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Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

support.privacy.com

161–170 of 171 posts

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#161
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need an SSN before a certain age, so this isn't weird.

Sure it's weird. It's easy enough to do when the child is born, why wait?

My daughter had her SSN used when she was around 10, and I can't recall her ever needing her SSN as it's no longer required for things like medical insurance, etc.

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little ironic that privacy.com is asking for your SSN lol.

Yeah, a bit. Despite that, I still perceive them as a good barrier (and defense) between my personal financial account and random online businesses whom I would very much like to not provide any personal info whatsoever. An example is wanting to buy a LOSSLESS album from Bandcamp, I can use Privacy and I don't even need to give the musician or Bandcamp my real name or actual financial details.

I was under the assumption you never need to give your real name when using a debit or credit card. Zip code and the number of the address like 7 for "7 Main St" are required usually.

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#163
post #53

Hi all - I’m one of the founders at Privacy. I’d like to provide more context on why we’re asking customers to reissue cards. In an attempt to stay current with changes in card network and bank requirements, we spent the better part of this year investigating product adjustments and determined that changing our cards from prepaid debit to charge cards is the best option to preserve the customer experience. I recogniz…

Also, it looks like we have to manually update them in 1Password. Out of hundreds of cards, I had only 5 listed for reussing. Why only 5?! Why not hundreds?

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#164
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has not been my experience and runs counter to their core product offering. Just my two cents.

So a privacy card you used for one merchant was denied by another merchant? And it wasn't due to them rejecting prepaid cards, setting your card to single-use, or setting too low of a dollar limit?

Correct, that has been my experience as well. It has nothing to do with the transaction/charge limit or them rejecting prepaids.

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#165
post #46

I'm surprised I'm hearing about it here before getting an email from them.

Thanks for using the product -- head of legal and compliance here. Emails are going out in phases. But if you log into your dashboard, you should be prompted to accept the new terms and re-issue any merchant locked cards. Some folks will already be on the new product if they signed up during our public beta period, so if you don't hear from us you're likely already on the new card types.

Thanks for engaging here.

Unfortunately, everything is on autopay. I rarely access the app or browser extension, and almost never access the dashboard.

I hope folks over there are thinking about how many people will have fewer than 30 days to update their cards. Emails should have gone out much sooner. I'm guessing this was a rushed job, and I'm sympathetic toward the things vendors force on companies, but communication is 100% in a company's control and should have gone out much sooner (I still haven't received an email).

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why force the change onto customers though? Most people understand the difference between a debit card and a credit card, and as someone who's had Privacy.com cards denied because it was a prepaid MC debit card and not a real CC, I've experienced what the problem was. But for merchants where the prepaid debit card works , why can I not continue using that card number there? Privacy.com is a wonderful service, but it…

I hear you on this. We’re really sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, this wasn’t fully within our control. To stay compliant with our bank partner’s requirements and network rules we were forced to make this change to existing Visa cards too. We did explore the card updater[1] and were hoping to be able to use it. Unfortunately it’s not a viable option due to technical limitations. If we could do the updating…

Why couch this as an "Exciting Update,"[1] then? Why do none of the FAQ entries[2] answer the obvious question that everyone asked here (why deprecate existing cards, let alone in 3 weeks)?

When forced to by customers, you sort of answered it here, but without details or transparency. The Web site FAQ doesn't even do that much - the question that every single customer will ask isn't listed. Needing to update dozens of cards and merchants for zero benefit is not an "Exciting Update" and Privacy ends up sounding dishonest and, well, stupid for claiming that.

If you were forced to do this by a processing partner, then that's what the FAQ and customer-facing popup should say (and explain why and why your partner agreements allow that with only a few weeks of notice).

I went from being a customer and fan to believing that I can't trust Privacy's decisions nor that those decisions will be described transparently.

[1]: https://support.privacy.com/hc/en-us/categories/441448782555... [2]: https://support.privacy.com/hc/en-us/sections/4414521336855-...

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#167
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hundreds of cards! Why are you forcing me to do this?! I have no time! Honestly, I'd probably just move to my main card, which almost never changes! Tomorrow you may decide to do something again! I really don't have time to babysit this! You should grandfather all cards and allow customers to change them if they want, otherwise, they should be valid till their expiration date! You're asking us to do a lot of w…

(I work at Privacy.com) I'm super sorry for the inconvenience and for the limited lead time. Unfortunately, this change wasn’t fully within our control and was required by our card partners.

Then as someone else said, stop telling customers and users the exact opposite. I wrote more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29432683#29449389

You tried to sugarcoat this - to pretend like forcing customers to change dozens of cards in December was exciting - and in the process, lost all trust. You could have simply described the problem honestly and transparently.

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#168
post #7

We offer virtual cards too through AppBind and when I can’t sleep at night, sometimes I do game plan the possibility of what it means if we had to change card partners. I expect we will see events like this fairly frequently in the next decade. I feel for them.

The problem isn't needing to change card partners, it's not having (not having negotiated?) a 1+ year period where already-issued cards will continue to work. Having a year or more to gradually change cards the next time I buy something from each merchant would be a minor inconvenience. In the best case, it would be 2+ years and by then, it would hardly be a concern at all.

Privacy.com's mistake wasn't needing to change issuers; as you said, that's unavoidable. Rather, it was forcing customers to cut over existing cards in 3 weeks, then lying to customers by pretending this was an upgrade rather than something required by their issuer.

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#169
post #46

I'm surprised I'm hearing about it here before getting an email from them.

Thanks for using the product -- head of legal and compliance here. Emails are going out in phases. But if you log into your dashboard, you should be prompted to accept the new terms and re-issue any merchant locked cards. Some folks will already be on the new product if they signed up during our public beta period, so if you don't hear from us you're likely already on the new card types.

This is a serious failure of communication.

Re: Privacy.com Reissuing All Cards

#170
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has not been my experience and runs counter to their core product offering. Just my two cents.

So a privacy card you used for one merchant was denied by another merchant? And it wasn't due to them rejecting prepaid cards, setting your card to single-use, or setting too low of a dollar limit?

Correct. My cards are indeed locked to the original merchant that first charged something to the card.
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