More Ways of Securing Your Credit Card

Protect Your Personal Identification Number (PIN): It is very important to protect your PIN as much as possible. The below tips will help you in doing this:

1. First, make sure that when you are selecting a PIN, don't use obvious information that can be guessed by people who know you. For example, don't use your name, telephone number, date of birth, or any combination that can be easily guessed by other people. Instead, use information that will be easy for you to remember but extremely difficult for others to guess.

2. Never write down your PIN, memorize it. When you write down your PIN, there is the tendency that you could leave it lying around carelessly for others to see. But when you memorize it, you are the only one who knows it and there is less tendency of others getting access to it.

3. Never disclose your PIN to anyone else. Just as you protect your other sensitive information like passwords to email addresses, bank accounts, etc, also make sure you don't tell even your family members and friends your PIN. Also, don't disclose your PIN to any financial institution, merchants, or even the police.

Be Careful With Your Use Of ATM Machines: Occasionally, your credit card can become stuck inside of the ATM machine. When this happens, be very suspicious of anyone you don't know offering to help you out. They could be criminals and can obtain your PIN by either shoulder surfing or direct questioning.

Take Your Billing Statement More Seriously:
This is one of the most important thing as regards your credit card protection. It is with your billing statement that you can see if you indeed ordered for all the goods and services charged to your credit card yourself or a thief did. The following tips will help you:

1. Always keep evidences of your purchases safe. Such evidences of purchase include your sales vouchers and receipts. These evidences will help you in verifying with your billing statement to see if there has been other purchases that have not been done by you.

2. Always check your billing statement against your sales vouchers and receipts to see if there have been purchases other than the ones you make yourself.

3. Know when your billing statement is due so that you can always check it against your sales vouchers and receipts. When you don't get it when it is due make sure you contact your bank immediately.

Be aware of Mail Fraud:
To get access to your credit card, many thieves can forge your signature and have your mails forwarded to them. This is so that they can be getting information about you or obtain credit cards being mailed to you. To protect yourself against this, do the following:

1. Call and report to the post office immediately when you realise that you are not receiving mail. When you do, the postal authorities will check it out to see if your mail is forwarded to someone else.

2. If you are told of a forwarding order placed on your mail without your knowledge, tell the postal authorities to check the signature and cancel the order. Also, ask the postal authorities to track down the forwarded mail before it gets to the thieves.

3. If you suspect that your credit card could have been forwarded to the thieves, contact your bank immediately to cancel the credit card.

Be aware of Trash Fraud:
Many criminals always check your trash looking for discarded receipts or carbon. They do this knowing that they could find information therein containing your account numbers. The following tips will help you in this regard:

1. Always destroy receipts and carbon before throwing them into your trash.

What to do when your card gets lost or stolen
The following tips will help you as regards lost or stolen credit card.

1. Anytime you suspect that you have lost your credit card or someone has stolen your credit card, immediately call the issuing company. Many of them have toll-free numbers and 24-hour service to handle such emergencies.

   This is so that you will not lose too much money. The more you delay in reporting it, the more chances that the thieves would spend more money from your credit card.

   Also, by law, once you report the loss or theft of your credit card, you have no further responsibility for unauthorized charges made to the card. Your maximum liability under federal law is $50 per card (U.S.).

   The FTC specifically warns that if the loss involves only your credit card number (not the card itself), you have no liability for unauthorized use.

2. Importantly, after you have called to report the problem, be sure to follow up with a letter to the issuer, explaining that an "unauthorized charge" was made. This paper record of your notification can also greatly limit your liability.

Next Chapter
Protecting Your Credit Card While Shopping Offline