Wednesday 25 October 2017

Protecting yourself from fraud when using credit cards

A credit card is used by a card holder to pay for all the goods and services that he purchases or enjoys by virtue of his salary in the bank account. Credit cards have become a valuable asset to all. Thus, it is a very important card which should be kept with optimum security for if it goes into the hands of the wrong person, they might misuse it, while the consequences will have to be paid by the victimized original credit card owner.

Some measures that one can take in order to protect their credit card from miss use are given below:

• It is very difficult to shield all our private and personal information but it is important to take some precautions when we go online be it for shopping or for net banking or other purposes. Here are a few things that you can do to protect yourself when shopping online-
*Try to clear all logins and passwords.
*It is advisable to pay via credit cards rather than debit cards as they are guaranteed under the federal law.
* Avoid providing information to any fake unrecognizable company advertisement that asks for personal information.
*It is better if one secures their email and verifies the mailing address whenever possible with the post office in order to avoid the credit card thieves from changing it. This prevents any notice from reaching your residence.

• A small way to avoid the loss of credit card is by keeping it in a different more secure place rather than your wallet so that even if the wallet gets stolen, the credit card remains safe.

• Report any kind of questionable purchases that may have been made by the credit card that you are not aware of.

• Monitor all the bank and credit card statements and reports regularly so that any unfamiliar purchases can be noticed immediately and be reported.
If someone has already become a victim of credit card identity fraud or identity theft where one individual card holder’s ownership has been assumed by some other individual, it is important to know that that person whose identity has been stolen is entitled to free credit monitoring.

• Avoid keeping any form of private records or statements. These records should be disposed as soon as possible. Most preferably they should be shredded, so that they do not fall in the wrong hands.

It is very important to take such preventive measures while handling credit cards for precaution is always better than cure. It is better to be safe rather than sorry.

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