Faulty Mastercard hologram? (Santander)

jrawle

I recently received a replacement Santander Zero card, and when I turned it over, much of the Mastercard hologram appeared to be missing. I exected to see a world map with "Mastercard" in small latters all round the edges. Instead, the left hand side was just a flat silver circle (not holographic at all) and the right hand side had the holographic edging, but the middle was a smaller silver circle.

I phoned up and reported the damaged hologram, so was promised a new card. (Annoyingly, without warning, they cancelled the old one meaning a new number and not being able to use it in the meantime, but that's another story.)

The replacement card came today, but has the same "faulty" hologram. That made me wonder, is it supposed to look like this? Before I phone up for yet another replacement, please could anyone tell me whether this is right or not?

I don't want to risk having a defective card as this is the card I rely on when travelling, and may actually need to hand it to someone to pay in person.

Here is an image (this is the cancelled card, so I'm not worried about four digits being visible!)

TheShape

I've just checked 8 Mastercard Credit and Debit cards issued by banks other than Santander between 2016 and 2017 (none-newer than this) and they all look as you would expect them to look.

My Santander Credit Card issued in May 19 has the same 'half-printed' hologram as yours.

SnowTiger

jrawle wrote: »

The replacement card came today, but has the same "faulty" hologram. That made me wonder, is it supposed to look like this? Before I phone up for yet another replacement, please could anyone tell me whether this is right or not?

That's the new design.

I've had two cards issued recently from different banks with a similar hologram.

The hologram is probably more to do with branding than security these days.

Google suggests sheets of Mastercard and Visa holograms can be bought from China, so I guess it's no longer an important security feature.

boo_star

SnowTiger wrote: »

That's the new design.

I've had two cards issued recently from different banks with a similar hologram.

The hologram is probably more to do with branding than security these days.

Google suggests sheets of Mastercard and Visa holograms can be bought from China, so I guess it's no longer an important security feature.

The hologram was only really useful when cheque guaranteeing was a thing.

nick74

boo_star wrote: »

The hologram was only really useful when cheque guaranteeing was a thing.

And probably 25+ years ago when card transactions used to be processed through those manual carbon copy machines?

jrawle

Thanks for the replies. So it seems there was nothing wring with my card. My original suspicion was raised by a couple of marks on the new "hologram", just visible in the photo at the bottom of the large circle, which looked like it had been torn or scratched off.

I was unable to find any reference to this new hologram in Google searches. All show the full world map.

So this becomes more an issue of poor customer service. When I phoned up, the advisor should have asked what the hologram looked like and told me this was the correct design, rather than simply offering a new card straight away. Not to mention the stupid voice recognition system that, even after saying "faulty card", asked for my card number, then said it was activated and I should hang up, with no option to speak to someone. Plus the advisor asked if it was OK to block the card, without mentioning that this was treating it as a lost or stolen card, and would mean a new number, and all the inconvenience of re-registering it with Paypal and anywhere else it is used.

Just the sort of reasons I hate dealing with call centres! The local branch of Santander closed three weeks ago, but no doubt even if it had been open, they'd have said, "We don't deal with credit cards, you need to phone."

Marchitiello

With all due respect if you told them that the hologram was “faulty/scratched” they would have just ordered a new one. Not sure if customer service training include how every details on a new card looks like.

If you searched for Starling Bank card or for new MasterCard cards you could have come across images of both front and back of the new cards, as the front Logo as also changed... it was obvious that the hologram was a different design altogether as it has no much resemblance with the old one...

Chino

Marchitiello wrote: »

If you searched for Starling Bank card or for new MasterCard cards you could have come across images of both front and back of the new cards

Really? Have you tried this yourself?

I tried searching using your suggested search terms on both Google and Bing and did not find any images of the new hologram design (I'm not saying there aren't any but I got bored scrolling down countless images without seeing one image of the new hologram design).

By the way, why should the OP, who holds a Santander Zero card, have thought to search for "Starling Bank card"?

daveyjp

Until this thread I had never even bothered to look at the hologram on a new Santander card which arrived just over a week ago.

It was used extensively last week abroad so all must be OK.

Marchitiello

Chino wrote: »

Really? Have you tried this yourself?

I tried searching using your suggested search terms on both Google and Bing and did not find any images of the new hologram design (I'm not saying there aren't any but I got bored scrolling down countless images without seeing one image of the new hologram design).

By the way, why should the OP, who holds a Santander Zero card, have thought to search for "Starling Bank card"?

Off course I did... I thought about sterling because the picture of front and back of the card has been on all london busses for few months now... anyway, whatever it is, I have few new MasterCard card and it is obvious that they had changed the logo and also the hologram .. zit does not look defective, it is one layer.. the OP is probably a bit OCD...

Terry_Towelling

Marchitiello wrote: »

Off course I did... I thought about sterling because the picture of front and back of the card has been on all london busses for few months now... anyway, whatever it is, I have few new MasterCard card and it is obvious that they had changed the logo and also the hologram .. zit does not look defective, it is one layer.. the OP is probably a bit OCD...

I've not seen a London bus for 7 years now (and if I never have to go there again, it will be too soon).

I have to agree that I couldn't find the new hologram design on any quick internet searches. I also have to agree that I never look at the hologram design (or, indeed, any other feature of my cards) when I receive them and it does appear a bit odd (to me) to go to the trouble of reporting doubts about the hologram. No retailer ever looks at it because the card is either tapped (contactless) or self-inserted into a CHIP reader.

OP, If you are a bit OCD (as suggested by Marchitiello) then please accept my apologies on his behalf for such an insensitive comment. We don't want another lecture from @Fuzzything:)