I've grown tired of having to get new Visa cards because my number keeps getting stolen. I know what you'll say, "You don't HAVE to get a new card, let the thief keep your number." :P Actually, it seems like I have no choice.

Yet another new Visa card arrived in the mail today, saying my old number was stolen or is vulnerable to theft. I can only guess that the same thing happened as last time I randomly received a new card in the mail - a massive bulk compromise of thousands or millions of cards forced the issuer to proactively replace all of them.

Aren't there certain cards which are less vulnerable to bank compromise, etc? My Discover card has only been replaced once (proactively, like this one). I'd heard that's because Discover doesn't use "merchant banks", meaning only Discover issues cards and is entirely responsible for safeguarding the numbers. Whereas the more popular Visa and Master Card are issued by any old bank who could be easily compromised.

Or maybe it wasn't large scale theft and only my card was compromised. I do use it online at tons of sites, large and small. I also use it in person at many placed, even having used it a few times in the UK earlier this month.

Oh well, gone are the days when I could actually keep the same account for longer than 9 months.