OH. MY. GOD.
I have never been so humiliated in my LIFE. By MYSELF.
For three weeks I’ve been without my debit card. This means no cash, of course, it’s an ATM card too. I looked everywhere. Every purse, my bedroom, my car, every pair of pants, even my lunchbox. I borrowed cash from friends. Every couple of days I’d search everything again. Even my wallet, in case I was really stupid. Still, nothing.
I was reluctant to call and get a new one because they would have to block the old one. All of my automatic payments come from that card, and I had the entire number/expiration/CVV2 memorized, and it came with a great PIN – 2048, the number of bytes in 2kb.
I can tell you the PIN now because the card is blocked. This morning I gave up and called the bank. They said it would take 7-10 business days to get a new card; if any automatic payments went to the old card, they would fail because it was blocked. I hung up, disappointed but resigned to my fate.
15 minutes ago, I stood up to take a break. Suddenly, an image popped into my mind. Of my wallet, and the pocket on the back of it. And how I never EVER use that pocket. I pulled the wallet from my rear pocket and put my fingers inside…and they touched cool, hard plastic.
My debit card was in my rear pants pocket for three weeks. Three weeks of tearing the house apart, asking people to help me look, putting everything on my credit card, borrowing cash…all that time, it was with me.
I could die right now.
Of course, I called the bank right away, but it was too late. I was hoping they might do a batch process at the end of the day, but no – it’s immediate. You call, they block, it’s a dead piece of plastic. Which is what I now have, in the pocket of my wallet where I never look.
I couldn’t blush more red if I tried.
Ah – glad to see I’m not the only one. I went a week missing my main credit card (after travelling up and down the country on public transport – so it could have got lost anywhere). Five minutes after cancelling it, I found it
Well, on the positive side, at least the card never fell into nefarious hands.
Do you know for sure which automatic payments will be run on that card in the next two weeks or so? Is there any way to contact any of them to see if they could debit it directly through your bank account number the one time? Sometimes the recipients can be flexible; it probably doesn’t hurt to try.
I learned that calling in a lost credit card is immediate and I learned it in a funny way. My wife had her card stolen from her purse at the ymca and immediately called it in as stolen. I was out shopping at the same time. I used the card at the grocery store, then walked down the strip mall to the liquor store and the card was suddenly not working. I called the credit card company to find out the card was blocked, even to me! We had to wait a week for new cards. What a pain!
Scott
thats not so bad, i wouldn’t be too beat up about it. I think those kinds of things happen from time to time, i know it s a hassle, but you’ll get through it.
I try to avoid using credit cards at all. Not because I have so much cash but I am so traditional I guess. Anyway it was interesting to read about your credit card adventure.
Hey, if that’s the worst thing you’ve ever done, don’t sweat it. Funny how debit cards take away the need for cash. I feel embarrassed when I use it to buy a protein bar at CVS just because I don’t carry cash!