There are two little-known ways to stop credit card fraud and protect your credit card account security. When combined, they form a formidable defense against the person who lifts your card and tries to make unauthorized purchases with it.

Today I’ll reveal the first of these powerful measures that can protect your credit card account security and prevent fraudulent transactions.  It involves taking advantage of a new feature being promoted by well-known credit card companies.  

Some of the major credit card companies now give their customers the ability to upload a personal image that will be transferred onto their new credit cards. In one of the commercials promoting this option, an excited ”customer” enthuses about how great it is to have a picture of her puppy on her card.

However, if you are serious about protecting your credit card, forget about putting a picture of Spot or Fluffy on your card no matter how adorable your pets.

There’s only one picture that should be going on your card, and that’s your own.

So when you apply for one of these cards, be sure to take advantage of this option by uploading a recent photo of yourself. (As opposed to that flattering photo of yourself taken twenty years ago in which you looked like a movie star.)

The largest U.S. bank began offering this added option on its cards several years ago – strictly for user photos – because it was not offered as a “feel good” sales promotion, but strictly as a security enhancement.

It may be just a matter of time before all credit card companies offer this option to their customers as well. For sure, it’s a good idea. 

Of course, for this security precaution to work, the merchant who is swiping your card must actually look at the card to see that there is a picture on it, and then study the person before him. He or she must make a comparison between the photo on the card and the person making the charge to see if the face on the card resembles the face of the person before him.

Fortunately, we human beings are positive geniuses at differentiating facial features. So while this is not perfect protection, it can be very effective. Bottom line, this is a huge step in the right direction and you’re definitely better off having your image on your card. 

Should you want to increase you protection further still, there’s another proactive step you can take that works hand-in-hand with the image component. And that will be the subject of my next post.

Credit card companies make, literally, millions of mistakes with customers accounts. So over my next few blogs I’m going to give you some information about the assortment of errors that can occur.

I’ve struggled to find some way to classify and organize these “foul-ups” to make them easier to understand. I considered classifying the errors by cause and putting all mistakes made by credit card agents under one category, those caused by bad technology in another, and so forth.

But, truthfully, there have been blunders made on customer accounts, the cause for which is hard to pin down.

So while I will clearly try to identify the cause of a particular mistake when I can do so, I see no real value in trying to organize tips in that way. I’ve decided, instead, to put all credit card company errors in one of these three general groups: [Read more →]

There are ways to safeguard your balance transfers, and you should be aware of them. Balance transfer nightmares happen frequently despite the fact that all the big credit card companies advertise deals on balance transfers with this message: that they are effortless and cost you nothing.

But that’s not what I’ve seen.  Plus the consequences of having your balance transfer deal messed up can be devastating and expensive. 

First, a little backstory.

Millions of credit card customers take advantage of low interest offers on balance transfers. Perhaps it is because of the sheer volume of transactions that it seems almost inevitable that not all of them go well. [Read more →]

My original intent in the post below was to write about my visit to a credit card debt reduction site in the U.K. and, specifically, about a post I read on that site’s forum.

The author is a 29-year old man who ran up debt going to school. His life is further complicated by being in relationship with a Canadian woman who is returning to Canada.

He wrote to ask for advice on how he could handle his debts from Canada if he followed her and emigrated. The U.K. credit counselor basically told him he should find a debt counselor in Canada.

But the guy was grappling with whether he should follow his partner to Canada or not.  

An idea occurred to me then that I felt spoke to his needs. I felt compelled to post it. [Read more →]

Unfortunately, for the last eight years, the current administration has seemed to say that it was everyone’s patriotic duty to keep the U.S. economy afloat by buying more stuff, even if it meant getting deeper in debt. But the interest rates and fees that consumers are being charged now due to sudden “re-pricing” – without any interference by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – is turning buying on credit into a nightmare.

Maybe we’re ready for a change. Maybe “Obama” fever is partly about reclaiming our self-worth regardless of income or possessions. Maybe it signals a desire to get real, to admit being in debt. Maybe we’ll find we will respect ourselves more once we reduce our credit card debt, and find that we are okay with living within our means, no matter how humble they may be.

This from the L.A. Times about Barack Obama’s visit to Chicago where he appeared at the Illinois Institute of Technology:

“The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee…scolded the credit card industry and predatory lenders for charging high fees to economically stressed consumers. [Read more →]