Issues With Citi Virtual Account Numbers

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• Same issue is still occuring, merchants are able to charge in excess of the daily limit, on cards that are expired. Something is clearly broken here.

• I've been running into issues with VANs on my Citi card as well. I have the physical card sitting in a safe and figured the VAN was a good safer method. Well, some fraudulent charges came about (on the VAN). Citi went ahead and cancelled the card and said once I get the new one I should be good to go.

  Fast forward,I have the new physical card, a week later more fraudulent charges show up from the same last 4 of the VAN. Citi said they made sure to remove the VAN this time and sent a new card (which I have not even received yet, and while I cannot see it in the Citi mobile app or website another round of fraudulent charges (this time at a retailer in France) have popped up.

  Spent a good couple of hours on the phone and they want to cancel the card I haven't received and issue a new card so now this VAN is stuck somewhere in the ether with people buying crap from a designer clothing store in France. Mean while I cannot "lock" the card because I don't have a replacement at this point to even activate and Citi's customer support is abysmal.

  I have never had a recurring charge or subscription on this card, ever.

• I've personally had great success with CapitalOne and their Eno chrome extension. Makes making virtual numbers easy and I've never had any of these issues with them.

• Happened to me with Norton ...used a Citi virtual acct , but stil got chrged for renewal

• If you're the kind of person who forgets to cancel subscriptions (or prefers not to keep track of them), privacy.com is a great resource. You link a bank account and then you can create any number of virtual visa cards and set value limits or make them one-time-only cards. Downside is you don't earn credit card points (or Chase Offers, etc.) and the charges process immediately (i.e., no 30 day float). It has saved my bacon from unscrupulous subscription services more than once.

  • The thing is that what you're describing is exactly what Citi's VAN is supposed to do, what's the use of it if it's going to allow any transaction regardless of the current status of the card or max spending limit?

  • I signed up for a Gannett newpaper promo of $1 for 6 months with a virtual Citi card, and my virtual card was billed by the merchant six months later at the regular subscription price. With a few annoying phone calls, I got it removed, but it negated the whole point of the virtual card!

• Mastercard Automatic Billing Updater: can't stop, won't stop

  Also, relying on a CC issuer to be the mechanism to stop paying a subscription is asking the wolf to protect your sheep. And even if you did manage to get payments to stop, that doesn't mean the biller won't send you to collections.

  Cancel your subscriptions the "right" way and you won't have any nasty surprises.

  • That only a reasonable excuse if in previous occasions or months you were charged a similar amount o what you're being charged now, if from the moment you created your VAN the amount is less than what the merchant is charging you then the transaction absolutely should NOT go through

  • I agree that one shouldn't rely on these mechanisms to effectively cancel subscriptions. However, the fact that consumers have such little control over how companies retain payment information (especially with regards to the payment networks updaters as you mentioned!), is downright criminal IMO. Some companies will save any payment ever used with no way to delete; then, if your account is past due, they will use any historical card to try to collect. I believe Sprint has done this in the past.

    • oh most definitely. The total lack of control is anti-consumer at best and predatory at worst. People should be able to cancel and close their subscriptions/accounts in the same manner as sign up. Wish we all lived in CA.

      • Wishing that you can pay tens if not hundreds of thousands more in taxes each year (not to even mention COL and other factors) in order to get the false sense of security that you'd be able to cancel your $90 subscription?

• I've also had an issue of not being able to view my VANs for one card even though I can see it for my other card.

• Just to confirm, those virtual card cannot be added to apple pay, correct?

• Recommend locking Citi credit cards, enabling app notifications, and email alerts until Citi/Mastercard fixes this issue.

  This will block new purchases and cash advances. However, recurring transactions, payments, balance transfers and credits will still go through.

• lol this feature was too useful in an increasingly subscription based economy.