Faster Than a Speeding Visa

Fast and Slow Financial Transactions

For a while I have been toying with filling the deadly trio of Credit Cards by getting myself a Visa card (to go with the Evil Twins of Amex and Mastercard), and I will outline why in another post, but for this story, it is sufficient to say that I applied On Line for a Visa Card, with my current bank.

To fill in the on line application was relatively simple, and it took me no more than 10 minutes. I made sure I set as low a credit limit as I could (I don’t need yet another possible place to hemorrhage more money if I lost my mind and started spending like a drunken sailor on furlough). I completed the application and then wondered just how long it would take before I saw my new Financial Liability in the mail.

I was astounded to see 2 days later that the credit account already appeared on my on line banking page. I checked and saw that the account seemed to be active, and I was even able to add my wife to the account relatively simply and thus we sat and waited to see when our brand spanking new cards might appear in the mail.

This all transpired in early July, and I am still waiting to see either my credit card or my wife’s in the mail. I suppose I could try to use my card without a physical card, although without the expiration date and whatever Magic Squirrel codes on the physical card, it’s not likely to work.

Has my card disappeared in the mail? I hope not, but I am watching my on line account to see if anything does happen, so I can pounce quickly to get the charges reversed (and more likely than not cancel this account).

I guess my bank is a victim of it’s own fastidiousness, because they were so quick to set up the account, I now feel that they should be equally fast printing and sending me my card, when in fact waiting for a month for a credit card is pretty much standard practice in the industry.