Seven Ways to Protect Yourself from Credit Card Fraud

The following is a guest post from Sandra at the UK blog, Thinking Money.

Quit worrying about credit card fraud and do something about it.  Here are seven things you can do to minimize the chance that somebody will commit credit card fraud on you.

1)      Check your credit report at least once a year.  Identity theft can be a much more expensive theft than straight away credit card theft.  This is because most countries have in effect limits on how much a credit card consumer must pay if their credit card is stolen.  But if somebody else, pretending to be you, takes out a credit card in your name and then rings up charges without paying for them, the impact on your credit report can be a pain to fix.  

2)      When shopping online, use strong passwords that are hard to discover.  Routinely update your shopping passwords with major accounts online.  Many of these accounts will keep your credit card information to facilitate shopping.  That’s fine as long as you are the one shopping. 

3)      Shred all unused credit card applications that come in the mail.  This prevents somebody from dumpster diving for other people’s credit card applications and sending them in.   

4)      Request that your bank send you new cards even if your current ones have not expired.  This limits the usefulness of any credit card information collected against you.  This way even if your credit card number has been stolen without your notice, the number will not be valid anymore with the credit card company. 

5)      Carry a copy of the phone numbers for the credit cards in an easy to get to place.  This way you can call them as soon as you discover that your credit cards are lost or stolen.  If you report your cards missing before the first charge is made on them, you may be able to prevent any authorized charges to the account.

6)      Use up to date virus software on your machine at home.  This will reduce the chance that an information swiping or key logging virus finds its way on your machine.

Keep the number of cards you have active and/or on your body at an absolute minimum. With each account you have open, you increase the chances that somebody will steal your account number.  So, if you have many cards, get rid of as many as you can.  Likewise, when you go shopping, limit how many credit cards you carry.  Long gone are the days of the wallets of accordion credit cards.  Keep up with the times 

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