Blake first posted this site a year or two ago (at least that’s the first time I noticed) and I can confirm that it is legit. I opted out and only receive stuff from companies with which I have an existing relationship.
^Is it only for credit cards? Or does it also work for “You’re pre-approved to refinance your house at 2.38% interest today with no money down” type of stuff? I get at least one of those every single day. (Literally–every day.)
^ All credit and insurance offers from everyone except companies you already do business with, local companies who don’t use the DMA, charities & religious groups, alumni organizations, and politicians.
Even 3-4 are dangerous though, imagine you lose one you may not recognize it right away, and if you have your wallet stolen, how quickly will you be able to cancel all credit cards before they make some kind of purchase? My chance is most people still have to look up the credit card company phone number and put on hold and punch in some birthdate security codes before they can speak to somebody and cancel (then repeat 3 times for the other cards)!
Losing your phone is bad, but if the purchases can only be done with finger print at least you are safe that you have only lost your phone and they can’t make purchases with it.
^ Credit card issuers in the US rarely make you pay for fraudulent charges, and even then there is some relatively low limit. Stolen debit cards, on the other hand, can result in all kinds of problems.
^ Yep. Also I’m pretty sure I’d notice quickly and it appears easy to report missing/stolen cards on their web sites. I’ve never had to report a card missing though.
I don’t think you can do it online, at least for most places, i think the best you can do is find the phone number online that you can call.
in any case, hopefully no one has to go through it because it’s not FUN!
I had my credit card # stolen once (probably via spyware) about 10 years ago… got charged about $300 but only ended up paying $50.
About 5 years ago, I also had my debit card stolen and I was overseas. I reported it stolen the hour it was taken out of my possession and didn’t pay anything in fradulent charges… however, I ended up spending about $70 on a Notary to get the proper paperwork to my bank.
I had a credit card stolen from my wallet during lunch several years ago. The wallet was on my desk and the thieves only took one card and put the wallet back, stole a few other employees’ cards as well. I didn’t even know the card was gone until the CC company called me that night to ask about the unusual charges. The thieves took a nice little trip down 95, stopping a couple of times for gas and smokes. They also hit Best Buy a couple of times. Total charges were north of $3k and I didn’t pay a cent. One of my co-workers had a debit card stolen and it was a nightmare for her. Took a long time for her funds to be restored and she ended up having a few checks bounce because they happened to hit that day and there were insufficient funds and she got hit with all the penalties associated with that.
Had my CC number stolen about a year ago (think it was stolen by a bartender) and once again didn’t have to pay a cent toward the fraudulent charges.
^ That’s a pretty quick explanation of one of the many reasons I hate using/carrying debit cards. I can’t find a single benefit to using them instead of credit cards, unless of course you don’t like keeping track of how much money you have vs. how much you spend.
There was a really good article in Kiplinger’s a couple of months ago about the difference between debit and credit cards. The biggie was the difference in liability. You’re limited to $50 worth of liability with a credit card (I think). With debit cards, your liability is unlimited.
It was actually a pretty good article. (Written by a CFP, of course. Score one for the CFP!) There are a lot more differences than you might think. Unfortunately, I can remember none of them.
From now on i will never bring my bank card when i travel…
Touch on wood i have never got my cards stolen!
Touch on wood?
“Knock on wood”
Update, I now literally have about 20 credit cards… thanks to the 30K to 50K point sign in bonuses from Chase, I’m sitting on 2 free roundtrip tickets to most major cities in the world… hopefully I’ll remember to transfer the points and cancel the cards right before the annual fees are due.
You getting a coin?