Credit cards automatically providing updated card info to subscribing merchants
Here’s an interesting one: when your card is compromised and a new card number is issued, many banks will allow charges to continue using the old card number, provided the charges were occurring on an ongoing basis from that same merchant before the compromise. This is designed to prevent disruption of ongoing subscriptions in the event of compromise.<p>About a month ago I was reviewing my statement and noticed I was being billed by Spotify twice each month. I contacted Spotify to ask why they were billing me twice, and they asked for my account info and indicated my account was only being billed once. They then asked for the first 6 and last four of my car number to search that way, and again indicated I was only being billed once.<p>I sent them a screenshot of my online account statement at which point they agreed they were billing me twice but could not find the origin of the duplicate charge.<p>Finally it dawned on me - my bank had sent me a new card a long while back because of a suspected compromise. I’d had that card for a long time, and had the number memorized. I gave the old card number to them and bam - they found the source of the fraudulent transactions.<p>This means that even though my card number was compromised and cancelled, it can still be used for payment at any merchant for which I’ve had an ongoing subscription. Since these are merchants I do business with, it makes it doubly hard to notice the fraudulent charges as seeing “Spotify” or “Netflix” or whatever does not raise my eyebrow. Only in a careful month by month review did I pick up on the fraudulent transactions.<p>As a side note Spotify was very quick to reverse the duplicates and appear to have blocked that old card number from being used in their system again. Although a frustrating experience overall, they were very good to work with.