Why do credit cards expire?
Q: What does your credit card have in common with a carton of milk? A: Both have an expiration date. But while it makes sense that dairy products go bad, what gives with the don’t-use-after date on plastic? The truth is that different companies include it for different reasons. But in most cases, issuing banks and credit card associations like MasterCard and Visa cite fraud protection and the lifespan of the magnetic strip as the main reasons to include an expiration date on cards. “It’s pretty much two reasons,” says Seth Eisen, spokesman for Visa USA. “The first is cardholder security, to protect against identity theft and fraud.” Betty Reiss, spokeswoman for Bank of America, agrees. “It provides another verification point,” she says. Expiration dates tend to be more effective as another layer of fraud protection when transactions are processed manually, says Lynne Strang, vice president of communications for the American Financial Services Association, a trade association for compan
