2 months and counting to get replacement Paxum card!
 

I am now into week #9 of waiting for a lost card replacement from Paxum. This entire process has, in my opinion, turned into a fiasco. Surely this sort of delay cannot be an industry standard? I know it would not take this long to get a replacement for a lost bank card or standard Visa or MC credit card. Maybe this is standard for companies like Paxum? If it is, then they need to change that standard.

The moral of my story is: Under no circumstances should you lose your Paxum MC card, as you may never get another one.

August 24th was when I reported the card lost. As I previously posted, it was actually taken by an ATM because, the ATM said, I had entered the wrong PIN 3 times. In fact, I was only asked once for the PIN and only entered a PIN once, and the card was immediately taken.

At the time of reporting, Paxum advised that they cannot replace a lost card. They must, apparently, close that Mastercard account and open a new one, and a new account cannot be opened until all pending charges on the old account have cleared, which takes up to 30 days. So ... a month of waiting for a $1.50 pre-auth charge to be cancelled (the only pending charge on the acct) and numerous days extra go by with no word from Paxum and no new card arriving.

I contact Paxum AGAIN and am told that now they will start the process to create a new MC account and have a new card issued. That process took approx. TEN DAYS! The last update was that a new card had been "shipped" (I'm told from Montreal) on Oct. 12th. This is now Oct 24th, no card has arrived, and it does NOT take this long for mail to arrive within Canada from Montreal. I've contacted Chris @ Paxum AGAIN to ask for a confirmation that the card was shipped, as claimed, and how it was sent (e.g., is there a tracking #), but have yet to receive a response.

Yes, I realize that I could have requested a wire transfer or the issuance of a cheque, however, given my experience with trying to obtain a new card I'm very hesitant to allow Paxum to put my money into any form of transit (wire or mail) as, if something goes wrong and the money never makes it to me, I can only imagine what would be involved to try and get the $ traced and/or cheque stop payment order issued, and/or new cheque issued, etc. ... If it didn't, in fact, turn out that the money was lost entirely and I was told there was no way to recover it!

Hmm - I do not see any emails from you that I have not answered. I will be contacting you shortly.


Chris

Is that exactly what the ATM actually said, or is that what you assume?

Perhaps, instead, it was captured due to some other reason, such as being flagged as stolen, etc...

Before using your newly issued card, should it ever arrive, it would be prudent to determine exactly why the other card was captured to avoid further hassles...

There could be some compatibility issue and/or Paxum's database has problems - maybe the card number was issued twice / associated with two different accounts?

Ron

To address some of the other statements in your post tho.

Yes it is true that we can not issue you a new card if you have pending charges on your card that a merchant has not dropped off. That can take up to 30 business days. Once the pending charge was dropped from your account we issued you your new card.

It takes 3-4 weeks for cards to arrive. With that said - you should have any card any day now.

We offered you a free wire for you to get your money out but you declined and stated that you'd just wait for your new card knowing that it does take up to 30 days for a pending charge to drop off. It just depends on the merchant.

I hope that clears somethings up for you but again - i do not have any unanswered emails from you. The last email I have from you is from Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 8:54 PM and I answered Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 9:10 PM.


Regards
Chris

We have no control over if an ATM takes a users card.

My last email was dated Oct. 20, and addressed to [email protected] -- Did I have the wrong email address?

In any event, it simply asked you to please confirm if the card was, in fact, shipped and if so then how (e.g., do you have a tracking # for it?). If it was sent by regular postal mail, then hopefully it will arrive soon, as otherwise it will be necessary to have ANOTHER card issued and sent. If that becomes necessary then I think that yes I will have to opt for a wire transfer, as I cannot continue to wait additional weeks for another account to be created, another card to be "printed" (which took over a week) and then be mailed again.

I do appreciate your assistance, but surely this process and delays cannot be the standard level of service that Paxum is striving to provide.

Should have taken the wire... Would have taken 2 to 3 days.

Thanks to the debit card Gods, I now have -- 61 days after reporting the card lost -- a new Paxum card. It arrived late today.

If I should lose this card at some point, I definitely will be opting for a wire transfer or cheque via postal mail. But, I still feel that the real fact of the story is that there should not be this sort of delay, and that something needs to be changed within the system/process to ensure a better level of service to customers. A person completely new to Paxum could open a new account, and have their debit card processed and shipped to them in much less time. An existing long-term customer should be able to expect no less.

You're kidding right? Wow, that's not reassuring...

Please explain further, since I've personally never known anyone getting their non-Paxum card captured without the issuing bank being involved - ie. flagging the card, user exceeding a card issuer defined security limit (ie. suspicious activity, too many PIN tries, etc)...

So why is Paxum different ... or are you saying that all issuers have such little control - though that doesn't jibe with my experiences. I'm sure others here can chime in too, since your comment has me very mystified - can Paxum be trusted when they can't even make reasonable assurances the card will work; not get captured.

Ron

Sorry for the delay in responding. It was what the ATM said - that I had made 3 wrong PIN tries and the card had been "retained" by the bank. Subsequently Paxum advised that I should contact the bank to get it back, but the bank refused citing banking laws that prevent them from returning seized cards.

Umm, interesting. Seems that Paxum has some explaining to do!

And no, Paxum's last response they wrote above about them having no control over what the ATM does is not going to cut it ... because that's nonsense. So Paxum why did this happen?

From the info so far, the following two possibilities seem most likely...

* drriley's card was cloned by a thief, but the thief didn't get the PIN right - maybe their skimmer camera was partly obscured so they tried some educated guesses.

* Paxum's database has some issues; some cards associated with more than one account / person?

Ron

card pulled.

umm how about the obvious? he put in the wrong pin? happens often when people get new cards.

Yes, that frequently happens... But apparently not the issue here - the OP emphasizes that he only entered his PIN once and his card was immediately captured.

To digress a bit ... maybe the OP had entered the PIN wrong multiple times on one or more previous ATM / POS (point-of-sale) transactions and maybe was already exceeded 3 PIN attempts without even realizing it. Don't know? Wondering out loud here, because card capture after one PIN entry seems extraordinary and mystifying.

Ron

Two lessons learned here:

1) Only use your card at ATMs or POS (point of sale) where you swipe and never take your fingers off the card.

2) If withdrawing cash only use the ATM at your bank. They should have the new machine style (that swipes). Also they are your best chance at resolution if something goes wrong.

Glad you got your new card.

That's what I think I will start to do - use an ATM, at the gas station near me, where it is a simple swipe of the card, and not having to put the card in the machine and let it retain or return it to me.

I never thought of using my Paxum card at POS/debit terminals in stores. Can I do that? What do I answer when it asks me which account I want to use (e.g., Chequing or Savings) as there is no 'other' or 'credit card' option at POS. At least, not where I am located there isn't.