Protect Your Credit Card Deals against Fraud

It is Christmas time and you probably paid for most of your purchases with a credit card. Maybe you have done some of your purchases online and your credit card deals helped you to benefit! But did you do anything to protect yourself against identity theft? Probably you didn't do much. According to the statistic, 90% of credit card users don't even double check the web-site and its security before typing their credit card number! You should know that 10 million cases of identity theft take place every year! Maybe it is a good idea to protect yourself from identity theft in order to safe time and money?

But what are the best ways to protect yourself from identity theft?

• Credit-monitoring systems. Unfortunately, specialists say that they are not very effective, they often alert in some bad situation, but it can be too late. Credit-monitoring systems are very costly too. Many people simply don't want to spend too much money with holiday bills rolling in.
• Credit freeze. This method of protection against the fraud is proved to be the most effective and now it is available nationwide by three credit bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. Credit freeze means that the credit bureaus will not be able to sell your personal information to the third party. Credit freeze makes your credit report unavailable to credit card companies, banks or anyone else. So if the lender is not able to see your credit report, he can't issue a thief credit in your name. Credit freeze will cost you about $30 for all credit bureaus. But the negative side of credit freeze is that you can't get credit! So in case you want to get a loan or a mortgage, you will have to lift the freeze and it will cost you another $30. If you don't feel like doing it yourself, you can ask for multiple times of freezing and unfreezing for about $110 a year. It is up to you to decide if the game is worth the candles, you should really plan for the future.

So if you just graduated from college and are looking for a home, a car or a credit card, you should fight the identity theft another way!

• A fraud flag. A fraud flag is a simple note attached to your credit report that requests the

lender to phone you before issuing credit in your name. It is not as effective as credit freeze, but it is free. All the lenders are required by law to respond to a fraud flag, but still you have to take into consideration that you are counting on thousands of people!

• Arm your PC. All you have to do is to install anti-virus software that will protect you against the program that can scan your personal information and send it to the thieves. This method is not very expensive; it will cost you about $30.
• Be attentive! The best way to protect yourself is to pay attention to all credit card bills that seem strange to you. You should immediately call you credit card company! All major credit card companies and banks like Visa credit card company or American Express will do the investigation and will provide you with results!

Remember that no matter how cheap the purchase is, you should immediately take action!

My friend Vicky was a victim of identity theft last Christmas. She owed Discover credit card, so she enjoyed online shopping without any problems! But in the month of January she got her credit card bills and found some items she didn't purchase!

Vicky immediately contacted her credit card company and thanks to its investigation, the thieves were found!

I hope that these Christmas credit card offers will be beneficial for you and you will not experience identity theft! Remember that your financial future is in your hands!

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