Thank The Gummi Mary, This Has Saved Me A Hand-Washing

Perhaps I've mentioned that I've been looking for my new debit card since August 19. Perhaps not.

I got an email back then, saying to be on the lookout for my new card within the next two weeks. That I should activate it as soon as I received it, because my old card would stop working.

Let the record show that I never asked for a new debit card. My old one still had a year until the expiration date. I'd had no (KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on wood) reason to suspect fraud. I was happily debiting daily, no problems. This email came out of the blue, announcing my new card, which would be chip-enabled, and thus much safer in preventing fraudulent activity.

I was worried when I didn't receive my new card within two weeks. The mail is not all that secure out here in Hillmomba. I called the bank and was told that due to the holiday weekend of Labor Day, to give my card another week. Then call back if I didn't get it.

I called back. I was told that my post office had received my card, and that I should have it by Wednesday, September 13, at the latest. Of course I did not have it by that date. I waited. And waited. Looking every day. I always pick up the mail within an hour or so of delivery, because that's my going-to-town schedule for my 44 oz Diet Coke.

Last night around 11:30, I called again. Explained to the THIRD representative that it was now September 17, and my debit card had not been delivered like the notice of August 19 advised me. I was put on hold for 20 minutes. The rep was very polite. She said she ran my scenario by three different departments. They said my card was delivered on THURSDAY, September 14. NO. No, it wasn't. I checked.

The choices I was presented involved getting a new debit card mailed out, to either my current address or my bank branch. It would have a new number, of course. Because if I got a new card sent with the old number, and activated it, the one unaccounted for would work, too. Without even a PIN punched in, because, you know, IT'S A CHIP CARD, which doesn't need a PIN.

HOW IN THE NOT-HEAVEN IS A CHIP CARD MORE SECURE?

Seriously. With a regular debit card, it wouldn't matter, because it's useless without the PIN.

I wash my hands of these people! I said I would give it one more week, think it over, then call back for a new issue. Oh, and the rep reminded me that my old one would stop working within 30 days.

REEEEEEE!

"The notice was on August 19, and it is now September 17! Doesn't that mean that my current card will stop working in two days?"

"No. The new card wasn't mailed until September 5, so you have 30 days from then."

When I picked up my prescriptions today, the little gal said my debit card wasn't going through. I said I might have to go out to the car to get a check, because of the problems I was having in receiving my new, unrequested chip card. She said her husband got a notice about 6 weeks ago, and he had not yet received HIS card, either! She re-ran my debit, and it worked. But I told her that her husband better look out. It might be 30 days since his was mailed. She said, "Eh. It's my husband. That's his problem. I'll deal with it when he calls me and says he doesn't have any money."

This is hogwash. Pure shenanigans. I'm double-washing my hands of these people. Scrubbing them like an OCD clean freak! The skin may just peel away from my hands, as hard as I'm washing them of these bank people!

Or not. Because today, on my way home...TODAY, September 18...

I received my new debit card that I never asked for.

Something fishy is going on with either the Hillmomba dead-mouse-smelling post office, or the bank chip card department.