0		Tips, protecting, your, credit, card

Economic Times has few tips to save yourself from credit card fraud. My favorite one is scratching the CVV number from the back of the card and remembering it. Credit Card once stolen can be  used at will only online. Because, some merchants do check the name and sometimes ask for an ID (never happened to me). For scenarios like these online provides the perfect haven. All online transactions ask for the CVV number. Though not fully foolproof (nothing never is ) this is one way of hedging your risk. Other suggestions include

1. Using a exclusive online card for online transactions
2. Signing up for an insurance cover (which kicks in for the transactions after your card is stolen)
3. Signing up for SMS alerts (works very well)

Other thing which can save you is to actually sign the back of your card. Many people do not sign the back of the card and if the card is stolen the person with the card can use his own signature and there is nothing to check that. Few merchants actually check the back of the card but if you do get lucky it can help.

Read the tips here.

Story of interest: We were traveling in Hyderabad and my wife found that her credit card is missing. We searched for a while and in parallel canceled the credit card. We later found the card but never bothered to call the bank to open the card up again. We forgot about the whole incident and used the same card at retail place. The merchant tried the card twice and found an error : "Seize the card". Maybe it is the first time he is seeing it. I then realized that the we are using a blocked card and used a different card. So the shopkeepers can be completely ignorant even if the card is blocked.