High finance in the modern era
John R Levine
So I explained to her what the problem was. ]
> Hi John:
>
> The MasterCard # you gave me isn't cooperating in my charge terminal. . .it
> says BAD ACCOUNT NUMBER. Help!
Yeah, that's because my co-branded Continental Airlines (a successor to the
Texas Air Corporation and its former subsidiaries PeopleExpress,
Provincetown-Boston Airline, and New York Air) - Marine Midland Bank (an
indirect subsidiary of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp., now renamed
to HSBC USA) Master Card and Visa account was sold to the Chase Manhattan
Bank (a successor to the Chemical Bank which bought Chase Manhattan and then
renamed itself to the better known Chase) which issued new cards with
different numbers that still said Marine Midland, then later cancelled those
and issued a co-branded Continental-Chase Visa with yet another different
number.
But my other card, which was a co-branded Tops Friendly Markets (a subsidiary
of Ahold B.V. of the Netherlands) - M&T Bank (Merchants and Traders Bank,
a subsidiary of the M&T Bank Corp, formerly Empire State Bank Corp), dropped
the Tops co-brand and became a plain M&T card, then M&T sold their credit
card accounts to MBNA (a Delaware subsidiary of the bank holding company
formerly known as Maryland Bank, N.A.), which issued new cards with new
numbers, even though the cards still say M&T.
I would give you my new Continental-Chase Visa, except that last year
Continental discontinued service to my local airport, Ithaca, so the miles I
get on that card require that I drive to Rochester or Syracuse, each of which
is an hour and a half away, or to Elmira or Binghamton which aren't served by
Continental but are served by Northwest (formerly Northwest Orient, a
successor to Republic Airlines and Hughes Airwest) which exchanges miles with
Continental (which they now control through a voting trust that holds a
special class of stock) but those airports are also over an hour away and you
have to connect in Detroit where they left people sitting on the runway for
eight hours last winter. So I got a new co-branded USAirways (formerly USAir,
formerly Allegheny, Piedmont, Mohawk, and a variety of other small dead
airlines) - Nationsbank (itself a successor to many mid-Atlantic banks, which
bought BankAmerica, formerly Bank of America, formerly Bank of Italy and
renamed itself to its better known subsidiary like Chemical did, only my card
still says Nationsbank because it's issued on the east coast) Visa.
So here's the new number: 4000 0000 0000 0002 exp 12/09
Any other questions, feel free to ask.
--
Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke (jokes ONLY) to fu...@netfunny.com.
If you "followup" a joke here, the posting goes to rec.humor.d. If you wish
to make another joke based on one you see here, mail it to fu...@netfunny.com.
If it's urgent, use top...@netfunny.com. For commentary on jokes, simply
participate in rec.humor.d
This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/00/Jan/creditcard.html