New credit card keeps not arriving. Now what?

April 11, 2025 9:34 AM

I am trying to get a replacement card sent from my US bank to a US address. They have now sent it out three times and it never arrives. They said the first card someone tried to use for fraud. The other two simply never were attempted to activate. The bank has no mechanism for getting my new card to me besides sending it out by regular mail.

Any suggestions at all what to do? Address has been checked, repeatedly. That is not the problem. Any suggestions gratefully received.

posted by frumiousb to Work & Money (16 answers total)

Put a vacation hold on your mail, until after the window for the cards delivery and then go get everything from the post office.
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:37 AM on April 11 [22 favorites]

Response by poster: oh, that is possible!
posted by frumiousb at 9:43 AM on April 11

Could they post to a branch of your bank, rather than your home address?
posted by chr at 10:04 AM on April 11

Can they send certified mail so you have to sign for it?
posted by greta simone at 10:15 AM on April 11 [1 favorite]

If you are in a location that supports it, you can sign up for the USPS Informed Delivery Program. They send you photos of your packages and mail that are to be delivered. At least this way you'd know if the cards are disappearing prior to getting to your local post office, which is information the card company can use.

If you do have a local branch of the bank issuing the card, then as chr said above, have them send it to the bank branch.

Otherwise, the suggestion to put a hold on your mail so you have to pick it up in person is a good alternative until the card arrives.
posted by drossdragon at 10:18 AM on April 11 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: They have said they cannot send it to the local branch, nor can they send any other way than regular post. I offered to pay for a courier, even.
posted by frumiousb at 10:20 AM on April 11

If you do the vacation hold and it still doesn’t work then the problem is either inside the bank (unlikely, printing and mailing are pretty automated) or inside the post office so you may want to file a formal complaint with the USPS.
posted by aramaic at 10:22 AM on April 11 [5 favorites]

Something similar happened to me when my local bank, a credit union, needed to send my husband and me a new debit card. He received his immediately. I did not. I requested a second one and did not receive that one either. Nor the third.

I went into the branch and waited to speak with a manager. She listened to me and looked into her system deeper than anyone did prior and found that although I was a joint holder on the account, and the account had my correct address on it, I did not have a member/customer profile in their system. They were pushing the button to send a new card to Kim Russell, but Kim Russell didn't have an address, so the process never finished. The manager completed my profile and I had a new card in 3 days.

All of this to say that they may have checked the address on the account and it is correct, but perhaps there is no address or a bad address associated with you.

Good luck! I know how frustrating this is.
posted by kimberussell at 10:33 AM on April 11 [19 favorites]

Rent a PO box for a month or two and have it sent there. That would eliminate the possibility of someone dipping into your home mailbox, anyway.

Bummer about not sending it to a branch. The credit union I'm with can actually print a new card on-site.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:25 AM on April 11 [3 favorites]

As ApathyGirl pointed out above you can have the US Post Office hold your mail until a date you specify, and then go there and pick it up. But what we just did for our last vacation was to specify that the Post Office just resume normal delivery after that date, which worked. I realize the former solution is probably more appropriate for your current situation. And, of course, the way the US Federal Government has been going who knows how long until USPS is privatized.
posted by forthright at 2:03 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

I used to deal with lost diplomas and sometimes the diploma would just NOT BE DELIVERED TO THEIR HOUSE for anything, no matter what we did, after multiple tries. They would get all the rest of their mail, the address would be correct, but it would just never deliver. Have you tried asking the post office about the situation? (Not sure if it would help, but it probably won't hurt.)

I'd say "have the card mailed to someone else" at this point, except I bet the company balks at that too :/ The vacation hold thing sounds like the best shot, though.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:16 PM on April 11

How long have you been living at your current address?

I had a weird thing happen with my last bank in the UK, and was trying to get one of those security keyfob things for online banking secure access 2FA.

There was an expected delay of a few weeks from time of the new keyfob request to it going out for delivery, so it was always a challenge to know when it definitely hadn't been delivered. So about 2-3 months later I would try again, and then wait.
This went on for over a year.

The people on the phone banking kept checking my address as correct, and assured me it was absolutely going to the correct location. All details everywhere I could track down were up-to-date, including physical bank statements that were still arriving at the right place. But for multiple re-attempts of getting a keyfob that never arrived, we finally tracked down why:

I'd moved house a couple of years before, and for whataever reason the computer system on the outgoing mailroom for those security keyfobs hadn't updated to my new address, despite it being correct everywhere else in the banks systems.

So I wonder if something similar may be happening to you.
posted by many-things at 9:54 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

When I was out of town for an extended period, my bank was able to create a temporary address and send cards to me there. So you could ask about that (friend's address or whatever).

More extreme, you could rent a PO Box for a month, either at the post office or another mail handler like the UPS store.

Looks like the smallest PO box at USPS is about $60 for 3 months. So, not the least expensive option but might work.
posted by flug at 1:12 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]

They have said they cannot send it to the local branch

Just a quick comment on this aspect...for many years, I used to have my paper checks (remember those?) sent to my local Wells Fargo branch. At the time, this seemed like a moderately uncontroversial thing to do--I could stop by the branch in person, they'd have the checks in a spot in the vault, no problem for someone to retrieve them, check my ID, hand them to me, and I'd be on my way.

What's different today? After Covid, that local bank branch has more cobwebs than people. A teller or two in the drive-up, a security guard...and that's it. Dusty, abandoned cubicles. They don't even keep most of the lights on in the interior. Branch banking services never really came back after 2020. That might be a factor, if your bank won't offer pickup at a branch.
posted by gimonca at 9:23 AM on April 12

I forgot to suggest praying to St. Anthony. That's worked for me on some lost packages :P
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:30 AM on April 12

I've had card delivery problems a couple of times with my credit union. I solved one case by going to an actual branch where they were able to make a card for me, and the other they sent via a courier service when the mailing didn't work. I don't believe them being "unable" to do anything but postal service for these, they just don't want to expend the effort and hope it'll get you off the phone quicker.
posted by Aleyn at 4:49 PM on April 12