I decided I'd use the debit card of a bank, which will be unnamed here, to withdraw money while overseas. So I transferred money into the account in preparation.
Wednesday:
Went to an ATM, tried to withdraw money but got rejected. There was a service counter nearby so I asked for help there. They thought my account might have been deactivated because it had been idle and put me through on a phone to their call centre.
Call centre said that they had reactivated the account. Later I found out that what they did was make a $1 transaction between the two linked accounts in my account.
Thursday:
Tried to use the card again. This time not only was the transaction rejected but the ATM captured the card. Called up their call centre and they assured me that new card was on the way.
Went home and found a new card in my mailbox with new features like chip and Paywave. They couldn't have responded that fast and in fact the cover letter was dated several days before. So I assumed that the call centre knew a new card was on the way. Activated it by phone call to the call centre. But one troubling thing was that when I went to set my PIN it showed me a different last 4 digits. Sent internal query to their helpdesk about this discrepancy.
Friday:
Tried to used the card in an ATM again. Again rejected but fortunately card not captured because the ATM design didn't take in the whole card but simply read it and asked for it to be removed.
Went to service counter where they suggested that I choose Savings instead of Cheque. Same result. Suggested I go to the main office just across the street.
Again put through by phone to the call centre. Finally got passed to a rep who gave the whole story. This is the actual sequence of events:
Wednesday:
Went to an ATM, tried to withdraw money but got rejected. There was a service counter nearby so I asked for help there. They thought my account might have been deactivated because it had been idle and put me through on a phone to their call centre.
Call centre said that they had reactivated the account. Later I found out that what they did was make a $1 transaction between the two linked accounts in my account.
Thursday:
Tried to use the card again. This time not only was the transaction rejected but the ATM captured the card. Called up their call centre and they assured me that new card was on the way.
Went home and found a new card in my mailbox with new features like chip and Paywave. They couldn't have responded that fast and in fact the cover letter was dated several days before. So I assumed that the call centre knew a new card was on the way. Activated it by phone call to the call centre. But one troubling thing was that when I went to set my PIN it showed me a different last 4 digits. Sent internal query to their helpdesk about this discrepancy.
Friday:
Tried to used the card in an ATM again. Again rejected but fortunately card not captured because the ATM design didn't take in the whole card but simply read it and asked for it to be removed.
Went to service counter where they suggested that I choose Savings instead of Cheque. Same result. Suggested I go to the main office just across the street.
Again put through by phone to the call centre. Finally got passed to a rep who gave the whole story. This is the actual sequence of events:
- Bank sent out new card, call it card B, with new features.
- Not knowing this, on Wednesday I tried to use my old card, call it card A. Fail.
- On Thursday I tried to use card A again and it got cancelled and captured perhaps because of too many failed attempts. Called service centre right away.
- Bank arranged to send out replacement card, call it card C.
- I found card B in my mailbox and called them to activate it. However what they activated was card C, which accounted for the discrepancy in last 4 digits when setting the PIN.
- On Friday I tried to use card B, which unknown to me had been deactivated because card C had been activated. Fail.
- I talked to the call centre. You would think that I could just wait for card C in the pipeline and start using that. But unfortunately their procedures require them to deactivate card C because I have already activated it and someone intercepting it could use it. They can't simply block it temporarily. So they have to send out card D, which they promised to expedite.
So the upshot of it is that I end up with 3 cards, B, C, and D, of which only the last works. I really hope card D arrives in time for my trip.
So it was an unfortunate "race condition" as they say in computer science for steps 1 and 2. If there was a point at which the mistake could have been caught it would be the call centre operator at step 5. He should have double checked that the card in my hand was card C. Maybe if I had done this online, the website might have showed me the card number and I would have discovered the discrepancy. Also if I had been calmer at step 3 and waited until I got home, then I would have seen card B and not triggered the sending of card C. But how was I to know that there was a new card waiting for me at home that evening?
Tuesday, update 1:
Received card D today and activated it online. (Card C arrived on Monday and I put it aside.) The webpage showed me the last 4 digits of the number of card D so I knew I was activating the right one.
As I wrote above, if I had done the activation myself online, the mistake would not have gone so far. But neither the card nor the cover letter mentioned online activation. Next to try it in an ATM.
Wednesday, update 2:
Finally tried it in an ATM (one that reads the card then allows it to be extracted, to be on the safe side) and managed to withdraw a sum of money. Let's hope it works overseas too.
Tuesday, update 1:
Received card D today and activated it online. (Card C arrived on Monday and I put it aside.) The webpage showed me the last 4 digits of the number of card D so I knew I was activating the right one.
As I wrote above, if I had done the activation myself online, the mistake would not have gone so far. But neither the card nor the cover letter mentioned online activation. Next to try it in an ATM.
Wednesday, update 2:
Finally tried it in an ATM (one that reads the card then allows it to be extracted, to be on the safe side) and managed to withdraw a sum of money. Let's hope it works overseas too.
