How to avoid being a victim

The growth of the Internet and electronic commerce during the last decade has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of credit card theft. In years past, theft of credit card information wasn’t as common, as the thief had to use the card in person and match the signature on the card. Of course, this was back when sales clerks actually checked the signatures on the back of the card. In today’s fast paced society, clerks rarely check signatures and thieves rarely use the cards in person. Why bother when you can just use them on the Internet, where there isn’t even an attempt to verify that the person placing the order is the actual cardholder? With the ease of online use, thieves have gotten bolder than ever.

While most card issuers hold card theft victims liable for only a small amount of money, say $50, it is still a headache to have your card stolen. You have to dispute the fraudulent charges and wait for them to be dismissed. In the meantime, you may have failed to make a payment and that could affect your credit score. Then you have to undo that. While it may not cost you money, it will cost you time and it is time that you’d rather not waste.

So, here are some tips for how you can avoid being a victim of credit card theft.

• Avoid all “phishing” scams. These are unsolicited e-mail messages purporting to be from your bank. They usually say something like “It appears that there is some unauthorized activity on your account. Please fill out this form in order to validate your identity.” These messages usually don’t address you by name. And why should your bank ask you who you are? They know who you are and they have all of the personal information from you that they need. This is just an attempt to steal your information so that the thieves can participate in identity theft. Don’t respond. If you are unsure, call your bank on the telephone and ask them about it.
• Be careful when shopping online. There are a lot of legitimate small businesses out there, but as a rule you should make sure the Website has adequate contact information and that their order page is secure. If not, at least make sure that they accept payment through a secure system, such as eBay’s PayPal, which offers some buyer protection.
• Don’t let online merchants store your credit card numbers for future use. You can take the time to type the number in again if you need to. There is nothing good that can come from letting a merchant keep your card number. There is, however, plenty of bad that can come from it.

We’ll continue this in part two.

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