[HN Gopher] My bank sent me 64 copies of the same debit card
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       My bank sent me 64 copies of the same debit card
        
       Author : elliekelly
       Score  : 205 points
       Date   : 2021-03-11 20:11 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
        
       | mattl wrote:
       | A bank in Boston once sent me a debit card that didn't meet the
       | valid number algorithm. I had to go in there and show them the
       | math step by step to prove it.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | That's interesting. You would assume the LUHN digit would be
         | calculated and non-editable. Was it a card with an unusual
         | number of digits or something?
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | Regular Visa Debit card.
        
             | carlio wrote:
             | Obviously not that regular or it'd have worked :)
        
         | MattGaiser wrote:
         | Did they generate the number by hand or something?
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | Not sure, it was a small regional bank (next door to the FSF,
           | see my other story in this thread) but they've been replaced
           | by a bigger bank.
        
         | 8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote:
         | lol this is the most "sir this is an arby's" shit I've seen in
         | a minute.
         | 
         | Like the teller possibly doesn't know anything about that
         | algorithm except that it exists. Just show them the card
         | doesn't work they can verify that quickly.
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | This was the second card they'd sent me that didn't work.
           | Couldn't use the card anywhere, and their telephone support
           | didn't understand the issue.
        
             | cure wrote:
             | At least you didn't have to go far to complain in person :)
        
               | mattl wrote:
               | Heh, do you remember when I was dealing with this?
        
         | wycy wrote:
         | What was the consequence of this? Would the card not work
         | anywhere, or would it only not work online?
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | Didn't work anywhere I tried it, but I'll admit I didn't try
           | it at a lot of places.
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | Why would you even try? Surely "my card number doesn't work" is
         | the simple and sane response. They don't need to know, or care,
         | _why_.
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | This was after a replacement card also didn't work.
        
           | z3t4 wrote:
           | sadly most bug reports just say "it doesn't work" - which is
           | not helpful at all. Why would they not need to know!? Maybe
           | they had this problem for a long time, and affecting other
           | customers too.
        
           | theandrewbailey wrote:
           | I've renewed cards only to get a new card with the same
           | number (with a later expiration date and different CVV).
        
             | Alupis wrote:
             | Renewing is different than replacing.
             | 
             | Tell them your card was lost - problem solved.
        
           | moosebear847 wrote:
           | If you are a software dev, you should know that devs love to
           | expend relatively extravagant effort and time to figure out
           | an issue, explain it precisely, and fix it to avoid the
           | possibility of it happening again.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | joshstrange wrote:
             | In general, and for my job especially, I am absolutely this
             | person. However, as soon as I'm talking to any form of
             | customer support I pretend to know nearly nothing about
             | tech and try to stop myself from diagnosing the problem (at
             | least out loud). Often the person I'm talking to has no
             | real agency to make changes to the organization and me
             | explaining what is wrong or trying to give them more
             | details just confuses them. I'll still guide the
             | conversation gently if I feel they are veering off into
             | something wrong/unrelated but I've been "trained" by
             | multiple experiences to just play dumb and try to move
             | through the system as quickly as possible.
        
         | erdo wrote:
         | Wow, that's insane. Bank tech can be shockingly low tech
         | sometimes - maybe they were using a spreadsheet to create their
         | numbers or something
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | Yeah, I could believe it. It was a small bank and the card
           | was being sent in the mail. Nowadays my bank (a different
           | one) can print a new card on the spot.
        
         | m463 wrote:
         | I'm surprised YOU even know.
         | 
         | meaning two things: you understand the algorithm _and_ you
         | checked the algorithm.
         | 
         | This is like discovering a compiler bug from code that compiled
         | - statistically unlikely, and requires deeper expertise.
         | 
         | I mean I shouldn't be surprised, it's HN.
        
           | MAGZine wrote:
           | The algorithms are not complicated.
        
           | vmception wrote:
           | npm i card-validator
        
           | isatty wrote:
           | Not surprising that they discovered it, even if they weren't
           | aware of it - I'm guessing this is how it went: person tried
           | to use his card number on some random website, but it kept
           | telling him that his number is invalid. They scratch their
           | head and double, triple check that number and then do a
           | google search.
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | I'm fairly sure someone else suggested it as a possibility,
           | because why the heck would a bank issued debit card number
           | not work on say... Amazon.com?
        
       | BugsJustFindMe wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | btilly wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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.
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | "internal passport" yeah, that phrase is being appropriated,
           | thanks!
        
             | 0x38B wrote:
             | In Ukraine and Russia, your passport for ID and passport
             | for travel may be two separate documents - pasport and
             | zagranpasport, the former is probably what Griskha meant by
             | 'internal'.
        
               | grishka wrote:
               | Yes. What English-speaking world calls "passport" is what
               | in Russian is literally "abroad-passport".
        
               | marktani wrote:
               | In German it's literally "travel pass"
        
             | sbierwagen wrote:
             | It has a long history:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_passport
        
           | gambiting wrote:
           | At least my Polish bank absolutely doesn't have any problem
           | sending me my cards to a foreign address. I have to set it as
           | my main address on the web portal though, request a card, and
           | then it arrives where it should.
        
           | isatty wrote:
           | Where's that? Sounds more frustrating than receiving 64 cards
           | to be honest - what if the branch is out of your way/is
           | closed when you get outta work?
        
             | grishka wrote:
             | Russia
        
             | YarickR2 wrote:
             | Russia. Until recently mail (of snail mail variety) was
             | notoriously unreliable, and mailboxes in row houses are out
             | of the owner's sight and easily breachable
        
               | grishka wrote:
               | Was? It still is. Only the government itself uses it to
               | send important documents. Other than that, it's mostly
               | everyone's aliexpress orders.
               | 
               | The one bank that doesn't have branches, Tinkoff, uses
               | courier delivery.
        
               | sgtnoodle wrote:
               | Mailboxes are just as breachable in the US, but the
               | credit card companies and banks seem willing to eat the
               | cost of occasional fraud.
               | 
               | One year I had an epic week of fraud. My credit card
               | number was stolen by someone involved with a local
               | restaurant, the replacement credit card was stolen from
               | my mailbox, and my rent check was stolen from my
               | landlord's mailbox (and successfully cashed!) There was a
               | 3 day period where the only money I had access to was the
               | cash in my wallet because my credit cards, checking
               | account and savings account were all frozen while their
               | account numbers got switched. All the fraud was covered
               | by my bank though.
        
           | kube-system wrote:
           | Most of the credit cards in my wallet are issued by banks
           | that don't even have a branch. The last time I got a plastic
           | card issued in person was a debit card I got when I was a
           | child.
        
             | madpata wrote:
             | How many credit cards do you have? And if it's 3+, then why
             | do you have so many?
             | 
             | Just curious.
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | Definitely 3+
               | 
               | I grab a new one every couple of years when I see one
               | with advantageous terms. I typically only use a couple of
               | them at a time, but I keep the old ones around because:
               | why not? Having more available credit is only a good
               | thing.
        
               | nemothekid wrote:
               | > _I keep the old ones around because: why not? Having
               | more available credit is only a good thing._
               | 
               | Also because closing accounts can negatively impact your
               | score (by reducing your average age of accounts)
        
               | crysin wrote:
               | If they're in the US, a lot of financially smart and
               | motivated people can play Credit Card games to maximize
               | on their miles / rewards for purchases such as like 3%
               | cash back on some purchases.
        
         | temp667 wrote:
         | No bank should be sending cards to an address not on file -
         | that is a major fraud risk 101 issue right there.
        
           | elliekelly wrote:
           | And in the US they can't issue a debit card within 30 days of
           | an address change without specifically verifying the change
           | is legitimate: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
           | idx?SID=a04646f38f28731e83...
        
           | BugsJustFindMe wrote:
           | It was "on file" as soon as I gave it to them after verifying
           | my identity.
        
             | vkou wrote:
             | 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?
        
           | amznthrwaway wrote:
           | American Express will absolutely send replacements while
           | traveling.
           | 
           | I've had them send replacement cards to my hotel without
           | problem.
        
         | surfsvammel wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
         | >"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. I recently had to help a family
         | member resolve a charge to their regular credit card for Apple
         | Music which they did not order. There were two options - they
         | could schedule a call back in 3 days or they could chat with
         | someone. I selected the chat option and corresponded with
         | someone who simply said that family member would be notified if
         | Apple decided to reverse the charge. It was quite a miserable
         | experience.
        
         | wackro wrote:
         | I am not an Apple user but presumably Apple is processing your
         | payments in this case, and have an insight into your spending?
        
           | DrJokepu wrote:
           | It's actually Goldman Sachs. Apple does not retain
           | transaction history, per their privacy policy.
        
           | Shank wrote:
           | > 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
        
             | gnud wrote:
             | > 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 wrote:
               | 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 wrote:
               | Governments probably fall under 3rd parties?
        
               | fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
               | 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 wrote:
               | 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-
               | con...
        
           | Maxious wrote:
           | > 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
        
         | ineedasername wrote:
         | 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
        
           | elliekelly wrote:
           | > 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 just
           | like any other charge to a "bad" card 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 phone (that 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
        
           | anamexis wrote:
           | 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...
        
         | matsemann wrote:
         | 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..
        
         | 8ytecoder wrote:
         | Happened to my debit card - it expired and the bank wouldn't
         | even activate the digital card in the meantime.
         | 
         | With the Apple Card the digital card would have been fine or
         | renewed while waiting for the physical card.
        
         | DelightOne wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
             | For example: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/merchant/ca
             | rdrefresher.ht...
        
             | smnrchrds wrote:
             | Yeah. Google Pay works the same way.
        
           | Anther wrote:
           | 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.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cpach wrote:
         | Ouch. Sounds very tedious. I guess it could be a good idea to
         | have more than one credit card, especially when travelling.
        
         | el_benhameen wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
             | 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.
        
           | Spooky23 wrote:
           | I'd suggest for future reference getting a passport card.
           | 
           | It meets all identity requirements and has the benefit of not
           | providing your address.
        
       | mattl wrote:
       | When I was at the FSF, Google mailed a coupon for free adwords to
       | a bunch of websites, including several thousand coupons to the
       | FSF... we figured it out it was all Joomla websites with a copy
       | of the GPL linked in the footer.
        
         | segfaultbuserr wrote:
         | This is both hilarious and horrible. I think the FSF address
         | (both old and new) is one of the most well-known address on the
         | Internet. I have to wonder: how many junkmail do you receive
         | from web scrapers?
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | Not a lot of junk mail when I was there, but the middle old
           | address (59 Temple Place) no longer exists, so I had some
           | help from Greg KH to remove it from Linux.
           | 
           | When I was there I would get a fair amount of mail from
           | people in prisons, and we'd send them books.
        
             | segfaultbuserr wrote:
             | Interesting. Did the prisoners specifically ask for free
             | software related books, or did they simply use FSF as a
             | helpful place for getting all kind of books?
        
         | skissane wrote:
         | Did the FSF use those coupons to advertise its philosophy?
        
           | flemhans wrote:
           | Those "free adwords" coupons are horribly difficult to get
           | out of again (you have to add your CC when you sign up, and
           | it has to be a new account).
        
           | Something1234 wrote:
           | I certainly hope they did. They need better out reach. The
           | license is super popular, but not well understood by the
           | general public.
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | I believe each one needed a unique Google account, so no.
           | 
           | The coupons had seeds embedded in the paper, and they were
           | however put into a compostable bin, so hopefully they're
           | flowers somewhere.
        
         | ineedasername wrote:
         | Which is strange, given that most direct-mail marketing
         | companies include de-duplication as part of their service.
        
       | 317070 wrote:
       | Did anyone see the movie Brazil?
       | 
       | This is exactly what that movie is about. The bureaucratic-
       | technological engine being prone to tiny errors, which have
       | cascading effects on the people affected. And despite putting in
       | some effort and telling that engine that what it is doing is
       | ridiculous, fixing it is very much non-trivial. Luckily, this
       | time the consequences are minor. A beautiful illustration of "La
       | technique", the runaway engine of rationality and efficiency, as
       | philosopher Jacques Ellul referred to it.
       | 
       | This is a beautiful illustration of that concept!
        
       | valuearb wrote:
       | This is why you don't keep hitting the submit button...
        
         | Nailgun wrote:
         | Shouldn't that be taken care of? I just mean I made terrible
         | Flash Games once and learned that on the first week of the job.
         | I actually still see this on payment gateways with banks. "IF
         | SOMETHING DOESNT HAPPEN IN 60 SECS DON'T TRY AGAIN UNTIL YOU
         | CHECK PAYMENT WAS NOT TAKEN".
        
           | scrollaway wrote:
           | Idempotency keys is how you do this safely.
        
       | msbhvn wrote:
       | In Peru debit cards don't have names on them. So you just go to a
       | branch and they take an unused one off the stack and assign and
       | hand it to you. 5 mins, any branch, no appt. Quite convenient.
       | Credit cards do have your name printed on and those you pick up
       | at a branch when they arrive.
       | 
       | I guess the US considers the printed name to be more important
       | for debit cards.
        
       | black_puppydog wrote:
       | I mean... this (issuing plastic cards) is just basically a way of
       | distributing "trusted" hardware to customers who are walking
       | around with a million more cycles per second on their wrist...
        
       | hu3 wrote:
       | Perhaps RAM memory corruption?
       | 
       | I can imagine bit flips doing that on non ECC memory.
        
         | Nican wrote:
         | That was my initial guess as well, but I can not imagine where
         | in the pipeline that would occur.
         | 
         | A customer might request more than 1 card, but it does not
         | explain the wildly different expiration dates, and different
         | delivery dates.
        
       | Rebelgecko wrote:
       | Even though I have "paperless" enabled, Charles Schwab sends me a
       | paper letter for every stock transaction I do in one of my
       | accounts. Especially in conjunction with fractional shares, this
       | leads to a lot of wasted paper and effort.
       | 
       | I've been tempted to do a bunch of 0.01 share transactions to see
       | if I could overwhelm them into giving up on paper transaction
       | confirmations.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | yuliyp wrote:
         | There are multiple settings for paperless. On their web site go
         | to the profile icon, paperless to see all of them.
        
       | stunt wrote:
       | Now you need 63 friends to use 64 separate ATMs simultaneously to
       | test their infrastructure.
        
       | eli wrote:
       | BCBS sent me my insurance card every day for a month
        
       | analog31 wrote:
       | It's really funny, but when I see an error that's a power of 2, I
       | immediately look for a hardware bug.
        
         | oaiey wrote:
         | Exactly. The 64 is no coincidence.
        
       | nullserver wrote:
       | Knew a guy at Disney who noticed a problematic default value in a
       | catalog application. He dropped an f-bomb while discussing its
       | With higher ups.
       | 
       | Well turns out you don't use that language at Disney. Database
       | problem got shelved.
       | 
       | Few months later a very angry person called up about the multiple
       | pallets of catalogs sitting in his front yard.
        
       | atum47 wrote:
       | I used to work at a bank. I joke to my friends that if you ever
       | see their code base, you wouldn't leave your money with them.
        
         | quercusa wrote:
         | My wife works at one. The horrible Oracle CRM* may be the least
         | bad system they have.
         | 
         | *AFAICT, each keystroke has to be sent to Redwood City to be
         | individually massaged and returned.
        
           | ineedasername wrote:
           | _each keystroke has to be sent to Redwood City to be
           | individually massaged and returned_
           | 
           | Is it an older terminal-based system? Lots of those were
           | designed (and still in use, 40+ years later). Usually it's
           | not a big deal, in fact faster than modern interfaces,
           | because they're built for decades-old hardware and low baud
           | rates. Of course if you're still running the original
           | hardware or have _really_ screwed things up then performance
           | goes out the window.
        
       | colordrops wrote:
       | The first comment in that thread is a nod to that it's pretty
       | much common knowledge that bank errors are never in your favor.
        
         | tamaharbor wrote:
         | I believe that is a reference to a Community Chest card in the
         | game of Monopoly.
        
       | mrspuratic wrote:
       | Many years ago I went into my local bank to change my ATM daily
       | withdrawal limit. Somehow the person behind the desk managed to
       | change the name on my account to "Mr Mr" (but not change my
       | withdrawal limit), so, along comes a new card in that name a
       | couple of days later.
       | 
       | It took 4 reissued cards to get my name back.
       | 
       | Then they charged me for the extra cards. It took a short
       | conversation with the bank manager to fix that.
       | 
       | I guess it's true that computers just let you make mistakes
       | faster (look at the names on the cards).
       | 
       | Edit: No, apparently the cards had numbers/names inconsistently
       | Photoshopped for privacy. My bad.
        
       | Spooky23 wrote:
       | Lol. My former bank sent my debit cards to my former home for 10
       | years.
       | 
       | My mortgage, checking, etc statements all got to my home
       | addressed correctly. They held both mortgages and "fixed" it a
       | dozen times.
        
       | tyingq wrote:
       | [x] Merged Pull Request 224: Implement retry logic
        
         | function_seven wrote:
         | "Added RETRY_MAX parameter, set initially to 3F. (I think 3
         | Failures is enough to give up.)"
        
       | anonu wrote:
       | looks like they all have different expiration dates.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | Name is "Peter" on some, "Peter D" on some, also "Peter ER".
        
           | stordoff wrote:
           | OP responded to this in the comments:
           | 
           | > I used Photoshop's Content Aware feature to remove the
           | numbers and last name. In some cases, it pulls in surrounding
           | items (Like the "Er" from Peter) and I was too lazy to clean
           | it up.
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | You got 100000 cards sent to you.
        
       | DSingularity wrote:
       | I once used a new hire process where the insurance card was
       | mailed when the user clicked next on the insurance page. Problem
       | is when someone clicked back and changed something another card
       | was mailed. We received a bunch of ID cards.
        
       | savant_penguin wrote:
       | I can imagine someone mistakenly adding a 0 and then sending 2*60
       | cards instead of 2*6
       | 
       | > Bank proceeds to buy drilling companies to fulfill the
       | necessary plastic demand so customer 8789 with $2.86 in his
       | account can have all the cards he needs
        
         | compressedgas wrote:
         | 260 would be far too many.
        
       | Nican wrote:
       | My personal guess: A queue calls into an external 3rd party
       | service, but the external service is not transactional, so it can
       | receive and store the request, but before it finishes executing,
       | it throws an exception and returns an error code.
       | 
       | The queue keeps retrying into the external service. While the
       | external service keeps printing cards.
        
       | Thaxll wrote:
       | Probably some Perl script running in a crontab that no one touch
       | in the last 10 years.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | Their main site (https://www.pmcu.org/) is running Wordpress.
        
       | danaliv wrote:
       | 64 debit cards ought to be enough for anybody.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | imperistan wrote:
       | 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 wrote:
         | That must have been so frustrating. We have advance technology
         | but still not very good
        
         | spocklivelong wrote:
         | Does Netherlands has mail forwarding? USPS in the states does
         | mail forwarding if you change your address, it is very
         | convenient.
        
         | donalhunt wrote:
         | 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. :/
        
         | stunt wrote:
         | > 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 wrote:
           | 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.
        
           | amaccuish wrote:
           | Same here in Germany. A normal credit card is a charge card,
           | so billed every 30 days in full from the giro account. Credit
           | cards that are rolling are rarer but slowly breaking their
           | way through.
        
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