"Press 1 for..."

All my credit cards (well, the three that I carry) happen to expire the end of this month. (Which reminds me: I need to call MasterCard and ask them where my new card is. I hope they didn't send it and I just pitched it into the trash with all the other junk mail I get).

I decided to activate the new cards this morning. (Which also reminds me: I need to call one place I make an automatic monthly donation to on one of the cards and update the expiry date).

For the one visa, the one through my old credit union, all it required was that I call from my home phone, read off (or type in) the card number, and then I was ready to go. The other one, the Target visa (yes, I know: store cards are generally a rip-off but as I pay my card balance off in full every month, the interest rate doesn't matter to me), required me to not only punch in the full number, but also give the last for digits of my social security number (which I always have to stop and think about), and then enter the verification code on the back of the card. (All while calling from my HOME phone, and I am sure the number pops up in their computer and if it doesn't match the number on file, the card won't be verified).

It just struck me as interesting that two visa cards from different providers had such different rules about what needed to be done to verify them.

I also wonder what was done back in the days before widespread phone automation...I'm sure credit cards preceded that. Did people have to call during business hours and speak to a person? Or did the companies just trust that people got their new cards? Or did cards not expire as frequently? (Mine expire every 2 or 3 years, depending on the card).

Maybe fraud used to be less of a problem, I don't know. I remember back in the 1980s those little thin-paper booklets that the cashiers would have at their checkstands, and they would have to stop and look up the credit card numbers to be sure they weren't one of the "stolen" ones.

(Wow, can you imagine that happening today? There'd be brawls in the checkout lines at the grocery store. As I remember, far fewer people used credit cards to pay for just everyday stuff back in the 1980s)

It's strange when I think about how much stuff has changed even in my lifetime. When I was a kid, my parents had credit cards, but they really only used them for big stuff - like appliances. (Even when we traveled - they got Traveller's Checks). Now, if I'm buying a carton of milk and some bread and some vegetables, I pull out my credit card - because it's faster in most places than paying cash, I don't always carry a lot of cash on hand, and sometimes I get strange looks from cashiers when I do something like hand them $10.05 when I'm paying for $7.55 worth of groceries. (Also, we have a grocery sales-tax - which means that I'm paying 9.25% or thereabouts more on everything than what it's marked. Yes - state tax, local tax, extra-tax-to-pay-for-some-fancy-stuff-in-town-that-I-didn't-want-and-don't-use. And I think there's a ballot measure to raise the sales tax yet a bit more for something else, sigh.)

Also, there's now internet shopping. (And as soon as fresh-food delivery via internet order becomes a reality in my city, I will never set foot in a grocery store again.)

Of course, there's the downside to credit cards: lots and lots of people buying stuff they can't really afford, and winding up in debt for the rest of their lives. And in the weird backwards-world of credit cards, I get thought of as a "deadbeat," because I pay my bills in full every month (therefore generating no interest or late fees for the companies, and to this point at least, none of them have made any noises about charging me an annual fee to carry the card.)