Are You Doing These 5 Things to Prevent Credit Card Fraud?
By Eren Mckay
Filed under Organizing Ideas and Tips
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You would think that if your credit card is in your wallet that you’re safe, right?
Wrong. All it takes for criminals to steal from you is them having the number. Nowadays fraud criminals have advanced systems of cloning your credit card number. They even bribe store employees that are a part of their system.
Having gone through credit card fraud, I really wanted to write an article about this to raise awareness on the topic and to prevent other families from going through the same issues that my family did.
You see, many people don’t realize that even if your credit card is sitting nicely in your wallet, it can be cloned. That’s all they need and they can illegally charge your card. If you’re like I was, you might be thinking “Oh, but I have credit card insurance.” Well the truth is that the insurance you pay does not cover cloned credit cards if you don’t inform them of illegal charges in a certain time frame. The insurance only covers certain aspects.
That means that the only true way for you to defend yourself is to be constantly monitoring all of your credit card statements.
1 – Monitoring your statements is the key.
If you don’t monitor, you can be illegally charged without even knowing it. The worst part is that you have a time limit to complain to the credit card company.
Some companies give you 30 days but others give you up to 90 days after receiving your credit card statement. I strongly advise you to call your credit card company and ask them for a copy of your contract to ensure that you have the maximum time limit. Most good credit card companies will give you 90 days. If your credit card company only gives you 30 days I suggest changing companies. I only found out about this time frame that companies give, after it was too late. I had no idea that I had a certain amount of time to complain about the fraud and was shocked at how they simply did nothing about it because it had been over 30 days. Now all my credit cards are with companies that give me 90 days.
Procrastination can cost you a lot.
If you procrastinate in looking over the charges you can lose a serious amount of money. In my personal case, I wasn’t monitoring simply because the theft occurred when I was going through a lot of deaths in my family. If you are going through a family crisis and can’t take the time to overlook your statements, ask trusted friends or family members to help you out. Delegate this task to someone that can do it.
What to do when you find the fraud:
If, after overlooking your statements, you find that there are charges that you didn’t make, immediately call your bank or company and tell them about it. They will then retrieve the money that was stolen from your account. By taking this simple step you can stop the fraud before it goes any further.
More preventative measures:
There are also some other things that you can do to make it more difficult for criminals to find your credit card number.
2 – Trash
The number one source of identity theft is the trash. So if you’re going to throw anything that has your credit card number in the trashcan, you need to shred it. Either buy a shredder or just rip up the papers in many pieces and put them into different trash cans making it even more difficult to piece together.
3 – Mail
The other thing that you can do is make sure that your mail is safe. Mailboxes are an easy prey for criminals. I saw this really cool locking mailbox that makes it very hard to have your mail stolen. That way you can stop identity theft through ensuring that your mail is secure.
4 – Keep your eye on your card
The following video will help you understand more fully on why you should keep your eye on your credit card: It’s only 1 min. and 48 secs. and well worth it:
5 – Emails
In the world of cyberspace there are way too many fraudulent emails going around trying to phish information for credit card fraud. Don’t ever enter in your information as a response to bank or credit card company emails. If you receive any kind of email simply call up your bank or credit card and solve the issue by phone.
I hope these tips will save you the headaches that I have gone through with credit card fraud. By the way I’m always writing articles that help and inspire families. If you would like to receive updates on the Embracing Home blog simply fill out the form below.
Blessings always ♥,
Eren
Kristi
I have had a lot of issues with fraud… I thought they had started when I moved to AZ, but found out later that someone had been using my social for credit for a long time before that. Apparently I had a mortgage when I was in junior high kind of thing. Once my debit card was used to reserve a hotel, even though I had never once lost the card, so someone just ripped off the number.
It’s amazing the kind of things people can do to you, so your best bet is definitely to monitor everything – credit reports, statements (I go paperless and online), and never click on links in emails – even if you think you are certain they are from your bank, just go to the main website directly. If there is a problem, you will get an account notification – you don’t have to click on a special email link.
james samy
Thank you for sharing is really needed post on how to prevent credit card fraud. It is an eye opener for many out there.
Keep up your good work Eren and that’s why i always keep coming here to learn and know new ideas or things you share
Sire
I’ve even heard of people that add some equipment to ATM’s that allow them to scan your card. If they can use this to clone a card they don’t even need your PIN as many store accepts signatures and they could have their own signature on the card.
I don’t use ATM’s all that often but I check them out to see if anything untoward has been stuck on.
One should also never give details over the phone or NET to people who contact them as you’ve no idea who they really are.
Eren Mckay
@Kristi - It’s so sad that one person can do so much damage isn’t it? We just have to always keep on top of things and do everything that we can to protect ourselves. I’m sorry to hear that you went through that. My brother i a lawyer and he tells me all kinds of things that we can do keep ourselves covered.
The whole thing about going paperless sounds like an idea. Just make sure to always have a firewall on your computer. I personally use Comodo. Works great for me. Except when I need to ftp to my server then I have to temporarily disable it.
@James - Thanks! I want to write more on the topic, simply because this is a huge added stress for families and we already have a lot to solve in our lives.
@Sire – It’s just crazy how these thieves always find new ways to con us and do so much harm to our lives. We just have to be super careful. The more preventative measures the less problems can fall on our heads later. I hadn’t thought of checking on the outside to see if anything is stuck. That’s a good tip. My brother in law had his card get stuck in a machine and it was cloned right after that so that also is a sign.
Thank you all for the great feedback.
Blessings ♥,
Eren
Mitch
Great tips here. I shred almost everything with my name on it, which includes all my statements and the like. I have started to be a bit forgetful in grabbing my credit card when I pay for stuff, so I’m going to have to be more careful with that one, especially when my wife is with me; I never hear the end of it on those days.
Ching ya
We need to be extra careful when dealing with online transactions as well. I have seen some phishing sites that are almost identical to the real ones, I nearly fell for it if not because of double checking the link. You raised a good point about the statement, including the person we are handing over our credit cards to. Keep an eye on the employee at all times so he/she don’t have the chance to jot down the numbers, or make a copy of it.
Can’t be too careful these days. Thanks for bringing up this alert!
@wchingya
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Eren Mckay
@Mitch - Yeah I’ve lost credit cards before because of lack of attention. Now I check everything before I leave everywhere when I’m out. It’s sad that we have to remember so many things but it’s the only way to live in this dangerous world. Better safe than sorry
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Ching Ya - Living in today’s world truly is a huge hassle. After I had my eyes opened I saw the amount of work it really is to keep watch over everything. Makes me want to not have credit cards at all. Unfortunately I can’t do that just now. Maybe someday I’ll be able to rid myself of the extra work of overlooking everything…
Blessings ♥,
Eren
Isaac
I would like thank you Eren for the sensetive issue you have shared me (5 things to prevent credit card fraud) This is realy a serious issue which needs to be taken care. I hope you will continue giving us such information.
May God bless you
Thank you
Isaac
Eren Mckay
Hi Isaac,
Your comment made me happy → since the biggest reason for me writing abuot this and other things on this blog is to help others not go through the same problems that I have. I hope that by writing certain things I am able to make families’ lives better and less stressful. That is the only good that I think can come out of being robbed such a huge amount of money.
Hey and if you would like to keep updated on the blog don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter at this link:
http://www.embracinghome.com/newsletter/
Blessings,
Eren
Karla Bond
Great topic. I used to work for a bank and we were in charge of company credit cards. One thing they told us is when we were destroying cards, to cut them up into as small as pieces as we could and then thow them away is different trash cans. That way nobody could piece it back together.
Eren Mckay
That’s a great tip Karla,
Thanks for sharing
All the best,
Eren
james samy
Great post Eren. You open up my mind to think about this. Ttopic.
Thank you
Eren Mckay
Thanks James .. I’m glad this helped you
Blessings,
Eren