Edge chip on a polycarbonate card — what to do

Found a small chip on the corner of a card I received — about 1mm of the corner edge was missing. Spent time figuring out whether it was a shipping issue, a production defect, and what my options were.

What edge chips look like

Polycarbonate cards are durable but brittle at thin edges. A chip appears as a small, clean break at a corner or along an edge where the card material fractured rather than bent. Unlike a crack that propagates across the card face, a chip is usually localized to the edge area and doesn't affect the card body.

Under magnification, a shipping-caused chip shows sharp, clean fracture edges with no discoloration or compression damage. A chip caused during production (typically a punch or trim operation) may show slightly different fracture characteristics depending on how the card was cut.

Does it affect function?

For most chips at the corners: no. The barcode, UV features, hologram, and photo zone are all away from the corners. A small corner chip is cosmetically imperfect but functionally neutral for most verification scenarios.

An edge chip along the barcode zone on the card back is a different issue — if it runs through the barcode area, it can cause scan failures. Test the barcode with multiple apps. If it still decodes cleanly, the chip is in a non-critical area of the barcode pattern.

Is it worth a warranty claim?

A corner chip smaller than 2mm on a card that otherwise works correctly is borderline. Most vendors will replace it if you document it with photos, but the turnaround for replacement takes weeks. Whether the cosmetic imperfection is worth three weeks of waiting for a replacement depends on your use case.

I photographed the chip and sent it to the vendor. They offered a 20% discount on the next order rather than a full replacement. I accepted that outcome given how minor the damage was.