[eksith]

It's a nightmare sometimes to cancel credit cards, especially if you're travelling.

There are some banks that simply won't cancel the card until you visit your local branch. A tricky maneuver when it's 2000 miles away (I don't know if they've changed this now). Likewise, there are things that are hard to find if you use your cards a lot and don't keep detailed receipts on everything you buy. This happened to me when I discovered someone's been deducting a small sum from my card for several months without me noticing as I was overseas. Of course they could only take care of the last charge before cancelling my card.

[crazygringo]

I have never heard of a credit card that couldn't be cancelled immediately by calling the number on the back of it. That's the whole point -- when a card is stolen, it has to be deactivated on the spot.

What bank would ever require a visit in person to deactivate your current card? That would be insane, since the bank would simply be opening itself up to more losses, since it (and not you) are responsible for fraudulent expenses.

[eksith]

It was actually a credit union. And yes it is crazy, but then so are a lot of their other practices. Also, I was calling them internationally so even though the private questions they asked me verified my identity, it was still an arduous process. The number of times I called to finally get the card cancelled actually made my long distance charges greater than the stolen value ($25).

Like I said, I don't know if they still do this.