So a while ago I wrote about how PC Financial has changed which service provider they use for Credit Cards (from CIBC to the Royal Bank from what I can tell), and that is causing some interesting ramifications for those who use the PC MasterCard (like yours truly).
The first noticeable change was the interface with the online banking site (new password, new userid, etc.,), which was annoying, but I got used to it, and it all seemed to be chugging along happily.
The next part I hadn’t thought about, but now I have more information it makes perfect sense: I downloaded my latest set of transactions and attempted to import them into Quicken, and Quicken kept asking “Which account would you like these transactions added to?”. This vexed me, because it would not let me import them into what I thought was my MasterCard Quicken account, I eventually decided to wait and see if I could figure out a smart way to fix this (i.e. think about it, or procrastinate, maybe it would fix itself).
Then I got a letter last week (from PC Financial) that said because I was such a great customer I would get a Brand New MasterCard, which made me wonder a bit, but I thought no more about it.
Yesterday my new card arrived, I activated it over the phone, and thought no more of it. This morning I went online to look at my PC MasterCard transactions and looked at the account number being shown on the site (the last 4 digits only to be secure) and it looked wrong. Sure enough I looked at a receipt in my wallet, and the last 4 digits did not look the same at all. I then look at my e-statement for this month and it was different too?
Finally, the other shoe dropped (figuratively). I looked at my brand spanking new MasterCard. Sure enough, it had a completely new number (including the service provider ID section of the number at the beginning), so now my MasterCard is with the new credit service provider (RBC I think). Still, now I end up with a couple of interesting questions:
- If I paid yesterday to my old account number (online), is it credited to the new account? My assumption would be yes, it will, but how long will that grace period last?
- What about the 1 thing that I allow to debit automatically every month from the old account number? I think I need to change that fairly soon too
I guess I am lucky I noticed that, is there anything else I might have forgotten here?
In Quicken, right-click on your credit card account in the list and choose account properties.
Click on unlink the account from the online service. Now when you next download transactions from your bank website the unlinked account will show up in the “what account would you like to link this to?” list.
This will let you preserve the quicken account when the account number changes, in this case, or where your card # changes due to a fraud alert.
I’m in a similar situation.
My new PC mastercard arrived, with the new number, and it’s all fancy and black.
I have not activated it yet, and for a few weeks I’ve been using the old card and paying bills to the old number all without trouble.
I’m using this at a great opportunity to switch to a card with better rewards, since I’ve got to change my number anyway.
I’m going with the Capital One Aspire Cash World MasterCard – for me it’s the winner.
$120 yearly fee for multiple cards
1.5% cash back, plus 20% bonus at the end of the year.