How to shut off a credit card

Don't ask Bancorp South.

I used to have a bank account with them, as well as a credit card I used for business trips. That changed recently.

It started out when some bunghole in California guessed my wife's old check card number. This card (as well as one in my name) at the time were supposedly shut off in January of 2011 by the bank. Bancorp South issued us newer, more improved cards with new features, and these old cards were rendered useless...

...or so we thought...

The thieves ran up a bunch of fraudulent charges. We contacted the bank, and the funds were restored. Then more fraudulent charges, even though we ordered the bank to completely shut off the card (since they obviously hadn't done that to begin with). The bank restored those.

Then, this past weekend, we had another $1100 of bogus charges applied. The bank kept on making excuses as to how these thieves were making charges apply to a card that was shut down, but none of the excuses match with what other banks or credit card companies say. In the end, the bank said that these thieves kept running the card over and over until they forced the charges onto the card.

What exactly was the point of "closing" the card then???

So, since the bank knows how to close a card, but evidently does not know how to keep the card closed... I am forced to switch banks. New bank seems to be perfectly OK.

Kinda reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where he tries to rent a car, and the car rental company ran out of cars. They knew how to make the reservation, just not how to keep the reservation.


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