Taking Care With Your Credit Card Details

Taking Care With Your Credit Card Details

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The numbers of consumers that have been taken in by credit card scams have skyrocketed in the past decade, due mainly to online shopping and consumers divulging their credit card details to fraudulent persons. This can occur abroad as well as at home if you are not careful about where you shop. When you receive your credit card statement each month, you should go over it carefully to make sure that you have made the transactions listed and that there are none that you dont recognize.

When a fraudulent person gets his/her hands on your credit card quite often all that is required is a signature, rather than a PIN number. You may have a PIN number to use when you want to get a cash advance on the card through an ATM machine. There are other personal details associated with the card that you should keep secret and not divulge to anyone. These include the answers to personal questions that you choose, the most common of which is your mothers maiden name. The three additional digits after the account number on the back of your card are also very important and a person who already knows your credit card number can do untold damage with this information.

Always make sure that the site you use for online shopping is secure. These sites will have a privacy statement assuring you that you wont be endangering your credit card information by shopping on them. Some of the details of personal information that a fraudulent person can use if he/she does obtain your credit card number is your mothers maiden name and the three digit number on the back of the card. These two pieces of information could open you up to fraud if you give them to the wrong person.

There has been an increase in the number of calls people in the UK have been receiving of late requesting details of their credit cards promising to get them a better interest rate. These are not legitimate calls. If you do receive one of these calls, you should ask the caller for the name of the company and the telephone number so that you can return the call. Chances are you wont get the information and the caller will likely hang up.

Be very careful when giving out your credit card information over the phone in response to solicitation phone calls. Some of these calls are fraudulent. When you receive a call offering some service or product and the caller wants your credit card information, the best course of action is to take the telephone number and call this person back. In this way, you can be sure it is from a legitimate company.

The same thing applies to an email that claims to come from the HM Revenue and Customs. UK residents have received such emails telling them that their tax returns have been reviewed and that they are entitled to an additional refund that will be paid to their credit card account. The government will never contact you in this manner and will only do so in writing. Disregard such emails and delete them from your computer.

About the Author:
Alisdair Cosgrove is a freelance writer specializing in personal finance. You can read more of his work at www.JSNet.org for credit card comparisons including cash back credit cards and also offers a comprehensive list of hotel rewards credit cards. You can read more about credit cards from his on site article, 'credit card grace periods can save money'.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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