WaMu's New Gold Debit Card Proves Inconvenient

James, you have to punch in a 16 digit code no matter what. It's a brand new card/account. Therefore you have to punch in the new numbers. It's not like they just took your VISA account and transferred it to MasterCard. They have to issue brand new cards along with brand new 16 digit codes on the front. You can't just transfer the same account numbers to MasterCard either. That defeats the whole purpose and what if your account has already been compromised? Would you want them to keep the same account numbers?

When I got the card I thought it was for my main account. Instead it was for my account that has had $3 dollars in it for 2 years. So when I went to Trader Joes I was denied for $60 in groceries. Then they charged me for 5 overdraft fees becasue of the coffees and lunches I bought earlier in the week with a card that I assumed was for my only active account with the bank not the one that had only $3 dollars in it. They wont reverse the fees either.

This is why, as a Wamu user, I don't use anybody's autopay features but pay my bills through Wamu. I never had to deal with any of that crap. It's free and all your scheduled payments are organized in one place. The only real drawback is the payments take a week to get there.

Oh yeah, and I just LOVE how Wamu completely neglects to inform you that your identity may have been stolen and that you should check your statements for strange charges. My SO who plays a little too loose with her finances didn't even notice her identity was stolen until she overdrafted. Sure, the bank covered her completely, but how many other schmucks got scammed and never bothered to look?

The news about stolen credit cards are very scary... The information of millions of customers are constantly at risk.

I work in the banking business. Here is your answer: If you sign (instead of PIN) for your purchases, WAMU earns a higher interchange from the merchant because it's a "gold" card. If you get some kind of rewards (miles, etc.) for the charge, the merchant pays even more.

Jason -- you have a point, but if my original debit card just expired, all I'd have to change is the expiration date. These days I'm punching in a lot of 16-digit numbers.

The number of compromised credit card numbers has increased tremendously over the past year. It's not just WaMu, but anything that uses a Visa or Mastercard logo. I think it would be safe to say that WaMu's card migration to Mastercard probably inadvertently coincided with the replacement of some compromised cards creating quite a mess.

james, you'd still have to update your account info most places whenever your visa debit card expired & needed to be replaced. though it's annoying, it's part of modern life.

mahalie, the same thing happened to me a few months ago, though wamu called to let me know it had just happened. first, the blame was placed on some merchant allowing their numbers to be accessed. then, a wamu employee at the wallingford branch let me know that an entire visa processing center was hacked & many wamu customers were forced to get new (master)cards slightly ahead of schedule. visa refused to release any details to anyone.

I've avoided activating the new card for this very reason. The old one still works until the end of May and I haven't taken the time sit down and come up with the myriad of accounts I'll need to change. What a pain in the ass.

drew

I'm sure MasterCard offered them a better deal than VISA. And, really, I'd have preferred a short note that said that: "Here's your new MasterCard, because they offered us a better deal than VISA." I can respect that.

That said, the transition from VISA to MasterCard was perfectly smooth on both of my debit accounts. It's only when I realized how many autopay accounts that I had to change that the switch meant much to me at all.

I think this has something to do with the high transaction fees VISA charges merchants (and presumably the banks they patronize).

It annoys me to no end, for example, that Costco won't accept my business VISA account, which means I have to put company purchases on a personal debit card, then get reimbursed. On the other hand, I understand they're doing this in order to keep their prices low, low, LOW! - so, it's hard to get too angry.

Maybe if VISA loses a sufficient amount of this kind of business, they'll take the hint.

At least they told you the truth...my card was deactivated and my new Mastercard version sent without their telling me. It was quite embarassing as my debit card was declined all weekend! They claimed my acount was in a database that had been "compromised". I found the timing very convenient for them...I'm not a conspiracy theorist and yet I don't quite buy that line. Plus they could have called me to tell me my card wasn't going to work, or emailed at least!

The new Wamu tower / mesuem expansion is pretty though. Pretty wide, too actually.