Credit Card Fraud – Part Iii

In this article we’re going to discuss what to do if you are the
victim of credit card fraud or if you want to do what you can to
minimize the risk of being such a victim
One of the best things you can do to prevent credit card fraud
is switch to cards like the American Express Blue Card What
American Express does it centralize its transaction verification
and Merchant Account tracking This makes their cards much more
fraud resistant Also, because Visa and Mastercard have the
majority of the credit card market, this makes American Express
a less likely target In most cases of American Express fraud,
which are relatively rare, the customers are reimbursed
immediately and without question Also, American Express has
much more friendly customer service procedures for handling
fraud problems In 2002 they added what are called Amex Private
Payments, which are one time use disposable credit card numbers
This virtually makes fraud impossible unless the card is lost or
stolen And then it is simply a matter of reporting it in time
Another thing you can do is go to a firm that handles refund
requests Most of these are appointed by Federal Agencies that
investigate fraud These firms specialize in this type of
litigation and will be most qualified to handle your complaint
as quickly and as cost effectively as possible The majority of
fraud complaints handled by these firms rule in favor of the
plaintiff
Unfortunately there are times when your only recourse is to
cancel your credit card and change banks Usually what happens
when a card number is stolen is that the issuing bank is unable
to block continuing transactions In this case canceling the
card won’t be enough because banks usually carry over charges
from one card to another So in order to completely clean up
your account you may have to change banks as well This will all
depend on how good your bank is at blocking charges, especially
if your card has been widely circulated
Another thing you can do is phone the FTC hotline number for
credit card fraud They have been set up to deal with this
problem specifically There is also a form that you can fill out
online to determine if you are eligible for a refund
A problem that you may run into is that some banks will refuse
to reimburse charges that are over 60 days old If this happens
your only recourse is to report the bank to the Federal
authorities and let them handle the problem
When looking for a new bank, or for that matter a first bank to
get your first card, look for one that has a good anti fraud
record This information is available online and through several
agencies of the FTC
Use as few credit cards as possible The fewer cards you use the
less chance of being victim of fraud Also try to use your cards
as little as possible
Check your credit card statements carefully to make sure that
there are no charges that don’t belong there and request credit
reports so that you can see if there has been any unusual
activity on your account
By doing the above things you will greatly minimize the risk of
being the victim of fraud and have the best chance of being
refunded should a fraud occur

Tags | account, card, complaints, fraud, friendly, merchant, payments, private, requests, result