Do people really have the same credit card number for that long? I feel like every year I end up with a new card for one reason or another and suddenly I have to track down all the places that can no longer process my payments.

I learned that you can request a replacement card with the same number, which I was initially very excited about. But when you get the new card it has a different expiration date, so it still needs to be updated most places.

There's a process for some card providers by which merchants can automatically update their card details for recurring purchases. Visa calls it Account Updater and at least Braintree has had support for it for over a decade.

Well that would be super convenient for me. At this point I'm just slowly transitioning to always using my checking account number directly for payment since that is stable.

The risk with that is you have no ability to contest a charge. With a credit card, you can contest and the card issuer will do a chargeback to return the funds.

Netflix US charged our new Citibank credit card at least 3 times based on a fraudulent purchase (somehow someone had made a Netflix account with our credit card number).

On top of that it wasn't even activated because we'd stopped using Citibank to simplify our accounting and just hadn't cancelled entirely yet. Backdoors exist apparently for recurring charges that roll over onto new cards for "customer convenience" because you wouldn't want to miss your bills and lose access to Netflix.

In my (recent) experience, periodic charges are automatically applied to a new card, even if it has a new number. For your convenience, if you forgot to update your payment info...

Well I guess maybe I don't need to worry about it as much then. You'd think companies would do a better job informing people of that.

I think it's one of those things that doesn't necessarily happen when you want it to, but happens when you don't.

> it’s very difficult to “stop paying”.

"Hi, these are unauthorised, fraudulent transactions, please revert them and block future charges from that merchant"

That's all it takes with Amex and most others AFAICT.

Amex is particularly good at these things. Not in the last place because they have actual humans answering the phone and fixing things. On the other hand, their fees are much higher than the others so you're paying for it as well.

If you can charge-back, it will damage their credit each time.