There’s no time to lose

Young people are worst at misplacing credit cards, writes Sophie Elsworth

HITTING the town on the weekend or kicking up their heels on a public holiday often results in Australians losing their debit or credit cards, a new study has revealed.

Alarming new research by the nation’s biggest lender, the Commonwealth Bank, found that in the past 12 months more than 689,000 customers have reported a card as lost or stolen.

And Australians aged between 31 and 40 are the worst offenders; they are most likely to be owners of the 1890 cards that go missing every day.

Some may think downing a few too many glasses of sauvignon blanc or pints of beer may be to blame for wallets and lost pieces of plastic going walkabout, but the most common day to report a card missing is Tuesday.

CBA’s executive general manager of digital Pete Steel said cardholders can spend days hunting for their card before they call their financial institution and cancel it.

“The more we use our cards the more likely we are to accidentally misplace them,’’ he said. “Just a couple of years ago we would use cash to pay for public transport, lunches and our daily coffee.

“Now we use our cards for all purchases, big and small.”

CBA rolled out a lock, block and limit feature on its smartphone app, allowing customers to put a temporary lock on a misplaced card while they go on a mad hunt for it.

Figures show over the past year more than

80,000 customers have used this app feature and of those, 25 per cent turned off their feature once they were reunited with their card.

The Australian Banking Association’s chief executive officer Diane Tate urges customers to contact their bank as soon as they realise they have misplaced their card.

“This will enable your bank to put a stop on your card immediately so that no one else can use it and get access to your money,’’ she said. “Most banks have a 24-hour telephone number for reporting lost cards – it’s a good idea to keep a record of this number handy at all times, just in case.”

She also said many banks will allow customers to put a stop on their card online or use the bank’s app to do this at any time.

“After you’ve put a stop on your card, make sure you check your statements to make sure there’s been no unauthorised transactions,’’ Ms Tate warned.

Some banks also enable customers to use a new card before they receive the physical card in the post.

Depending on a bank’s capability, sometimes they can hand over the new card’s details so the customer can upload this information into their digital wallet and be immediately able to make transactions.

Mr Steel said customers sometimes have to wait up to seven business days for a new card to arrive depending on where they live.