installments for a smartphone bundled with a contract, or buying on credit from Dutch online stores or mail order catalogues.
  - aequitas 6y ago
    To me (Dutch) the idea of using a personal credit card is very strange for anything other than because a website/shop doesn't accept any other form of payment. If you're a company, credit makes sense. You invest on a risk of getter a greater return in the future. But paying for your groceries or rent in advance should not be considered 'investing' in your personal life imho. You should just make due with what you have.
donalhunt 6y ago
This seems to be a common issue with banks. Over the years, they have built system after system that stores things like your address. So you end up with addresses stored in multiple systems. When you request an update to the address, it depends how well designed the update flow is whether they update all the instances of your address. Often they miss a few instances or the accounts aren't linked so a subset get updated. in other cases, some department pulls a customer dump and uses it for 10 years without ever getting updates. been there. done that. have the t-shirt. :/
- yosito 6y ago
  I recently got an SBA loan. After I got the loan the bank was bought or rebranded or who knows what and they moved my account to a new website. I was still able to log into the old website and, until I tried to update my email on the account, which can only be done over the phone, I didn't notice that they had actually cloned the database, and locked their customer service representatives out of the old one. I can still log into the old system, and update my password from there, thankfully. But I've been unable to change the email address on it because the customer service representatives insist that the old system "has been deleted" and refused to connect me with any engineers or escalate the issue to someone with the ability to solve it. Ironically the old system is still responsible for email notifications, so those are locked to my old email address. I'm pretty sure this is a data leak waiting to happen, but what can I do about it?
stevesimmons 6y ago
I once had that on a bigger scale, also with a Dutch bank... Shortly after I relocated from the Netherlands to Australia, my house was broken into and my Dutch debit card stolen. The bank would only send my new card to my local branch, which was 20,000km away. And none of my friends could pick it up because they insisted on verifying my id. Very frustrating...
- imperistan 6y ago
  Wow that’s crazy. How did you solve it?
noisy_boy 6y ago
I would think that you should be able to just walk to a bank branch and get the address updated on the spot.
40four 6y ago
Sending a new password though snail mail might be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week!
- slim 6y ago
  it's a thing. my bank has even special paper that obfuscates the password so you can't see it through the envelope.
- alvarlagerlof 6y ago
  Totally happens in Sweden
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  It's not completely dumb. Address verification can be part of an identity verification measure. It shouldn't be the only one, and an override should be possible, but it's completely valid and effective at thwarting remote attacks.
  - 40four 6y ago
    Sure, the logic lines up. I think it’s dumb just because how un-useful it is. Waiting for a week for a password reset to arrive in the mailbox is pretty painful. Pretty secure I suppose, except in the OP’s case, where it was sent to an old address. And they wouldn’t update it over the phone? So they essentially gave some strangers access to his bank account.

easygoto12 6y ago

That must have been so frustrating. We have advance technology but still not very good

spocklivelong 6y ago

Does Netherlands has mail forwarding? USPS in the states does mail forwarding if you change your address, it is very convenient.

clankstar 6y ago
Up to a year, but it's quite pricey (75-ish euro's for the full year).
- imperistan 6y ago
  Yeah I had that but this was just a bit more than a year later I think

stunt 6y ago

> I live in the Netherlands, a country that primarily uses debit cards I noticed that on my very first visit to the Netherlands. Many shops just don't accept credit card and that was very strange to me on my first visit. My only use case for debit card was to get cash out of ATM until then. So, I was really surprised to see that everybody uses debit card everywhere. And I was told that credit card is mainly used for online booking and traveling.

tudelo 6y ago
It is very strange... I have some assumptions that it would be better for the general public to not have a credit card culture. Very rarely have I "required" the use of one, but when I was moving for my first real job out of school it was somewhat essential as a sort of buffer until the first paycheck kicked in. Not a comfortable place, but one I bet a lot of people could resonate with, and IMO a responsible use of credit.
- acka 6y ago
  I can confirm the strong deterrent towards having a credit card, any personal loans really, in the Netherlands. My bank, and I believe most banks in the Netherlands, requires proof of stable income well above minimum wage before even considering an application for a credit card. This puts credit cards out of reach of a sizable part of the population. Also, credit checks and reporting new lines of credit to the authorities by lenders are mandatory for all personal loans, be it for getting a mortgage, issuing a credit card, paying monthly installments for a smartphone bundled with a contract, or buying on credit from Dutch online stores or mail order catalogues.
- aequitas 6y ago
  To me (Dutch) the idea of using a personal credit card is very strange for anything other than because a website/shop doesn't accept any other form of payment. If you're a company, credit makes sense. You invest on a risk of getter a greater return in the future. But paying for your groceries or rent in advance should not be considered 'investing' in your personal life imho. You should just make due with what you have.

donalhunt 6y ago

This seems to be a common issue with banks. Over the years, they have built system after system that stores things like your address. So you end up with addresses stored in multiple systems. When you request an update to the address, it depends how well designed the update flow is whether they update all the instances of your address. Often they miss a few instances or the accounts aren't linked so a subset get updated. in other cases, some department pulls a customer dump and uses it for 10 years without ever getting updates. been there. done that. have the t-shirt. :/

yosito 6y ago
I recently got an SBA loan. After I got the loan the bank was bought or rebranded or who knows what and they moved my account to a new website. I was still able to log into the old website and, until I tried to update my email on the account, which can only be done over the phone, I didn't notice that they had actually cloned the database, and locked their customer service representatives out of the old one. I can still log into the old system, and update my password from there, thankfully. But I've been unable to change the email address on it because the customer service representatives insist that the old system "has been deleted" and refused to connect me with any engineers or escalate the issue to someone with the ability to solve it. Ironically the old system is still responsible for email notifications, so those are locked to my old email address. I'm pretty sure this is a data leak waiting to happen, but what can I do about it?

stevesimmons 6y ago

I once had that on a bigger scale, also with a Dutch bank... Shortly after I relocated from the Netherlands to Australia, my house was broken into and my Dutch debit card stolen. The bank would only send my new card to my local branch, which was 20,000km away. And none of my friends could pick it up because they insisted on verifying my id. Very frustrating...

imperistan 6y ago
Wow that’s crazy. How did you solve it?

noisy_boy 6y ago

I would think that you should be able to just walk to a bank branch and get the address updated on the spot.

40four 6y ago

Sending a new password though snail mail might be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week!

slim 6y ago
it's a thing. my bank has even special paper that obfuscates the password so you can't see it through the envelope.
alvarlagerlof 6y ago
Totally happens in Sweden
Nextgrid 6y ago
It's not completely dumb. Address verification can be part of an identity verification measure. It shouldn't be the only one, and an override should be possible, but it's completely valid and effective at thwarting remote attacks.
- 40four 6y ago
  Sure, the logic lines up. I think it’s dumb just because how un-useful it is. Waiting for a week for a password reset to arrive in the mailbox is pretty painful. Pretty secure I suppose, except in the OP’s case, where it was sent to an old address. And they wouldn’t update it over the phone? So they essentially gave some strangers access to his bank account.