Credit Card Fraud ?

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by GsChinadoll

My husband and I own a small restaurant and recently got a debit card reader for card transactions. Cheaper for us to have customers use their card as a debit and the card never leaves the customer's hand. I am amazed at how many people still say to put it through as a credit card and don't mind if the staff wanders away with the card, I could see if they didn't have a choice, but they do.

Not that I think our staff would do anything like that but you never know.....

I don't understand why people get so worried about credit card fraud (vs. something more damaging like identity theft).

You're not liable for those charges, it's not like someone is stealing 'your' money. I get the impact of the overall problem, but frankly that is Visa's issue, not mine (and not, I don't pay more interest because of it, I'm not carrying any balances).

We put literally probably 99% of what we buy on a credit card. I have one (Amex) for all my business/travel expenses (makes it easier to do expense reports when everything is segregated that way), and one (Visa) for our household stuff. Pretty much the only time I use cash is if a place doesn't accept the plastic for some reason.

Over the years I've lost count of how many times we've had new cards issued. Hell, I just got a fresh Amex last week because they think my number might have been compromised in one of the latest online hacks (I didn't have any fraudulent charges though). Amex sends the new card in advance, the old one doesn't deactivate until you get the new card. The Visa cards have gone both ways, but we usually end up with a period of a couple of days where the old one is cancelled and the new issue card hasn't shown up yet. It happens maybe once every 2 years I'd guess.

For me, it's way easier to pay 2 primary bills each month, instead of manage a bunch of things with cash, or worry about losing cash, having to go to the ATM or whatever.

I'm not going to post my Visa number on a t-shirt or anything, but I don't really care if a waiter tries to skim it, they're not going to get very far, and are very frequently caught anyway.