Please See ID or Not?

Getting your credit card stolen is a huge deal. Not only does the thief have access to your account, but they have other personal information that could easily be abused. Your credit card is something that is kind of a risky thing to have, but it's something that would be very difficult to live without.

So how, in a world with so much crime and such a rising percentage rate of identity theft, do you keep yourself safe? How can you better protect your identity by taking extra precautions to keep your credit card from falling into the wrong hands? Is there any way that you could at least make it more difficult to perform transactions on your credit card if it did fall into the wrong hands?

Your card company takes a lot of precautions by itself to keep your identity safe. The department stores with which you do business also try to keep you safe by verifying your identity with your credit card. However, the precautions that have been taken over the years are being overrun by the new experience and knowledge that identity thieves are attaining every day. Because of this, there has to continually be progression in the security of the credit world today so that we can protect ourselves from identity theft and misuse of our credit cards.

One way you can keep your credit card a little bit safer is by not signing the back of it. Sure, this may sound absurd at first, because you have probably always signed the back of your cards. However, it is not usually mandatory that you do so.

Rather than signing the back of their credit cards, many people have adopted the tradition of simply writing, "Please Check ID" in the strip where your signature would normally be written. This way, cashiers and other people who perform your transactions will still be able to verify that the card is being used by its rightful owner.This process may take a little longer than just letting them look at your signature, but it is much safer. If you do not have your signature on the back of your credit card, whoever may steal your card will not be able to forge your signature.

Better yet, they will not have the correct ID to match the information on the credit card. Even if they did have your driver's license as well as your credit card, their face would not match the picture, and the cashier could refuse to make the transaction and protect you from being charged for purchases that you didn't even make.If in case your credit card has been stolen, you should contact your card company immediately. Close your old account as soon as possible and transfer your balance to a new one. That way, any further purchases on your stolen credit card will be denied.