| Never let your credit card out of your site. With identity | | | | door. Say a delivery service brings a package to your |
| theft on the rise at an alarming pace, those words ring | | | | home. He needs to run the card through his reader for |
| true now more then ever. One of the many ways that | | | | a COD. He turns away and then stops you asking to |
| thieves can get your personal financial information is by | | | | run the card again because there was an error. All the |
| credit card skimming which is the practice of retrieving | | | | while he could be running it through his own reader. |
| the encoded data from the back of a card on the | | | | Once a numbers on your card have been stolen or |
| magnetic strip. | | | | duplicated, the criminals will usually got a what is known |
| The most likely place for this to happen is at your local | | | | as a 'cardable site'. Here, they make a small purchase |
| tavern or restaurant. When you let the card out of | | | | or maybe a $2 donation just to check if the card has |
| your site it is way to easy to run it once for the bill and | | | | been reported yet so as not to alert the banks. |
| a second time through a reader. Then while they have | | | | Because it is to easy to track down a computers |
| it, they can jot down your CVV number on the back. It | | | | location by the IP address, the malcontent will sell it |
| is a 3 or 4 digit code printed on the back of the card | | | | some where around the world where it becomes next |
| that is suppose to be for your protection... Confirming | | | | to impossible to find the perpetrator. |
| that you are holding the card in your hand while | | | | So again. Never let your credit card out of your site. It |
| shopping online, but experts now recommend that you | | | | is better to take the card to the cashier personally |
| scratch it off and store that number somewhere else. | | | | then to hand it over to a waiter. That, and if someone |
| Another recommendation is to use different pin | | | | needs to run your card twice, that should send off |
| number for each card. | | | | warning bells. At least be on your toes and aware of |
| Credit card skimming could also happen at your front | | | | what might be going on. |