I’m sure you can see the fraud risk here.  If someone steals your card, or if you lose it, someone else may spend money with your credit card or debit card and soon total up quite a bill.  There are only random inspections and signature checks for this technology at the moment, so there is nothing to stop a fraudster making several purchases on your card before you know it’s missing, or before they are stopped and checked.

The only thing that lessens the impact of such an event is that contactless technology limits paymets made from the card to £10 or less (i do believe though that they may be raising this to £15).  This means that a theif couldn’t spend too much money, however 10 transactions for £10 is £100 so it can soon add up and take its toll.

I am referring to contactless technology of course, and in particular the chance that your debit or credot card may be stolen and used to buy goods and services to the value of £10 without a PIN number or any identification!  This level is soon to rise to £15 also i think in the not too distant future.

If someone steals your cards and you don’t realise it until much later they could have spent an awful lot of money in various different stores before you report it missng.  It’s very important that you consider the implications of contactless technology and understand that you are at risk.  New technology like this is supposed to make life easier, instead we’re going to see an increase in card theft surely?

You simply do not want to forget this fact, if you do it will undoubtedly cost you time and trouble.  I didn’t say money because as i’ve said already, many people have credit card insurance that can cover losses and even those connected to identity theft.  I mentioned time and trouble because it doesn’t matter how much money someone takes from your account it’s always bad news and it always makes you feel like you’re not going to get it back and that somone has violated your personal details.  It’s a truly dreadful feeling.

Not only that, if someone has drained your balance, even if your credi card company is going to pay for what you’ve lost they won’t simply do it there and then will they?  You will more than likely have to fill in claim forms and all that stuff before anything is paid.  And i am being incredibly nice to the credit card companies at this point by not mentioning how perhaps some of them may not want to pay out!

Who knows what might happen?  It’s always best to look after your credit card and not give your details out to people in the street and over the phone.  Just be careful whatever you do!

With contactless technology you simply have to press your card against a reader and then your transaction of up to £15 is paid and you can go on your way without entering any PIN numbers or signing anything.  This is a goldmine for any would be bag snatcher or pick pocket isn’t it?  And althoug i said that you couldn’t really cause too much damage with the contactless technology, if you have someone’s credit or debit card you can certainly visit a few shops and spend quite a lot of money before they know that you’ve taken it from them.

You simply need to look after your card even more these days.  Rather than getting more secure it appears that we are opening ourselves up for attack by theives and fraudsters all over the country; they’ll all be rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of contactless cards being distributed nationwide.

People who struggle to remember their PIN number for their credit card are actually deciding to write it down and keep it on their person; often in their wallet or purse!  This is of course against all the advice out there about memorising your PIN number and perhaps making it a memorable number to you so that you can’t forget it.

It is surprising how many people ignore this advice, and a shocking 1 in 10 credit card owners have their PIN numbers written down in the same place they keep their actual card.  Is this laziness, forgetfulness or just thoughlessness?  This is difficult to work out, and since there can be no absolutely positive answer on the subject we must assume that it’s a mixture of all three.

The only way to combat it is to continue to campaign against doing it.  It is enormously important to memorise your PIN number and not keep it with your card; it’s easy to pick a number that’s important to you (try a friend’s birthday, not your own).

So to those massive 7 million credit card users, i say memorise your number and stop writing it down!

but with this measure you can virtually wipe it out.  If you make an online order and pay with your visa credit card then you can choose a password wo protect others from using your credit card details.  Basically, when you make a purchase on your credit card, before they verify your order and end the purchase process you will be asked to enter three characters from your password.  The Verified by Visa screen will pick the numbers and only you will know what characters they correspond with.

This provides peace of mind and confidence in your online shopping, that to be honest was becoming a risky business at the best of times.  Since the introduction of Verified by Visa internet credit card fraud has reduced considerably.

So when you’re choosing a credit card, make sure that it has the Visa logo, and make sure that you can use Verified by Visa.  Of course, it’s always a good idea to get your cards insured anyway against theft and online fraud, just in case.  Pretty much everyone will be shoppingonline soon with their credit cards, and Verified by Visa will just give you that peace of mind and also it’s free; so really there is no reason whatsoever not to protect yourself when shopping online.

This is for one simple reason alone.  Credit card fraudsters will use your details to make very small purchases.  This sounds odd doesn’t it?  Particularly if you have a huge credit card limit and a small balance.  They do this to test out the card to see if it works, and they use a small amount because it’s less likely to be detected.  Sometimes they will continue to just make small regular transactions on your card and slowly bleed you this way, but usually they will hit you with a larger amount once they’ve tried you out a little.

Look out for things like internet purchases because these are the easiest simply because the criminal doesn’t need your credit card if they already have the details.  They will more than likely have aquired some of your personal information somehow too, just to ensure that they can get away with a little larger purchase so be careful.  And if you get a call from your credit card to query a transaction do not under any circumstance ignore it; call them back straight away and find out what has happened.  Your credit card company is trying to look after you.

The things they do to make us spend our money and create huge credit card bills.  Well imagine all the people in the world being influenced by these great offers and sales everywhere.  Now consider that theives are also influenced by this, and they need someone’s credit card to have a good time in the sales.  That someone could be you.

This time of year requires you to be extra vigilant against these people.  They will pick your pockets, they will con you, and they will mug you if they have to, just as long as they get their hands on your cash; that’s all they want.  They know what to do with your credit card better than you do, and by the time you get home or find out in some way that your credit card is missing they’ll have maxed it out before you get a chance to cancel it; these people act quickly so beware.

This isn’t exclusive to physically stealing your credit card.  The sales also attract a lot of online credit card details theives who will stop at nothing to get your information.  They’ll send you emails pretending that you’ve won some prize maybe.  These ones are particularly clever sometimes because they will work on a tracking cookie on you computer to tell them where you’ve been visiting lately.  They will use this information to specifically target you for online credit card fraud.  Be careful!

We were always told that we shouldn’t carry too much money.  Now we are told we have to look out for our bags again because people are stealing debit and credit cards.  Christmas can be a pretty miserable time if someone steals all the  money from your bank account; well it can be a pretty miserable time if they steal money from anywhere really!

So here’s what you can do.  Never carry your pin number around with you.  You might think this is quite an obvious thing to say but it is amazing how many people carry credit cards in their wallets and purses and actually have the pin number right next to it because they couldn’t be bothered to change it or memorise it.

There is another one here, and that is never, never use anything as a pin number that may relate to anything else in your wallet.  This includes dates of birth, house numbers and other cards etc.  A fraudster might be a nasty piece of work, but he is not by any means an idiot, and even if he only gets three guesses, you do not want to make it easy for him do you?

This goes the same for online shopping.  Never use passwords like this, especially if you have opted to store your card details with a particular website.  Look after yourself and your credit cards!

When you shop online you really do put your money in other peoples hands.  It’s as simple as that really.  When you type in your credit card details they’re out there and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Or is there?  Well you can ensure that the site you are buying from has the little padlock symbol in the corner.  This should tell you that it’s pretty safe, and the company probably have excellent firewalls and stuff like that to protect you and your credit card details from these terrible people.

Also, as with getting your money from a cash machine, you need to preotect your numbers and/or passwords.  These are usually passwords when you shop with your credit card online, and these are the things you need to be careful of.  Now i’m not a computer  whizz or anything like that, but i do know that some people can hack information, and if they can find out your date of birth it’s probably not a good idea to use it as a password is it; in the same way it’s not a good idea to use it as your credit card pin number either.

So protect yourself but using sensible numbers and passwords, go on safe websites, and change your passwords often.