Bank of Amer. - Shop Safe - Discontinuing

[joesxm3]

Do any of you use the Bank of America "Shop Safe" feature that lets you generate a one-time use credit card number that is linked back to your main credit card?

This week it stopped letting me create new numbers. Whenever I tried I got an "update in progress. You may continue to use existing numbers" message.

Today I contacted BOA tech support and they told me that there was a new update that seems to have gone sour and that "Shop Safe" can't keep up with newer browser features etc. etc.

Bottom line, assuming I can believe what I was told, is that I will never be able to create a new virtual credit card number. So, effectively, "Shop Safe" is toast.

Is anyone else having problems?

I hate BOA and would consider applying for a different credit card if it offered a similar feature. Being FIRE'd, with no earned income, I am not sure if it would be a problem getting a new card.

I thought someone a while ago told me that Capitol One had a similar feature, but will have to look into that.

Anyway, I figured I would mention the problems and see if others with BOA are also having problems.

Thanks.

Joe

[Sunset]

I love BOA.
Combine the BOA credit cards with a Merrill Edge account and the savings and rewards are incredible.

I don't use Shop Safe as too much hassle, and it's not my liability anyhow.

I've been out of work for years (retired)

I get a new credit card every year, sometimes two, and cancel out any new one before a fee is charged (if they have one).

[Red Badger]

Big banks have no soul. The few remaining small ones might have a little soul. I moved to a credit union years ago. Only have my mortgage at WF because 2 3/8% is untouchable today.

I too have opened several reward cards in retirement. CC's don't care about income, just your FICO score.

[HpRyder]

I also am having the BoA Shop Safe problem. If it continues after I return from overseas vacation I'll look for another Visa card with this feature or have to shift to a Master Card with this feature. Shop safe was the major reason I selected BoA Visa after the old Fidelity sponsored Visa card was dropped for Elan which doesn't have a virtual card feature.

[SumDay]

I pay one bill with my BOA credit card each month, just to keep it active so I can use ShopSafe. I especially like it when I am shopping with an online presence I'm not familiar with.

Just tried using it on my TWO MONTH old laptop, and it worked fine. Also tried it on my back-up SEVEN YEAR old laptop, and I could not generate one. Just thought I'd throw that into the mix.

[thefinancebuff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by joesxm3 Bottom line, assuming I can believe what I was told, is that I will never be able to create a new virtual credit card number. So, effectively, "Shop Safe" is toast. Is anyone else having problems?

Just tried it in the latest Chrome browser, version 73.0.3683.103 (Official Build) (64-bit). No problem with generating a new virtual number. It's not discontinuing or toast.

[joesxm3]

Well, after seeing the posts regarding newer equipment I tried it on my Windows 10 computer, which is about a year old. I tried it with Microsoft Edge and the latest Chrome version. After a couple hick-ups authorizing Adobe Flash to run, Shop Safe was able to run on this machine. However, while most of Shop Safe works, I still get the "update in progress" message when I try to do a new number.

One possibility is that I have a very old credit card account. I don't know how things work under the covers, but maybe BOA has credit cards with more than one back-end supplier and the problem is with Shop Safe interfacing to the out of date card processor.

[audreyh1]

I usually use PayPal if I can. Most times I can.

[sengsational]

ShopSafe is build on creaky old Adobe Flash. Various browsers have been trying to remove Flash from the face of the earth because it's been and continues to be full of exploitable bugs.


That means that if ShopSafe doesn't work, it's probably because Flash doesn't work. Flash probably doesn't work because your browser is trying to protect you from the hot mess that Flash is. Or BofA is not running Flash on your version of browser because it's an exploitable combination or not known to be trustworthy.



You should be on the latest browser (help > about > update will typically get you up to date). You might get Flash working again if you find your Flash plug-in and check it's default setting (could be "run never", or "warn me", or "run automatically", whatever). If you can't find that setting, delete the Flash plug-in and re-install it, and see if that helps. I googled and found a couple of pages: Firefox flash page. Chrome flash page.

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset I love BOA. Combine the BOA credit cards with a Merrill Edge account and the savings and rewards are incredible. I don't use Shop Safe as too much hassle, and it's not my liability anyhow. I've been out of work for years (retired) I get a new credit card every year, sometimes two, and cancel out any new one before a fee is charged (if they have one).

Bolded by me - +1 CC rewards up to 5.25%.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational ShopSafe is build on creaky old Adobe Flash. Various browsers have been trying to remove Flash from the face of the earth because it's been and continues to be full of exploitable bugs. That means that if ShopSafe doesn't work, it's probably because Flash doesn't work. Flash probably doesn't work because your browser is trying to protect you from the hot mess that Flash is. Or BofA is not running Flash on your version of browser because it's an exploitable combination or not known to be trustworthy. You should be on the latest browser (help > about > update will typically get you up to date). You might get Flash working again if you find your Flash plug-in and check it's default setting (could be "run never", or "warn me", or "run automatically", whatever). If you can't find that setting, delete the Flash plug-in and re-install it, and see if that helps. I googled and found a couple of pages: Firefox flash page. Chrome flash page.

Oh well - that rules it out. I booted any Adobe Flash stuff off my computer years ago.

[Golden sunsets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset I love BOA. Combine the BOA credit cards with a Merrill Edge account and the savings and rewards are incredible. I don't use Shop Safe as too much hassle, and it's not my liability anyhow. I've been out of work for years (retired) I get a new credit card every year, sometimes two, and cancel out any new one before a fee is charged (if they have one).

I'm with you on all of your statements but the last. I find great value with BOA with respect to CC's and the multiplier of points earned when you have the max in BOA/ML accounts. No maintenance fees on any accounts. Free trades at ML and a free safety deposit box. I love the platform that allows me to go between BOA and ML accounts from one gateway. But the last statement on new cards every year illudes me. We have 3 cards, a Cash Back, a Travel and a Premium. The first two have no annual fee and the third charges the fee from the get go, so no free first year and as an offset provides $100 credit annually against airline fees for baggage and a $100 credit annually for a global entry card, which more than offset the annual $95 fee.. So what cards from BOA do you have that have a fee that is not assessed until after one year.

[Dtail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden sunsets I'm with you on all of your statements but the last. I find great value with BOA with respect to CC's and the multiplier of points earned when you have the max in BOA/ML accounts. I love the platform that allows me to go between BOA and ML accounts from one gateway. But the last statement on new cards every year alludes me. We have 3 cards, a Cash Back, a Travel and a Premium. The first two have no annual fee and the third charges the fee from the get go, so no free first year and as an offset provides $100 credit annually against airline fees for baggage and a $100 credit annually for a global entry card, which more than offset the annual $95 fee.. So what cards from BOA do you have that have a fee that is not assessed until after one year.

Was wondering the same thing.
I have 3 cash rewards, 1 Travel and 1 Premium. I use 3 to maximize the 2,500 quarterly limits for the special categories.

[Chuckanut]

Capital One has their ENO system that generates numbers for use by one company only.

[copyright1997reloaded]

Citibank has virtual credit card numbers.

Side note regarding flash: I remember the uproar when Apple (Steve Jobs) penned his "Thoughts on Flash" letter in April 2010 which explained why Apple was moving away from flash.

Yet here we are.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden sunsets I'm with you on all of your statements but the last. I find great value with BOA with respect to CC's and the multiplier of points earned when you have the max in BOA/ML accounts. No maintenance fees on any accounts. Free trades at ML and a free safety deposit box. I love the platform that allows me to go between BOA and ML accounts from one gateway. But the last statement on new cards every year illudes me. We have 3 cards, a Cash Back, a Travel and a Premium. The first two have no annual fee and the third charges the fee from the get go, so no free first year and as an offset provides $100 credit annually against airline fees for baggage and a $100 credit annually for a global entry card, which more than offset the annual $95 fee.. So what cards from BOA do you have that have a fee that is not assessed until after one year.

Sorry for the confusion, the CC that I get and cancel yearly are not BOA cards, rather just other cards like Barclay Arrival Plus, Citi AA, etc. all of which charge a yearly fee after the free year.

I keep a core set of cards, and BOA CASH and Travel are in that set, along with a BOA rewards card that is very very old.

[joesxm3]

Well, after not working for a week and being told it would never work again for me, I just tried Shop Safe and it is once again allowing me to generate new numbers.

More stellar service from BOA.

Incidentally, I considered applying for one of their newer cards and asked which credit bureau they would be checking. They told me to unfreeze all three, which is not very convenient.

[mh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by joesxm3 Well, after seeing the posts regarding newer equipment I tried it on my Windows 10 computer, which is about a year old. I tried it with Microsoft Edge and the latest Chrome version. After a couple hick-ups authorizing Adobe Flash to run, Shop Safe was able to run on this machine. However, while most of Shop Safe works, I still get the "update in progress" message when I try to do a new number. One possibility is that I have a very old credit card account. I don't know how things work under the covers, but maybe BOA has credit cards with more than one back-end supplier and the problem is with Shop Safe interfacing to the out of date card processor.

It requires flash ? Hmm . That would make me not want to use it. Flash has not been the most stable / secure thing over the years IMO

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mh It requires flash ? Hmm . That would make me not want to use it. Flash has not been the most stable / secure thing over the years IMO

Flash will no longer be supported starting next year. Everyone should have already switched to HTML5, but alas, there are still about a jillion websites that haven't.

[Snafu]

had a few glitches setting up the account (did not have my mobile number in my profile, and it took a couple weeks not to be flagged as a new/unidentified number), but it has been working pretty smoothly so far (on Chrome browser only, I believe). Not sure how BOA's system works, but ENO allows you to easily go in and "manage" your accounts to see which companies and what their dedicated "randomly generated" account numbers are. According to the literature, when your card expires, new numbers will automatically be generated for all the existing random card numbers.