So, this has come up once again with someone saying their card has been misused after making online purchases. 99% of the time it is not the vendor. I personally had this happen 3 or 4 times before, where there was fraud, the bank froze the card, and I had to wait for a new one to arrive before it was usable.
DO THIS:
- Go to your bank
- Open a new checking account with a debit or credit card
- DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES keep a large balance in that account. Mine is usually under $20.
- Go online to make your purchase. Get the total required including shipping (let's say that's $60 in this example).
Check the balance in your new "online-only" account. Let's say you have $15 in there. - Transfer just enough to cover your new purchase without leaving the account gasping for air. In this case, I'm going to transfer $50. This comes from one of my primary, every-day accounts, the ones I use to pay the mortgage, the car and the utilities. I do not use this account for online purchases, because I need it to live, and don't like it when it's frozen. However, it has a nice chunk of change that I can transfer to that riskier account when I need to.
- In my case, this transfer is immediate. If your bank doesn't work this fast, get a new bank.
- There is now enough money in my "online only" account to check out. After I check out, there's not enough left in that account for me to give a shit if some scammer gets the $5 left there. If & when that account is compromised, I can put off buying another mod while the bank gets a new card to me, and I don't have to call the electric company to explain that my payment will be delayed.
This method has worked for me for years. It's simple, minimally invasive, and practically foolproof.
FWIW, when you hand your card to a restaurant server, they not only have access to the card number, they also have the 3-digit code on the back. Oops.
PAY.
CASH.
I keep a $100 bill in my money clip, and another in my wallet. Haven't used the card for a meal out in years, and also haven't had CC fraud in years. This is not coincidence.
Anyway, hope this helps some of you.
Or...Use a credit card instead of a debit card =).
This... So much. Had a few fraud charges on my credit card.. Doesn't mess with my mortgage, bills or daily life. Fraud on credit cards is messing with the banks money so they are always happy to get that fixed. Fraud on debit is your money and the bank doesn't really care.
Mine has a cool feature where whenever there is a charge, or even a failed charge attempt, I immediately get a notification to my phone, via the app.
If I lose my card or I see a charge come up on the notification which I didn't preform, I can go into the app and immediately 'lock' the card to prevent any further charges. Also easily 'unlock'
Also they they have been wonderful about reverting and correcting and fraudulent charges. Capital One.
What kinda financial advisor condones the use of a credit card =)
Joke. If used as intended, they are ok to have. But 98% of people misuse them. I personally haven't missed not having any CC for the last twenty something years.
Credit cards are one of the best and most reliable ways of building your credit score up which is pretty much necessary in the US if you ever want to buy a house or anything like that.
I mostly agree with that. My point tho was most people misuse them by not paying the balance in full at the end of the month. I was one of those people, but one trip to bankruptcy court changed my whole outlook on borrowing money like that.
We raised both daughters telling them that "the borrower is slave to the lender". They did use credit cards to help them build their credit initially, but always paid them off when the monthly statement came. Keeping debt around like it is a pet is not going to help anyone (except the lender). They enjoy that new flat screen TV that much more knowing that they aren't paying monthly for it =)
Some banks and credit card companies also allow you to create a virtual credit card for limited use. This way you can instantly create a one time number and cvv with whatever amount you want. After using it, there's nothing left for anyone to steal and you can set it to expire in a certain amount of days.
Just use www.privacy.com. Link an account(s) and then you can create a new card anytime you want. You can make it recurring or you can make it one time use. You can even specify the amount so if your order totals 22.08 create a card for 22.08 and it will only let that amount be charged and the card will be deleted after the first use.
If someone gets your CC info it doesn't matter because the card is no longer good.
You also don't have to have a certain bank or CC to do it. You just link a regular bank account. Plus its completely fee free.
No need to open extra accounts or anything like that either and there is no need to transfer funds or anything like that. It just pulls exactly what you want it to pull and nothing extra so no leftover balance either and there is zero delay.
For years I have kept the same Walmart moneycard (black Visa). Online purchases is strictly what this is for, never ever my primary checking. But that requires visiting a store to reload it beforehand. I never thought about transferring between accounts like that. Safe enough. I'm visiting the credit union tomorrow to open an account for online purchases. Genius.
Also agree with paying cash. That's how I make all my large purchases. Lots of times the merchant will give a discount for that, usually equal to at least the taxes.
This is all very good advice. However, I have had better luck trusting a human server with my card than I have had with trusting a vendor site that uses open source software to gather my payment details. I have had zero problems when I use vendors that shell out for a reputable e-commerce solution. Security patches are a thing for a reason. Just sayin.
i use a credit card for repeating purchases, such as sling or netflix, and another card for daily purchases and online purchases. my wife also check the account daily and knows exactly what we have purchased as i tell her everything i buy. the few times the card has been lifted (usually from restaurants, but i did get hit by the michaels hack) its caught the same day and doesnt hurt us as we have the debit card in backup while waiting for the new card to come in.
this prevents us from having to go through every fucking subscription account when a card does get lifted. its not too bad, just inconvenient when it happens.
I do almost exactly this. Someone tried to buy plane tickets with my stolen number and it was denied. Then they bought a candy bar and it was successful. They tried the plane tickets again and my bank locked up the account. I had a new card in two days FedEx. Works pretty well.
Did you set a limit on the amount that could be withdrawn? Hence why they could by a candy but not a plane ticket?
First of all, this is an old ass thread to be reading lol.
This is the part of the OP I was referring to:
>DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES keep a large balance in that account. Mine is usually under $20.
Since the checking account (which the debit card is tied to) has very little in it, the card number thief can make a very small purchase but not a large one. I just transfer money from a different account every time I make a purchase.
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.7431 ^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?
A new scam at restaurants in my country popped up. They(the waiter) will have a 'black-market' card machine, programmed to just read your card details and pin and save it off.
So they come to your table with the machine, you enter your card and pin and it 'declines'. The waiter apologizes, says this machine is a bit buggy and will get another one.
They then get the real machine, and your transaction goes through.
The waiter now has your card info and pin, safely saved on his fake machine to use and abuse as he wishes
These are good advice points but dispute that it's nearly never the vendor's fault. Recently, in March, while purchasing DIY stuff at a vendor I saw being discussed here my debit card number was stolen and used on a site called playasia.com for ~$350. I'd never heard of that site nor done business with them and haven't lived in Asia for years. I have a credit card but it had at the time a super low limit so using it regularly would cause my credit score to bounce down due to high usage % - it's since been increased significantly giving some wiggle room.
The vendor in this case eventually came forward in an email noting that they had a payment method breach and my bank allowed me to keep the refund they initially issued. Never again, I'll always use the credit card, or, get a second bank debit account and just transfer funds, that's super easy to do.
If the vendor is good they'll come forward and let you know there's a problem, the one in question did and I assume they cooperated with the banks/cc companies who were trying to get their money back.
Regarding the 3-digit code on the back: Store it somewhere safe (I use a KeePass database -- also use that to store my passwords), and use a sharpie to black it out. Then, stick a small and thin -- preferably vinyl -- sticker on top of the sharpie-d numbers.
Alternative: Use an engraving tool to rout out the numbers. My friend did it that way. He had extremely stable hands, though. I don't, so I used the sharpie+sticker method :D