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6.1 Activating your credit card
In the last few years people receiving new issue credit cards have been required to activate them before they can be used. This is to prevent the card being used by fraudsters if it arrives at the wrong address or gets lost in the post.
When the credit card is received it will have a sticker on it with details of how to go through this activation process.
The principal cardholder has to ring the telephone number printed on the sticker; additional cardholders cannot activate the account for security reasons.
When you ring the number printed on the sticker the customer service representative will ask you to verify that you are who you say you are. To do this they will use prompt you to confirm elements of your security code. Usually banks won’t ask you for your entire security code, only for a couple of its digits/letters. This depends on the code being asked for.
If it is a password for telephone banking alone, you may be asked for the whole word or number. However, if it is a code used to access online banking they won’t ask for the entire password. They will NEVER ask you to give your PIN number. If they do, never give it to them because you are not meant to disclose your PIN number to anyone, not even staff members of your bank.
Once they have asked you for your security code they may ask you additional security questions such as your date of birth, or your mother’s maiden name.
If you answer these questions correctly you will then be asked what services you require and you just need to say that you wish to activate your new credit card. They will do this within seconds and your new credit card will be ready to use, once you have received your PIN number in the post.
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Please ensure that you fully read the terms & conditions of any product or policy before you decide to proceed and are fully aware of the total costs and the benefits and any exclusions or limitations applicable to the product or plan.
Please note that the product links will take you direct to the Issuer or Insurer's site direct and we cannot be held responsible for the information which they provide within their own sites. On some comparison tables we use a star rating which rates products by visitor popularity.