Credit Card Security: Keep Your Credit and Identity Safe

When you’re in the midst of a shopping marathon, who has the time – or energy – for chores like comparing receipts to your online statement each night or checking on all those automated email alerts you should have signed up for? Yet, that’s exactly why you should. Fraudsters count on people being too busy to keep their guards up, too. It’s one of the two main reasons scammers are more active during holiday times when people are busiest – and it's also why credit card security is a real problem any time you’re out shopping.

It’s useful to think about keeping your credit card safe as similar to training for a marathon – both require organization, discipline and focus. Here are some ideas for how you can do it.

Many of the following suggestions for protecting your card make sense all the time, but can be especially helpful in boosting credit card security when you’re shopping:

• Never share any of your credit card or account information with anyone.
• Don’t leave credit card receipts or statements in visible areas.
• Practice good PIN and password “hygiene” by storing your PIN separately from card information and having a long account password without easily guessed names or numbers; change your passwords often.
• If your address or phone number changes, share that with your card issuer ASAP.
• Set up automatic transaction alerts and/or use a credit monitoring service that will notify you when transactions hit a level that you choose.
• Regularly review online or print credit card statements, along with your credit reports.¹

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When you’re out and about, experts advise that you keep security on your list—whether strolling down a street or in a store or restaurant. Wallets and purses with credit cards, or shopping bags full of your purchases and retail receipts, can disappear quickly amid a bustling crowd. For credit card security, experts suggest:

• Practice the one card rule: Make only one card your official credit card for shopping trips – leave any others locked safely at home. It’s less to keep track of, and makes statement-checking easier, too.
• Use a mobile wallet app: If you add that one credit card to a mobile wallet, you can even lock the physical card at home, too. Mobile wallets add an extra layer of protection by keeping your actual credit number out of the transaction data.
  
• Sign up for real-time alerts: You may think this a pain, but some experts recommend setting up real-time alerts for every credit card transaction, so you get an email or text after each sale. You’ll know quickly if your card is used without your consent.
• Leave no room for fraud: Cross out any extra lines on print receipts before signing them, so bad actors can’t add in fraudulent charges later.
• Reconcile the transactions: Keep and regularly reconcile credit card receipts with your statement, online; then shred the receipts. And don’t overlook small charges you don’t recognize right way, because experts say fraudsters sometimes start that way when they first get hold of new card information.
• Shield your PIN: When keying in your PIN at an ATM, shield your hands with a wallet, or purse, or just use your other hand. You’ll be protecting your PIN from onlookers, as well as hard-to-detect credit card “skimmer” cameras that criminals attach to ATMs, gas pumps, and other transactional machines.²