But I get ahead of yourself, why would your bank just change all of your bank numbers? There are three possible reasons. First, there is some fraud activity detected and they have to change your numbers to ensure there aren’t on-going issues. Second, they misaddress account information and so send all of your account numbers to another customer which shouldn’t be but is a potential security risk. Third, they send you a new card with upgraded security. Fourth, they just decided to change your credit card account and give you two new credit cards with different numbers so that you can continue to take advantage of a frequent flyer reward program that something has changed with. And here is the good bit. All four have happened to me over the past couple of years! And I am still with the nab.

The first one — fraud — seems reasonable enough. This is what you want to happen. Of course, you would like to find out via a phone call (say like this one) rather than going from store to store and wondering why your card — even the normal ATM/EFTPOS — doesn’t function, thinking it was broken, eventually calling up to find that the whole lot has been cancelled and you should have a new card in a week which is all very well except that you don’t have any money! That was our experience late last year. But I digress.

The second reason — a mistake — I guess happens. It is a pain but when they waive your annual fee for the year, it makes up for it a bit. Of course, why having your numbers is enough for someone to get at your money is another matter but who am I to argue. That happened to us a couple of years ago and we changed all of our numbers.

The third reason — security — sounds like a good idea. Except that they don’t change your credit card number (good) but change your expiry date (bad) forcing all of those direct debits to be set up again. What is more this happens before reason number one (fraud) and so it makes you wonder whether the security was worth it.

The final reason — random bank choice! — is ridiculous. You can imagine how thrilled I was to receive a letter a couple of weeks ago informing me that sometime in April my current MasterCard will be cancelled (this is the one that had to change all of the direct debits for just a few months ago) and I would be getting a new one plus a nab branded American Express card that, apparently I am supposed to trust them on this, will offer great benefits. I tried to stop this from happening but was informed that that wasn’t possible. So the new cards arrived and later new pins. And so now I had two cards rather than one with one common credit limit that look almost identical but only one of them can be used for ATM/EFTPOS (i.e., not AmEx) and to stop you from throwing that one out it gets 2 points per $2 (up to $3000 and 1 point per $2 up to $10,000 and then they want you to stop using it after that lest you feel too rewarded) as opposed to per $3 on the MasterCard. Oh, and by the way, those threshold purchases are calculated on your total credit card purchases across two accounts so don’t think of trying to get more by spreading purchases. Actually, for Qantas purchases I can earn 1 point for every $1 spent regardless of account and with no limit. That is good because I had an American Express card (which was useful for when they canceled my nab ones periodically) which no longer has a Qantas frequent flyer program because, I presume, of this nab deal.

Alas, by the time I worked all that out I was too exhausted to work out how to change banks. So they have got away with it except that I am now venting here. Well done, nab cards division!

And in terms of purchases, the nab AmEx is being shelved and since I have it anyway, I think I’ll cancel my AmEx card (since I have to pay an extra fee to have that). I guess the big winner here will be MasterCard and the loser AmEx.