Re: Discover card account number change

Oh no, "J. Christopher Mihos" <cmihos@xxxxxxxxx>! I know what you
want! You coveteth my ice cream bar!

So when I logged into my online Discover card account this morning I
got the following message:

"A Discover Card with a new account number has been mailed to you as a
replacement to the card you currently carry. Your account number has
changed as part of a systems upgrade that offers you even more
benefits, such as, enhanced security monitoring on your account to
help detect fraud earlier."

That sounds like bullshit to me. I didnt ask for any change on my card
-- it sounds like they had a security breach and now need to change
account numbers for people whose account numbers were stolen. (I have
not seen any fraudulent activity on my account, fwiw....)

If it were a system-wide upgrade it seems like everyone's account
numbers would change. Have any of you other rsfckers who use discover
gotten this notification?

I have no idea how Discover operates. I work everyday with Visa,
MasterCard, and AmEx.

But the situation that you describe above wouldn't be unusual for the
other card associations. In many systems, the "features" of a certain
portion of the cards issued are linked to a specific BIN (Bank
Identification Number) range. The BIN of your Visa, MC, or AmEx is
the first six digits of your account number. And often a system will
break a range down to say (for example, for Visa):

4120000000000000 through 4120004999999999 - this subset of features
4120005000000000 through 4120006499999999 - another subset of features
4120007500000000 through 4120009999999999 - another subset of features

This may or may not be the case with Discover. It may well be exactly
what you suspect (I have *no* clue how Discover does their business).
But if it's anything at all like the other card associations, it isn't
unusual at all. You should have a right, however, to refuse the new
issue if you want to keep your old one the way it is.


John Rogers
AU Class of 1985
The Al Del Greco of Atlanta

"We are going to win, because they love life and we love death."
(Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah)
.

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