I had a terrible experience happen to me once. Someone got a hold of my visa checkcard number and actually made a whole new card. I noticed an odd charge one day, and called the bank to report it. Maybe a mistake we thought. The next day we were wiped out. Someone had decided to go shopping on our account. It was horrible, right before the holidays. Be careful! Shred everything with your card number on it. Never buy checks through the mailers you get. (I learned this from my bank) and sign whenever possible so you have a good record of your signature. You'd be amazed at what they are capable of!! The technology they have for stealing your info is very hightech. Its better to be cautious then broke because someone created a whole new card with your account number!

I use my debit card free of charge all the time, rarely have cash. It is convenient for keeping track of expenses. As long as you switch to "credit" and don't use your pin, you're pretty safe unless someone has stolen the actual card. Twice my credit union has called when they suspected odd activity, but it was me both times. They are on the ball because consumer liability is generally limited to only $50. When I was using checks to pay bills, a clerk wrote down my CU routing number and account information and had a great time buying things with my money. The bank was on top of that one, too, and though thousands of dollars was spent, I lost nothing. You have to pay attention, but they are very safe. Imo. Read the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: debit card safety

My MasterCard was "stolen" online two months ago. It is a card I use only for online purchases. The credit card company caught it and informed me. The first unauthorized charge was a small amount for Apple. The rep for the credit card company told me that they test the card that way. Then they used it for two charges for Playstation.com. The credit card company immediately froze the card and then they called me. I had a new card a few days later. I still don't know what website they stole the number from. Only a few have my credit card number stored. I never have the website store it if I have the option not to. I would think the thief would need my password so I don't know how they got the card number. I have to change my passwords on those websites before I order from them again with the new card.

We had a similar occurrence. No fraud alert, but credit monitoring notified my husband that Sprint had requested credit information. Since we have never dealt with Sprint, he knew this was "off". Turns out there was an order for 5 I phones but somehow it was not on any of our accounts, but to his name at our address. Apparently they got some, but we did find a package from Sprint at our front door (they must have messed up the timing or maybe saw us come home) Notified everyone, the police, etc. Put "freezes" on our credit. Thought it was all resolved so to speak. The package we had was ultimately returned to Sprint and had 2 phones. A week later, sitting eating dinner, we see a man come up to our front door and bend down........he was picking up a package which we had not noticed at the front door. DH bolted out the door and grabbed the package from him. The man was shocked and kept saying his package was delivered to our house in error . There was some shouting-------and he ran into his car and sped away. We got his tag # as did a few neighbors out for a stroll...In the meantime, I had called 911. Anyway, he got away but we did have the tag. Also, DH got the package. This time, it was from MACYS and was addressed to some bogus name but at our address. (turns out it was just some clothing!) The bizarre thing was each time the police were called, they took the info but did NOT want the packages. They ultimately did track down the tag, and the man of course claimed that his cousin had borrowed his car. The good news is, with the freezes or locks on our credit we have had no more issues and I suspect being confronted and having the police show up MAY have slowed down this operation.