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Uses a Credit Card
Benefits of Credit Cards
From convenience to security and efficiency, Credit Cards
promise several advantages:
- Credit cards are often cheaper than loans for
short-term borrowing. You pay interest on the remaining debt, not the full
amount - and there are no early redemption penalties.
- Credit cards offer flexibility to match uneven income
and expenditure patterns: you choose what to pay off each month, between the
minimum and the total outstanding.
- Their consolidated accounting enables one cheque to
settle multiple transactions – while all appear neatly on one pre-prepared
statement each month.
- There is an automatic ‘interest free’ period (up to 56
days) per statement period.
- Credit cards enable remote purchasing via the internet,
by telephone or mail order.
- Credit cards can include additional benefits like
insurance cover on purchases, cash-back, AirMiles, Nectar or Reward points,
and holiday discounts.
Dangers of Credit Cards
Credit cards can also be unnecessarily costly and even
dangerous:
Credit cards may be expensive for cash withdrawals and
foreign currency purchases.
Their credit limits can be insufficient for your wants of
needs.
Their persuasive advertising encourages a ‘pay now, worry
later’ mentality and make it too easy to get into debt.
Credit cards are very open to fraudulent use.
Credit Card Fraud
As more and more people use plastic as their main means of
paying for goods and services, so there are more opportunities for criminals to
cash in. Credit card fraud is, sadly, not a new phenomenon and new types of
fraud, such as 'skimming', where the data from a card's magnetic strip is copied
onto another card, are becoming increasingly widespread and problematical. With
credit card losses topping £411.4 million in 2001, surveys show that over half
the people in the UK are worried about having their credit or debit cards
stolen.
Card Watch is the UK banking industry's body that works
with police, retailers and organisations including Crimestoppers to fight
plastic card fraud. Card Watch is run under the Association for Payment Clearing
Services (APACS), the banking industry body that oversees money transmission and
payment clearing activities in the UK.
Credit Card Security
It’s always much better to prevent your cards from being
stolen or misused in the first place, than having to sort out the ensuing mess
afterwards. Here are 10 tips to help…
- Keep an eagle eye on your card when using it in shops
and restaurants, especially abroad. If an embossing machine is used, ask for
and destroy the carbon copies.
- Never discard transaction slips that display your
entire card number.
- Never leave cards where their details can be copied or
memorised by a fraudster.
- Always check your transaction slips at the time of
purchase and, if possible, query any discrepancies with the retailer before
leaving their premises.
- Never write your PIN number down or disclose it to
anyone else.
- Always ask the merchant to confirm the amount being
debited, INCLUDING any booking and / or delivery charges.
- Carefully check your credit card statement against the
relevant transaction slips accumulated each month – and watch out for human
errors like mistakenly transposing two or more digits on manually entered
transactions.
- If you use a card to buy products or services over the
internet, make sure it’s one that guarantees reimbursal for any fraudulent use
subsequent to your transaction.
- Do not buy products or services from websites that do
not use a secure server to process credit card payments. These are denoted by
a small, closed padlock icon.
Never give your card details to a telephone ‘cold-caller’,
even if they claim to be from a highly reputable company.
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