I was just reading @KJinNC 's post 'Apple Card Surprise Balance After Closing', and it reminded me of a similar issue I had with Chase. I lost my card and had to have it replaced, which resulted in a new account number. Despite my account having a new number, Chase AUTOMATICALLY gave the new number to some of my reoccuring vendors! I WAS NOT HAPPY! I called Chase and asked them why they would give someone else my account number WITHOUT my permission!? They told me it was normal, and that I couldn't opt out of it. This made me feel less in control over my Chase account. Maybe I'm just old school, but it seems elementary to me that if the account is closed, or the number is no longer valid, then the charge should not go through. I think it is very dangerous and presumptuous to assume that just because a charge has occurred on your account more than once before, that means that Chase, or any other bank, should presume that you want them to give the vendor your new account number.
13Oct22 Exp F8: 812
I don't think Chase gives your new card number to anyone, they just let recurring charges come through on the old number. When you sign up for recurring billing, there is fine print that allows the merchant to do this by flagging the transaction as recurring. I don't think Chase is allowed to block recurring payments on their end except in the case of fraud, but I'm not 100% about the laws around it, maybe someone else can chime in. Bottom line, only way to avoid this is cancel your recurring billing directly with the merchant or never agree to recurring billing in the first place.
You might want to read this:
https://www.tokenex.com/blog/facilitate-seamless-recurring-payments-with-account-updater
Lots of card issues offer this "service" now. Don't expect bills to be cut off when you update your cards. Jumping through hoops to close accounts is going to continue. :/
@1LostArk wrote:I don't think Chase gives your new card number to anyone
Actually they do give out your number. What brought my attention to this was that after my account number changed, I logged onto my FUBO account to update the billing, and my new account number was ALREADY THERE! There were even some examples of non-subscription charges that I can't recall right now that they also gave my new number to ... only because the charge to that vendor had occured more than once on my Chase account. I think this is super lame.
@AlanGJP wrote:You might want to read this:
https://www.tokenex.com/blog/facilitate-seamless-recurring-payments-with-account-updater
Lots of card issues offer this "service" now. Don't expect bills to be cut off when you update your cards. Jumping through hoops to close accounts is going to continue. :/
It seems like more and more, people find excuses for individuals to lose control over their data. And "convenience" seems to consistently rank among the top excuses. Thanks for the link
@calisig wrote:
Actually they do give out your number.
Yup, and not just Chase either. Read my post above. This is a service issued to merchants to avoid customers "forgetting" to update their expired/stolen/etc card info. Oh, and you're opted in by default with no way (that I know of) to opt out.
That gym membership you thought you FINALLY got away from? Yeah, not so much.
@AlanGJP Yup - and I replied to your post - twice, and now my reply is gone - twice.
Update: moderator reached out to me and explained my post somehow was mistakenly flagged as spam, so moderator restored the post. Thanks moderating team!
I had a similar situation when I froze my Discover card, and recurring charges kept going through. Turns out, this is standard policy, but I didn't know or expect it. I thought "frozen" meant "frozen."
@longtimelurker wrote:
@AlanGJP wrote:
@calisig wrote:
Actually they do give out your number.Yup, and not just Chase either. Read my post above. This is a service issued to merchants to avoid customers "forgetting" to update their expired/stolen/etc card info. Oh, and you're opted in by default with no way (that I know of) to opt out.
That gym membership you thought you FINALLY got away from? Yeah, not so much.
For any individual (including me!) it's hard to know the cost/benefits, but I would guess that this really IS useful to the consumer. It seems much more likely that people would forget to update all the billers that they do want, causing delays and issues. For those bad billers, don't rely on the issuer helping you out!
I think it may be important to consider why the bank may want to do this. The semi-random card number is issued by the bank, to a customer who the bank wants to continue to use the card. A significant share of credit card customers use only one card. If that card is lost / misplaced or even victimized by fraud, the bank takes on the task of issuing a new card, new card number to their customer. In order to reduce the risk of not completing transactions the customer routinely wants to complete, to avoid the customer being blindsided by "I thought I paid for that? What do you mean I can't get into the gym?" the bank helps those merchants to get the updated info. This reduces the problems customers would otherwise encounter by having to visit all the sites to update the new card number.
In the case of a merchant used occasionally and not for recurring charges, the updated card info will just be available, won't trigger new transactions unless the cardholder initiated a new transaction.
Now, if the cardholder intent is to cut off a bunch of recurring charges that have gotten out of hand, then one option to consider is closing the card, and applying for a new one. Or, use temporary numbers provided by certain card issuers to keep the actual card number private when setting up such charges.
OP, glad to hear you got the card replaced quickly. I had a fraud instance on a Chase card in about 2015 and they were very fast in getting the fraud identified, the card closed, and a new card issued.
