The dreaded 4 year replacement card – auto-forwarding of payments to new card

So I’m curious to know if this is something that can be avoided at all? I know it’s an extra security measure in place to make theft less likely but let’s be honest it’s just an absolute pain especially when one of those little payment you forgot about bounces because it still has your old card info.

Is the 4 year replacement card avoidable at all or is it something we’ll forever have to deal with? And with :monzo: having the freeze/unfreeze option seems like a possible work around for this.

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As far as I know, VISA and Mastercard mandate that the cards must include an expiry date.

Whether or not this could be bypassed if different security measures are in place, I’m not sure - one of my colleagues might be able to weigh in on this.

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I always find the chip is getting pretty dodgy by four years, so need a new card then anyway…

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The card networks already have solutions in place for this. When your card gets replaced, the card networks notify companies like Stripe, etc. with your new card number & expiry date.

So if you are a business which uses Stripe/similar to hold your customers’ card data, this is a non-issue.

if you are a business which uses Stripe/similar to hold your customers’ card data, this is a non-issue.

As a customer, that’s not my experience at all; it’s always an issue. For me. Doesn’t affect the business I owe money, I have to take the time to change it, not them. :frowning:

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Thanks for the insights guys. :laughing:

Yeah, I’d love us to do this so that even when it expires, we can move/forward your payments on automatically :slight_smile: (and give you the option to cancel if you’re trying to stop a random company charging you)

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And hopefully adjust that effective date or review the list of payments (at least) if the new card was requested (e.g. because of loss/theft) as opposed to triggered by expiry :slight_smile:

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Why of course! :slight_smile: It wouldn’t be any fun without that.

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Here is the solution by visa which i believe is what Stripe sign up to as referenced above - the Visa Account Updater (I would guess Mastercard has the same service):
https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/commercial-solutions/solutions/merchant-processing.html/#2

Its surprising how many merchants dont use this service and have subscriptions lapse due to expiring cards (im no longer a spotify premium member because of this - never bothered to re-subscribe but if it auto renewed i probably would have carried on)

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I don’t really see automatic forwarding of payments as a solution, because it feels very much like circumventing the security aspect.

However, it is definitely in monzo’s power to notify you in the app of the failed transaction tied to your old card number!

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Maybe instead of automatically forwarding payments, how about a middle ground?

Notification when your card changes relating to recurring payments that will fail unless you authorise them to continue. On each authorisation can have it as Yes/No with a tick to remember this authorisation so you’re not asked next time it happens.

I would imagine (though not sure) that ‘auto forwarding’ of the authorisation onto another card would be against Mastercard scheme rules - (this would cause quite a few complexities - particularly for the merchant who now thinks they have a valid transaction against the old card (there isnt an HTTP 301 ‘Content Moved’ for payments)

However - the notification does seem like a really good step forward for banking (similar to freeze card) - its a usecase that everyone knows about and is universally annoying) - seems like a really Monzo thing to do!

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I think forwarding payments kinda defeats the point of an expiry date.

A better solution may be for Monzo to smartly ascertain which services use your current card number and notify you about them all, or if it receives a payment on the old one, to notify you about that too. But from a purely security point of view, forwarding payments isn’t something I’d be comfortable with.

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I agree with you, @awn. Knowing that card details should be… but not always are secure, I have some worries that my card can be exposed years later. New card means a clean slate and gives me peace of mind. Even when Monzo would inform me about payment straight away (including source, old or new card), I don’t want to worry about it in the first place.

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American Express seem to provide a similar service. I lost my Amex card and cancelled it immediately, and it was explained to me that online services that already had the old card number would continue to work without me updating the card.

I was sceptical, but it’s turned out to be really convenient. Even 18 months or so after the card was lost, Amex still allows charges against it from online accounts that had previously charged to it. I assume there’s some clever machine learning that goes into ensuring there’s no fraud involved, but it really did reduce the hassle involved in losing the card.

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