Guarding Against Credit Card Frauds

The percentage of people using plastic money (cards) for transactions is growing day by day and so are the card scams rising along. We often hear or read about credit card frauds in our daily and how people end up in nightmares seeing huge bills for things they actually have never purchased. Likewise even the credit card companies are paying off handsome amount from their profit share to cover these fraudulent transactions.

Let me bring up few ways in which these frauds happen. By and large for physical credit card transactions, the deception story starts when the person who takes your card for swipe copies your card information to some other device. Later these details are copied to fake cards which are genuine card look alike with complete hologram markings and logos. The poor card holder remains completely unaware that his card has been cloned until he notices bill amounts of things he has never purchased. One of the other common methods is making a hoax call (often representing as card issuer authority) to the card holder and trying to retrieve card details. Credit card bills lying in trash cans or public places are other avenues where fraud originates.

Regarding users using cards for online transactions, one can see a large number of ways in which card data can be compromised. Falling in prey of a nice email asking for card details in return of discounts, or emailing card details to a friend or being a victim of card details being copied by an illegal software installed in cyber cafes are most common lines of attack sources.

One of the reasons in increasing successful frauds is inadequate knowledge of the card owner on proper use of credit cards. Here’s how credit card owners can better safeguard from these frauds.
• Over a credit card transaction, keep an eye on your card as it is being swiped. Make sure it is being swiped only once for a single successful transaction and get back your card as quickly as possible.
• Sign your credit card as soon as you receive it.
• Be protective of your credit card number so that others around you can't copy it or capture it on a cell phone or camera.
• Be prompt in keeping a check on your credit card bills to verify there are no bogus charges. For any charges that you don’t recognize, report these charges promptly to the card issuer.
• For people using cards at hotels or restaurants, remember to draw a line through blank portions of the receipt where additional charges could be fraudulently added other than hotel tips.
• In case of change of your billing address, notify your credit card issuers in advance so that bills reach safe hands.
• Save your receipts so you can compare them with your monthly bills.
• Always give your phone number to the company for verification of suspicious transactions.
• Be wary of any phone call or email seeking details of your account.
• Never give away photocopies of both sides of your credit card for any purpose.
• For online transactions, using credit card, remember to go by HTTPS and not HTTP.
• Avoid having e-transactions in a publicly share machine like Internet café or open free wireless network.