Did you know that you can be conned at an unsuspicious shopping center while sharing your credit card details? Credit card fraud is one of the most common identity crimes and you can protect yourself from it by taking necessary precautions.
Here‘s how you can protect yourself from Credit Card frauds:
- Do not carry all your credit cards at the same time
- Do not give out your credit card numbers casually
- Always be alert while sharing your credit card details while shopping, during online transactions, etc. If you notice anything abnormal, refrain from sharing your details.
- Store your credit card in a safe place at home and make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
- Do not keep your credit card and PIN number together.
- Always know what’s in your wallet. Keep a detailed inventory of what you carry in your wallet such as the type of the card, its number, etc. and keep it in a safe place. This will help you to report and recover your lost item in a timely manner, while limiting damages from credit card fraud.
- Use your wallet carefully. Whenever you use your wallet, ensure that you are not exposing your other confidential information to people around or behind you such as a driver's license information including your name, address, date of birth, and driver's license number, etc.
- Notify us immediately and drop a request to hotlist your credit cards that are lost or stolen to avoid its misuse.
- Cancel your lost cards even if you recover them. Keeping a card with its information compromised is not safe. So cancel it and get a new card issued instead.
- Shred your credit card statements regularly. They contain your personal information and can be misused anytime.
- To detect credit card frauds better, know your statement cycles and follow-up any time you don't get them on time. Review your statement even if you think your balance is zero.
- When you apply for a credit card, keep the credit limit of the card as low as possible. The limit should be decided as per your need. This will prevent you from becoming a victim of a big unusual transaction in case your credit card is lost or stolen.
- Always inquire about the privacy and disclosure policies - The policies will tell you how the company intends to use your information. Sometimes, the companies share the collected personal information with other affiliated entities. Therefore, based on their policies, you may even decide not to do business with that company if you feel uncomfortable with what the company intends to do with your information which may lead to credit card fraud.
- Don’t apply for add-on card if it’s not necessary
- Think and do your research before you accept a new credit card offer.
- Lock your mailbox and collect your mails frequently.
- Don't leave your credit cards at the billing counter after making any purchase.
- While going through your statement, if you come across any credit card transactions that you have not made, you should immediately report the same to the card issuing bank and deny the credit card charge. To prevent additional fraud, block your card immediately.
- When the bank does not replace an expired credit card before the card expiration date, you should consider the possibility that the new card might be in the wrong hands. You should report this immediately to the card issuing bank about non receipt of your new card.
- When credit cards are about to expire or have been reported as lost or stolen, you receive a replacement credit card. You receive the new card 20 or 30 days before the expiry of your old card. The new card will automatically get active after the expiry of your old card and the old card will be inactive. If you want to use your new card after receiving it, you will have to call your card issuing bank and ask them to deactivate your old card and activate the new card.
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