Card dropped in water — recovery steps
Yeah once the lamination lifts, that PDF417 string format gets mangled and you'll see weird stuff — scans as under 21, wrong DOB, all of it. I've had decent luck just drying flat between paper towels with a book on top, no heat, then giving it a day before testing. If it's a checksum validation thing and everything else reads clean, sometimes it's just a dirty scanner. Wish you luck though, water damage is brutal.
Been there. If it scans as under 21 after drying, that's usually a checksum validation issue rather than the card itself being toast. The AAMVA compliance fields can get scrambled when moisture hits the laminate, so the reader finishes the parse and misfires on the birthdate.
Try re-imaging from a flatter angle, then scan with an app that shows the raw PDF417 string format. If the string looks clean, your original scan was just a bad read.
Man, that sucks. I've dropped a card in water before and the barcode is dead half the time once it dries, especially if the lamination's compromised. If it still scans but throws a red flag, that often means the data got corrupted mid-read—I'd try re-imaging it through your phone's camera first for a cleaner shot. Usually it's a data parsing error that resolves if the PDF417 string format stays intact, but if the PVC warped against your wallet heat, you're probably ordering a replacement anyway. Water wreaks havoc on chip layers too. Best of luck.
Dropped a card into a glass of water while it was sitting on my desk. The card was submerged for about 30 seconds. Here is what happened and what I did.
Polycarbonate vs water
True polycarbonate cards are non-porous and water does not penetrate the card structure. A brief submersion should not cause any damage to the card layers, printing, or barcode. The risk is primarily to the card surface — water can leave mineral deposits as it evaporates, particularly if the water is not pure.
What I observed
After removing the card from the water and patting it dry with a soft cloth, the card appeared undamaged. After it fully air-dried over about 30 minutes, I noticed slight water spotting in the holographic overlay area where mineral deposits from tap water had dried. These were visible under raking light as faint circular marks.
Removing water spots
Isopropyl alcohol at 70% concentration on a soft cotton cloth removed the mineral deposits without affecting the card surface. The key is gentle pressure — rubbing aggressively can create micro-scratches, particularly on glossy card surfaces. The holographic overlay was unaffected after cleaning; the spots were surface deposits, not damage to the overlay structure.
If a PVC card gets submerged
PVC cards are also non-porous for brief submersions, but the lamination layer on printed PVC cards can be affected by prolonged water exposure, particularly at edges where the lamination bond may not be perfectly sealed. Short submersions are unlikely to cause problems; extended soaking in water risks edge delamination on PVC cards.
PVC card construction, which uses layers of laminate material fused under heat and pressure, is more vulnerable to water penetration at the edges than polycarbonate cards, which are a single extruded polymer block. If edge delamination has already begun, gentle pressure to re-seal the edges while the card dries is sometimes effective. Cards that have undergone significant soaking with visible delamination are generally past the point of reliable restoration and serve better as reference cards than as primary IDs.