Weird debit card issue

[Invitingtheories]

Something really odd happened while I was helping my DM make an online purchase today and I wondered if anyone else has had the same experience? DM was at my house and needed to order her dogs medication from her usual online supplier so we did it together (she's not very confident with online purchases) on my phone.

We logged in to her account with the supplier, uploaded the prescription and placed the order and then came to the payment page and found her card details were auto filled, which would be fine except that she had a new card a week ago and hasn't used it online, let alone with this particular website. She had reported her old card lost (she did find it in the end but had already cancelled it and ordered a new one) so it was a brand new card number and in any case she never saves card details when shopping online so they shouldn't even have had the old number, let alone the new one that she'd never used! I haven't seen her since she had the new card until today, she's never given me the card number and it's never been entered into my phone for anything so not saved on my device either.

She's rung the bank, and the supplier and both are completely baffled, as are we. As I understand it, and the bank said the same, what happened can't happen, but it did. Has this happened to anyone else, or can anyone explain how it could have happened?

Did she attempt to order it before she asked you for help? If she had somehow entered the information but not completed the transaction and then asked you to help her, it's possible that her card details were saved in your google account (or similar). They can't have turned up there on their own, so it must have been due to an earlier attempt at entering them somewhere.

I know that with an iPhone when you get a replacement card it adds it to your Apple wallet straight away, before you even get the card. I cancelled a card a few years ago and the details were changed on my wallet almost instantly. I’m guessing it would be the same on Android.

No, she literally hadn't been on that website since the dogs last prescription, 3 months ago (using her old card) and never on my phone. The only thing she had entered the new card number on was Amazon and she didn't actually buy anything, just updated her new card details and that was on her laptop at home, not on my phone. This is why we're so baffled, there's no way this could/should happen, but it has!

My new card, that I haven't even received yet was updated on PayPal and Apple Pay a couple of days ago, the banks must be releasing that information to them as I haven't even got it yet

@PriamFarrl I've never had that happen with an Android phone.

DM doesn't have a smart phone, she only uses a laptop at home and this happened on my phone.

I have an iphone and my new card updated automatically to my apple wallet before I'd even taken it out of the envelope.

I don't use ApplePay but have just checked my wallet and the only card stored is my own debit card.

Could it be Amazon Pay. If she uploaded her details on to her Amazon account you can quite often use those details with 3rd parties to pay for goods.

The only two options were card payment and PayPal and we chose card payment so don't think it can be that, although happy to be corrected.

I had this earlier this year. I had a new debit card due, and some of my regular accounts actually had the card details before I had had the card - which totally confused me. But it was more than one, and it was ones that I had shopped with previously. If your phone was being used that wouldn't be relevant as it would still have been her account that she was logging in to and the details are held with the retailer, not the phone itself in these cases. There is soemthing called an account updater, and some retailers are using this system, which allows the registered cards (and I think other details too) to be updated through a link to your bank without you doing it. I believe that you can find the information about it in the tomes of small print, and that it can be turned off, but I don't know how. But it is a thing and it is legitimate - whether you want it or not is a different matter.

Apparently it's been going on for a long time and I only just fund out this year!
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jan/12/how-amazon-know-new-visa-card-information-before-me-natwest

Sorry, I know this is slightly OT but I always thought you weren’t supposed to use debit cards online - only credit cards?

Thank you so much Banditqueen12, that appears to have solved it then! We weren't really worried from a security perspective as the cvv number wasn't autofilled so we knew no one could access her money but it confused us both so much how it could have happened. Bit worrying that the bank didn't appear to know about it though, NatWest were adamant it couldn't happen!

I've never heard that, am I doing it wrong?

You can use debit cards on line, but they don't have the same protection as credit cards. But it's not "wrong". I use the credit card or PayPal mostly, but my debit card is on a few truste sites as there can be good reasons to use it too.

How? How does that happen?!