Visa has cards that expire in 00- didn't think possible

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I have read on many web sites that if and when Visa or MasterCard offered credit cards that expired after 2000, the y2k problem would likely be solved. Visa now offers such a card and my skeptical older brother is making fun of my dire y2k predictions.

Is the problem with oo expiration dates solved re: credit cards.

someone please advise

-- charles perry (cperryatl@aol.com), April 22, 1998

Answers

I have had a VISA credit card with an "00" expiration date, as well as a Mobil Oil card with a "01" expiration date, for almost a year. I have never had a problem with using either card, nor have I experienced any billing problems.

-- Paul Bender (pbender@pei.wabco-rail.com), April 22, 1998.

I have been accepting '00' and '01' cards at my business for some time. This single fact has little to do with y2k in general. It's like a mechanic on the Titanic saying "I found a new rivet, are we still going to sink?"

-- art welling (artw@lancnews.infi.net), April 22, 1998.

My wife bought something from the local Superstore with a '00' visa. At first-no problem. But then she tried to return it, and was sent to a a different counter. The new counter would not accept the card. She could not return the stuff! She then went home and called visa and they were very upset and fixed everything. This is the only problem I've heard about.

-- jan czarnecki (czarneck@tbaytel.net), April 22, 1998.

I have a 01/01 expiration Visa. Sometime's it's accepted, sometimes it's declined. It's been declined with a zero balance.

When a store or other unit runs the card they are not necessarily calling either Visa or MC. When I take a credit card in my business, I have to clear the card with my own bank. My guess is that whether or not the card is accepted depends on the path taken in order to verify the account. I should begin noting where the card is declined and where it's accepted. That might tell me a bit about bank systems.

-- dealton lewis (omb00782@mail.wvnet.edu), April 23, 1998.


It would be interesting to see percentages of card issued for 99, 00, and 01 and later. I have a hunch (totally speculative) that a *small* percentage of cards have been cut for 00 and 01, to be used as probes. Let the unlucky few find out the hard way where the noncompliant weak links are, then fix 'em, and *then* deploy mass quantities of 00 and 01 (and higher).

At least that's how *I* would do it if I were in charge.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.nospam.com), April 24, 1998.



For the past several years I have noticed that my Visa card always expires every two years from date of issue. I recieved my new card in Febuary 98. Guess what? It expires on the last day of 12-99. I found this very interesting.

-- Greg Wiatt (gwiatt@northlink.com), April 24, 1998.

Most of my cards expire in 99, but on checking I discovered that this was just the normal pattern for those cards. However, one card came in last week with an 02 expiration. I used it last night at three different merchants with no problem at any of them.

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@compuserve.com), April 24, 1998.

It is a Verifone problem - not a bank problem! Some merchants still have older Verifone credit card authorization machines that contain ROM chips that are several versions back from the most recent. For ROM chip versions before 1995, it was a security measure to have denied 00 or greater because cards were NOT issued with an expiration date that far in advance (5 yrs), because of banking standards.

The reason banks reissued cards with 99, was so the cards would work with the older Verifones. When enough merchants upgraded their terminals, the banks then continued with the normal process of issuing cards with the normal future expiration dates. Yes there are many cards out there with 02 already.

This was a simple end user ("front end" in networking terms) problem, even though it caused a lot of uproar - along with a lot of Y2K end of the world screaming! If it was a Y2K anomaly or "bank problem", why then when the Verifone machines failed did a phone call to the bank work? The customer service bank reps that answered the phone calls and verified those "00" cards tapped into the network, that Verifone was unable to, and authorized the cards.

Food for though: what year did banks first start issuing credit cards with 00? If you know the year you will know that banks have been on top of the issue for some time.

-- Jack Eddy (jeddy@iname.com), July 30, 1998.


Embedded chips failing ...... hmmmm.

My VISA/ATM card is accepted manually someplaces, rejected electrically at others, and vice-versa. Welcome to Clinton - Al Gore's bridge to the 21st century.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 01, 1998.


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