Payment processors shouldn't be able to charge through an expired card

My web hosting service renewed my subscription by charging my bank account through an expired debit card. Why do banks give payment processors such power? It’s ridiculous!

My leverage has always been to leave expired cards on file when I find it difficult to cancel a subscription. It's crazy that they can get around it.

5 points | by Lopsii 4 hours ago

3 comments

  • revskill 25 minutes ago
    I set my card balance to zero.
  • sapili 3 hours ago
    This is commonplace. Banks allow it to avoid subscriptions failing where the customer hasn't updated their card. Merchants may also be able to get the updated card details from the bank.

    What you can do instead is get an account that lets you create virtual credit cards that you can later cancel and destroy. This should prevent any future charges going through.

    • AStonesThrow 2 hours ago
      > create virtual credit cards

      I was forced into this behavior by Google Pay/Wallet, and I found it extremely precarious.

      With one of those virtual cards I purchased an item at a high cost, and unfortunately I had to go through a cycle of factory reset and reload everything to my phone. This necessarily wiped the "virtual cards" stored there.

      Thereafter, I went back to the merchant for a refund, and we found that a credit to the "original card" was impossible because I "no longer possessed" the original card! I was rather infuriated that it would be this easy, but Google assured me there's no error and this is how it works. Google claims that they're protecting our privacy, but I basically did not ask to be enrolled in these virtual cards and, when we trust the card processors, this is a disadvantage and honestly, kind of insulting to our relationship.

      This glitch cost me a long, long time as I needed to wait for a paper check to issue in the mail. Therefore, I would urge caution and being fully-informed of the corner cases, before anyone tries to use a virtual card for any serious transactions.

  • Ecco 4 hours ago
    Weird. What is the expiration date for, then?