What to do if You Think Your Credit Card Number Has Been Stolen

If you think you credit card number has been stolen, the first thing you should do is make sure that your damage is minimized. Immediately go online or call your credit card company and check what recent charges have been made on the card. If no charges have been made, but you truly believe that your credit card number has been stolen, you are better safe than sorry. Have the credit card company deactivate your credit card. After this is done you should start the process of getting a new card from them.

If you check your account online or through a phone call to the credit card company and you discover a charge on your account that is not yours, you should immediately inform the credit card company that your credit card number has been stolen. Second, you should tell the credit card company to deactivate the card. After that you should dispute the charges as fraudulent and seek to have them removed from your statement so that you are not liable for the charges. Additionally, you should begin the process of getting a new card from the credit card company.

The best way to prevent theft of your credit card number is by making sure that any paper you discard does not have your credit card number on it and that if a paper does have your credit card number on it, that the paper is shredded by a cross cut shredder before discarding it.

Protect your credit card number and you can avoid the big headache of fixing this kind of problem.