Curious Case of ICICI Bank Sending New Debit Card Unnecessarily

I got an email from ICICI bank saying my debit card was due for renewal and if I had any change in address, I should update using either net banking or by visiting nearest branch. I happened to recall that my debit card was not that old, and it should not be due for renewal. Hence, I checked my debit card physically and found that its validity lied 4 years ahead in future. Why should the bank send me a new card 4 years in advance? If there was a big technological change (e.g. when chip cards were introduced) or when big regulatory changes happen, it could be justified, but not now. 

I checked my email text and it had mentioned last 4 digits of my debit card and it did not match with my existing card. 

I logged into my net banking and went to debit card tab, and it displayed by debit card and its last 4 digits matched with the number mentioned in the email! It seemed the bank had already updated new card it planned to send with my customer ID. 

Hence, I called up the customer care number. The guy said he would verify and needs a few minutes. As the call went on a while and he put it on hold since it was taking time in his system to fetch data, I thought to re-verify my debit card number in my net-banking, just in case he asks any other info. And this time, I saw that the debit card number had changed and now it displayed my existing card number! 

As predicted, the customer care executive came back online and he said now that he could see that my existing card number was still mapped, and its validity was still remaining so I should ignore the email since the bank won't be sending me a new card.

I was shocked. How could debit card number change in my net-banking record, without someone doing something to update it? 

I thanked him and went back to ignore this episode. But not without a suspicion that most likely the bank was pushing some of its "costlier" debit card to me "forcefully" and since I called customer care and demanded answer, they abandoned their plan. I shall still be watchful if the same happens again in future. And you should too. 

- Rahul 

P.S.: I got a call from bank afterwards and the executive verified my details and upon learning that my existing debit card is Mastercard, he said the reason why the bank had tried to send new debit card was because I had Mastercard while the bank was now issuing Visa. Again, this explanation looked suspicious because as per recent direction from RBI, banks are expected to give choice of card-network to the customers. Hence, ideally, the bank should ask me if I wanted Mastercard/Visa/Rupay card and hence the explanation that the bank was sending me Visa card looked not credible. Also, his acceptance that the bank was sending me a new card was contrary to the initial feedback from customer care executive who denied any such attempt to send new card to me. Hope the governance of the bank is in safe hands and they are not doing some unethical business practices.