Seafarers being burdened by defective TWIC cards

If you have a defective TWIC card, it’s your responsibility to replace it.

TSA says 26,000 TWIC holders may have cards that don’t work at electronic readers due to an encoding error, reports gCaptain.com.

And if you are one of the unlucky ones, guess what? You have to go to an enrollment center to pick up a replacement.

The agency blames the problem on a system error that incorrectly embedded a federal code number on the card’s microchip.

Even though the error was supposedly fixed on April 5, holders were not notified until November.

What this means is that if your card was issued before April 5, you may have to replace it.

To see if your card is defective: 1) Look up the 8-digit Agency Serial Number (ASN) on the back. It will be on the bottom left on the same line as the numbers ‘7099’ that appear on the bottom right. 2) Click here, to find out if your ASN matches a number on the TSA list. If so, you may need to replace your card if you use it with a card reader.

To replace your defective TWIC, call their Help Desk at 1-866-347-8942 Mon through Fri, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time. Tell them your card has a truncated FASC-N and they will help you to order a replacement free of charge.

Unfortunately, they make you go to an enrollment center to pick up the replacement. So if you live in states like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where there are no enrollment centers, it means long travel and expense. You must turn in the old card when you pick up the new one.

If you do not use a card reader, you do not have to replace your card at this time. However, the gCaptain story seems to imply that at some point you will have to replace it.

Why can’t the agency just mail the card to you instead of making you spend time and money out of your own pocket to correct their mistake?